Chapter 18

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Chapter 18

I took my normal route to school. However, it was anything but normal.

Standing in my way was Mitch. He stood at the end of the block, leaning against the corner of the building. He looked right at me. I was frozen there, not at all expecting him, but it was too late to turn as if I hadn't seen him in the first place.

"Shit," I muttered under my breath. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and kept going the direction I intended.

When I got to the corner, I slowed.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. I kept my gaze on the street. The sun was slowly rising behind the tall buildings.

"Checking on you," he said. He didn't move.

I shivered in the growing cold. "Sounds creepy."

He snorted. "I actually walked Perrie. You know, since there's a killer on the loose."

I nodded. That was sensible and...nice of him. Something a good boyfriend would do. However, I felt anything but happy about how he was filling his role. Perrie's kiss might have been to tease me and wrong, but I still didn't like that she was dating Mitch. He didn't even like her half the time. They weren't right for each other.

"That's a good idea," I said, walking around him. As much as I still didn't like him, I wasn't going to rub it in his face that Perrie had kissed me. I wanted to get away from him as soon as possible. Before he decided that he wanted to teach me a lesson about keeping boundaries.

However, his outstretched arm blocked me from taking another step. I don't know how he moved so fast, but just as I blinked, his arm was in front of me.

I gave him a quizzical look.

His stance was no longer relaxed. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were hardened like stone.

"I should walk with you, too. It's the smart thing to do, right?" He raised his brows as if to dare me to argue.

I cleared my throat, averting my eyes. "If you want."

My heart was beating in my ears as his arm slowly lowered. He waited for me to continue walking and it took me a good moment to get my feet to listen. I kept my eyes forward though I wanted so badly to glance at him, to know what he was thinking.

His gaze was on me. I could feel it, burning into the side of my face and the side of my neck. This was so much worse than when we'd been stuck in the closet together. I didn't have the darkness to shield me. And I couldn't help but wonder what he saw.

What did he think about me? What did he feel?

Even if those questions were strange to ask, those were the ones that kept my mind busy as I walked to school. I usually took my time as I wasn't ever in a rush to be in a building with a bunch of annoying fucks. But this time, my feet were kickstarted with energy after they woke up from shocked numbness. I had to force myself to slow down sometimes.

Mitch kept up with me easily. He was relaxed, composed, but still his face was stony. He looked as if he was ready for a strike. Like the killer was on this block or he was waiting for both of us at the school.

I took the chance to look at him. His gaze met mine and held. The breath was stolen out of my chest. I didn't have to imagine hard to remember the touch of his hands on my body. Flutters bloomed in my stomach. Along with it came fear. The wolf spider in Perrie's hand and her kiss. Those crashed with Mitch's beautiful face looking at me.

His gaze broke, his eyes shifting to behind me.

He grabbed me by the back of my shirt and yanked me back against his chest.

A car sped through the red light on the street I'd just been about to cross.

I panted with wide eyes as I looked at the spot where I would have instantly been killed. My hands clenched Mitch's jacket. They were numb as adrenaline surged through me. I was still reeling from remembering all that had happened between us and what had happened between me and Perrie. All of it confused me.

"Can you at least be more careful?"

Mitch pushed me back. I stumbled, almost right back into the street where I would have been nothing more than a blood-smear. I let out a short laugh of disbelief.

"Okay?" I furrowed my brows at him. He turned his face up like he hadn't said anything, but I saw the tension in his jaw. A vein bulged from the side of his neck for a moment before he relaxed and it disappeared.

"Look," he said, carefully. He grabbed me by the arm and led me across the street. His eyes were everywhere but ahead. As if he were searching for someone. "I don't make it a habit of chaperoning people—"

"Chaperoning?"

He ignored me. "—and I don't like it either. I especially don't like it when it seems like this person is intentionally ignoring my warnings."

I tried to rip my arm out of his hold with no success. "Is this about what you said in the closet? About Perrie?"

As much as I didn't want to think about the closet, I tried to remember exactly what he'd said. Except each time I conjured up that memory, all I could remember were his stupidly nice hands.

We were across the street now. The school was only a few blocks away. I wished I told him to piss off. A few blocks were feeling like a lifetime with how he was acting.

But Mitch turned in the wrong direction.

"Hey!"

