“Do you know what the difference between us is, Tatum Rivers?” he shouted to me over the wind and the rain and I pushed myself up to sit.
I shook my head, my body too numb for me to stand yet as I drank in the ferocity in his eyes.
“You’re everything and I’m nothing. And the worst thing about that is…you know it.”
He revved the engine, but locked his hand over the brake and mud spewed out from under the back wheel. It splattered over me and I screamed in alarm, holding my hands out to try and stop it. He kept revving until I was covered, filthy, frozen, then released the throttle and tore away up the hill, leaving me in the mud to rot.
I yawned widely as Mr Helix talked us through some epically boring speech on micro climates in our geography class and I tried to marry up the world’s dullest teacher with the guy I’d seen swinging a textbook with the intention to brain people during the break in. There he sat in his tweed suit with the elbow patches like some douchebag wearing a professor costume from the nineties looking as innocent as fuck. In fact, give him a pipe and a flat cap and we’d have ourselves a regular Sherlock Holmes. It was certainly a choice. And not one I would have made.
I zoned him out and let my attention wander around the rest of the class as I searched for something to take my attention. Of course, my gaze lingered on Tatum more than once. She was sitting in front of me with Mila at her side as they not-so-subtly whispered to each other and giggled.
There was something in her laughter that was so real and pure that it set an ache raging in my soul.
My eyes fell closed for a moment as I thought of my mom. She used to text me every day about some asinine thing or another. I’d ignore her as often as not. No, I didn’t have an opinion on the colour she had the dining room redecorated. No, I didn’t watch whatever show she’d been binging. No, I didn’t listen to any of the music she’d added to our family playlist… I listened to it now though. I listened to it and wished I could have told her that I loved it. That I shouldn’t have assumed our tastes would be so different just because I was older now and didn’t need her help in finding music to listen to. I wished I could have sat and listened to some of it with her while we lounged out on the patio behind our house in the summer and let the sun set around us like we used to. I wished growing up didn’t make me think I had to grow so far away from her that I’d wasted the time I hadn’t realised was precious.
I swiped a hand down my face and tried not to wallow. But some days it was harder than others.
As I opened my eyes again, I found Squits looking at me with a soft frown and I bared my teeth at him like a beast.
I couldn’t say for sure if he shit himself again, but I was pretty fucking hopeful. My heart spiked with the little hit of power I got as he hurriedly dropped my gaze and turned away from me.
I was in need of a distraction, and he’d just given me a damn good idea.
I lifted my pen to my mouth as I thought about it with a smirk curling up the corners of my lips, the plastic clacking against my teeth.
“Stop,” Saint snarled, his hand slamming down on my desk and drawing the focus of the entire class.
My smile widened and I clacked the pen across my teeth again, my gaze meeting Saint’s with a challenge.
“Do you want to explain why you just interrupted my class, Mr Memphis?” Mr Helix called out, but Saint didn’t so much as shoot him a glance.
He lunged for me suddenly, ripping the pen from my fingers before snapping it in half and striding to the front of the room where he could throw it in the trash.
But in his haste to shut me up, he hadn’t noticed the ink which splattered up the front of his pristine shirt as he broke the pen and as he turned back towards us and everyone spotted it, the class gave a collective inhale of anticipation.
Saint’s gaze fell to the ink, his hand curled into a fist, his jaw locked and he suddenly turned and stalked toward the door.
As he passed Freeloader’s desk, he upended her pencil case then snatched Bait’s workbook from his desk before ripping it cleanly in two. He smacked him around the side of his head with one half, making the white mask covering the top of his face shift and Bait cried out in pain as it tugged at his skin where the glue still secured it.
“Mr Memphis!” Helix shouted in shock, pushing himself to his feet like he intended to do something further to reprimand Saint. But before he could even finish that sentence, Saint strode from the room with one half of Bait’s workbook clutched in his fist while dropping the other to the floor like it meant nothing to him.
The door slammed behind him and Kyan snorted a laugh as Helix tried to get the tittering class under control again.
Squits shot a nervous look over
