Metamorphosis (Breaking Free, book 2)

Chapter 21-Rosie

Gideon wasn't in the cafeteria the next morning.

I sat at Bastien, and I's typical table nestled in the crook of a sprawling, gabled window and across from the least used buffet line. It always smelled of pancakes drowned in maple syrups and toast lathered with butter and jam. I liked our little corner of the universe. Unlike every other, crowded, uniform table with high-backed metallic chairs and steel tables, ours was wooden, with messages from past occupants scrawled from top to bottom and chairs with intricately designed backs.

It had become routine for Bastien to arrive first and start some sort of conversation. I would carry it for the majority of breakfast, with occasional quips from him about how ridiculous my stories were. Which they were pretty crazy, with exaggerated tales of human high school heartbreaks, drama, and insane teachers. Bastien ate it up, but he turned his nose up, rolled his eyes, and pretended he didn't care whenever I caught him gazing at me, wide-eyed with interest.

At first, I hadn't noticed that Gideon didn't show up for breakfast. I was too busy inhaling my pancakes and pretending not to see Bastien's split lip, or care that he hadn't started a conversation.

I scrutinized him, searching his face for signs of a fight, but his freckled skin was unblemished as ever. The swollen, red scab on the corner of his lip was the only evidence that anything happened at all. Bastien clenched his jaw and glared at the floor. I downed half my cup of orange juice and coughed, choking up at least half of it. I thought I caught Bastien snickering behind his hand, but it was probably a trick of the light or something because Bastien couldn't care less about me.

I didn't say anything about his lip, and he didn't say much of anything at all. Not that I cared.

I could remember how he'd held my hand last night. It was warm and soft, and I felt safe when he did it. He comforted me with such a small gesture, even though he hadn't looked at me or acknowledged it. I was okay with that. That's how we did things, and I didn't want things between us to change too much, at least, but I craved his attention. Compared to this...I would take a million of his stupid forehead flicks just for an unguarded smile.

One single look with his ethereal grey-hazel eyes was all I wanted. I ached for it, for him, and I felt stupid because of it. I wasn't some helpless girl in a trashy romance novel. I had baggage that kept coming at me, front right and center, and goals for myself that I would finish or bust. I didn't need him for those goals, and I knew that, but god, if he could just look at me. It would make my day just a tiny bit better.

Bastien jabbed his turkey with a fork and glared at it, jutting his bottom lip out. He was pouting at his turkey. I pinched my arm beneath the table and looked at the arching, intricate, dark wooden doors at the entrance to the cafeteria. They were patterned with swirling runes, and the handles twisted and curled delicately. If Bastien wasn't going to acknowledge me, then I wouldn't either. But something was wrong.

The doors were beautiful and strange, even if I didn't know what they meant, and Gideon always leaned on them- a small smile on his lips -in the mornings. I would hear his booming, belly laughter from across the hall, and I would see him doubled over with his buddies, a slice of toast in one hand and a half-peeled banana in the other. He arrived at the same time every morning, like clockwork, and I'd looked forward to waving at him-as silly as that sounds- But today, it was quiet.

Gideon wasn't leaning against the doors, he wasn't laughing, or spitting out his half-chewed breakfast. He was gone. But his buddies weren't. They were standing in a circle, whispering to each other and glancing across the cafeteria every couple seconds, at me.

Sparing Bastien a side-glance, I pushed myself off the bench, making a B-line for the group. The hushed whispers stopped the moment I stood in front of them. Crossing my arms, I narrowed my eyes. A tall man, with curly brown hair hanging above his shoulders and a bulging, crooked nose, shot a glance at a man across from him, who I'd met before. I couldn't remember his name, but he'd sneered at me when I first got out of the clinic. He was short, with a bulging middle, a round, bald head, and beady, white eyes. He looked like a Greg.