I craned my neck in the direction we were supposed to go as Mitch shoved me around the corner into a secluded alleyway. He pressed me up against the brick wall. My breath lodged in my throat and I could clearly remember how it felt to be trapped in the closet with him. We were in these exact positions. But the thing different this time, was that I could see his face.

His eyes were the most haunting things. They changed in the natural light. They almost glowed a warm orange, a color that couldn't be possible for a human's eyes to be. He blinked and the color dulled, but it never fully went away.

"Yes, that's what this is about," he forced the words out. The anger in his voice was so heavy and unexpected that my stomach clenched. A shiver went through me. "Because each fucking time I try to tell you, you make excuses for her. You're blind on purpose!"

I shook my head. "I don't know what you're talking about. You told me to stay away from her. Y-You said she's not the good girl that I think she is."

His words from that night became clearer. Then, how she acted afterwards and then how she kissed me. I felt so stupid for not realizing it now.

Perrie wasn't committed to Mitch. They might have been together, but she didn't care about monogamy.

And Mitch had been warning me about Perrie stringing me along. She must have gotten other guy's hopes up only to crush them when she revealed that she already had a boyfriend.

My shoulders slumped. The image I had of Perrie was shattering more and more.

And I hated that I felt sorry for Mitch. Well, I at least wanted to apologize for thinking he didn't like Perrie as much as I thought he should. He probably couldn't let himself get attached when Perrie wanted an open relationship.

I met his eyes and gave him a small smile. I pushed down my nervousness and awkwardly patted him on the back. He was a little taller so I had to curve my arm around him, but I did it anyway.

He narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I realized that I've been insensitive." A gave him another pat for good measure before I decided that was enough. "I understand now. You were only trying to protect my feelings, but you were also trying to protect yours."

Mitch groaned. He stepped back and covered his face with his hands. "How can you be this fucking clueless?"

I held my hands out, palms up with no idea why he was getting upset again. "Then spell it out for me. What has Perrie done that I need to know?"

The look he gave me outdid all the others that came before. Hostility, there was no other way to put it, was all that he held for me. His anger transformed his beautiful face to something vile. I never wanted to see that look again. It punctured me to the core, leaving me with a fear imprinted in my soul.

I stepped back, but there was nowhere for me to go. I hit the bricks of the building once more. I was cornered. And it was becoming very difficult for me to breathe when he was looking at me like that.

It was predatory. Except I think he just wanted to rip my guts out. I wasn't even worth his time eating.

"If you won't listen to me, I'm not going to bother," he spat out. He turned away and walked out from the alleyway.

"Hey!" Though I was shaking from the look he'd given me, I chased after him. "What about the killer?"

I really wasn't worried about it. I just wanted to get the last word. Or, maybe, I wanted him to stay with me after all. It was pitiful to think I was so starved for company that I would do anything to get the person I hated the most right now to stay with me. But I didn't care. No one but me was going to judge.

Mitch turned. He looked me up and down as if he were the killer making judgement. "I really don't think you're their type, Ian."

A ragged breath spilled from my parted lips. Mitch walked away, faster than I would have been able to catch up to him. He disappeared down the street and I kept looking after him, waiting as if he were going to come back.

I pulled out my phone to check the time.

"Shit."

* * *

Entering first period thirty minutes late was a big deal when it was Mr. Sax teaching the class. He hated my fucking guts and I hated his all the time. Though, if I was being honest, I hated everyone in this building. The students, the teachers, and even the cooks. I wouldn't have minded if the whole thing burned down and I learned they all died in it.

If anyone heard my thoughts, they wouldn't think twice about putting me on a potential school-shooter watch list. I had empathy. It was just only for a select group of people. Less than I could count on my hand.

"Thank you for showing up, Mr. Darwood."

I slumped in my seat at the back of class. Everyone except Mr. Sax was looking back at me. I looked around, meeting some of their gazes, but ignored them in the end as I pulled out my book. Mr. Sax didn't bother to turn around from where he was writing stuff on the board. I'd came in just in time to get the homework assignment. I doubted anything he'd read straight from the book was something I couldn't miss.

I glanced up again only this time I was searching for a certain person. Perrie was sitting in her usual spot. She was looking at me which felt so strange. She smiled and waved.

Her kiss might have been nothing, but it felt like everything. It had changed something—something between us. I wasn't sure what that was right now. It just felt like we were more than friends now. Well, not a couple or anything, but maybe on the verge of being best friends, but that still didn't sound right. I was probably thinking too much about it anyway. I did that a lot.

I returned the smile and the wave. Perrie's friends, Kaylee in particular, didn't like that. She glared at me as if I was somehow forcing Perrie to be nice to me. She was just that type of person.

And though I believed Mitch on a certain level, it was hard to see Perrie in a bad light. She was just...perfect. How could someone so nice and perfect do something so mean?

Kaylee leaned over and said something to Perrie. The smile dropped from Perrie's face. Her eyes narrowed like she was thinking about something. I watched as she mumbled something to Kaylee that made her friend upset. Their argument was cut short as Mr. Sax told us that we had the rest of the period to work on our homework assignment.

I skimmed through the chapter as I thought about what Kaylee could have said to Perrie to upset her so. The words in the textbook consumed me for the rest of the class and when I put my book away, I'd forgotten all about it.

Until Kaylee slapped her perfectly manicured hand on my desk.

I zipped up my bag and slipped it onto my shoulder.

"Hey, creeper," Kaylee sneered as she glared at me. "Stay the fuck away from Perrie."

People telling me to stay away from Perrie was becoming a common occurrence. While Mitch told me to protect myself, Kaylee was obviously on Perrie's side. Which made sense. I would have sucker-punched anyone if I found out they were stalking—I mean, watching out for—Perrie.

"Tell that to Perrie," I said as I pushed past her.

"I mean it. Matt too."

My face burned with embarrassment. Thankfully I was already out the classroom door and walking down the hall away from her. Her threats weren't empty. What Matt and his friends did to me could have been a lot worse. They were going to be a lot worse if I didn't back away from Perrie. It didn't matter if she told them something different.

I went to my locker and slammed a couple things around to alleviate my anger. The hall had gone quiet, mostly everyone already in class. I sighed as I heard the late bell ring. After another moment of being inside my own head, I shut my locker and started to walk to class.

I was about to go to the other side of the building when I heard Perrie's voice.

"—don't want to do this anymore."

"Come on. We've had fun in the past."

A prickling sensation went down my spine. I slowly walked down the hall, making sure to make no noise at all as I stood at the corner.

"I have a boyfriend."

"He doesn't have to know."

Disgust swelled in my stomach as I recognized Mr. Sax's voice. Utterly shocked, I gaped at the floor as it registered what they were talking about. But I couldn't believe it.

I peered around the corner, praying that I wouldn't get myself caught. They weren't paying attention though. They stood in the middle in the hall as if they didn't care to get caught. Or that they'd been doing this for so long that they didn't think they could get caught.

Mr. Sax leered down at Perrie. He'd never looked so ugly to me. He never looked so old. And disgusting. He could have been Jaba the hut and he wouldn't have looked worse than he did now.

Perrie had her back to me. She looked so small when she stood next to him—innocent though I knew better than to describe her that way.

I heard Mitch's warning echoing in my ear and I had to mentally swat it away. It seemed like his presence followed me everywhere now. He was a permanent fixture even when I tried my best to forget that he existed.

"Maybe I don't like you anymore."

Mr. Sax's face turned dark. He placed his hand on her waist. Slowly, that hand drifted toward her ass.

"Maybe I can change your mind."

I turned away from them. My mind reeled by the image of his dirty hands on her. I pressed my hand to my mouth, afraid that I was going to vomit all over the floor at any second. I squeezed my eyes shut, praying that what I saw was some sick twisted nightmare. But I couldn't get myself to wake up from it. This was real. Perrie was sleeping with Mr. Sax.

I never in a million years would have guessed.

"I said I don't want to!"

Something clanged against the lockers. I forced myself to look again though I wanted to run as far away as I possibly could. When I looked around the corner, I saw Perrie pressed against the lockers and Mr. Sax holding her arms down at her sides.

"I say when we're over, got it?" He shoved her again and then backed away. "I'll see you later."

Perrie didn't meet his eyes. She only nodded.

Satisfied, Mr. Sax walked back into his classroom. Perrie let out a sob as she scurried down the hall. It wasn't until she was gone that I let out the breath I'd been holding.

My hands were shaking. My heart was racing and I really felt like I was going to throw up now. I couldn't get the image of Mr. Sax pressing her against the lockers or him touching her like that out of my head.

And I'd just stood by. I let him do that to her, not even thinking for a second to help her.

Just like I didn't help Lizzy.

I ran away. Like I always did.


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