“Yeah right,” Tye looked away, continuing with his pacing.
“She’s right, Tye,” I shrugged. “He’s a scary guy. All I can say is he gets his kicks from scaring the crap out of me. That doesn’t mean he’d actually go further.”
He was also a scary guy that got his kicks out of talking about having sex with his old girlfriend’s sister. The thought made me nauseous, but that was hardly going to help the situation. It wouldn’t make Tye calm down, and it was just far too creepy for words to say out loud.
“Exactly,” Savannah agreed, bouncing up and down on the settee.
“Besides, after kneeing him in the nuts, he called me a bitch. So he’s probably lost interest anyway.” God, I hoped so.
“Nice!” Savannah offered a high five that I completed half-heartedly.
“I doubt it,” Tye was still angry, but he folded his arms and finally stopped walking.
“For now, don’t go anywhere alone Ivy,” Sam piped up from the kitchen.
“Agreed,” Savannah nodded. “Best to be safe.”
“I won’t.”
“That means no walking back from nights out by yourself,” Tye stared me down. “You call me.”
“I promise,” I held his gaze, relieved when I could see the hardness begin to fade from his face.
Chapter 13
“Why did I say yes to this?” I complained as the instructor flipped me onto my back again.
“You know why!” Leonora snapped from the edge of the room as Cara wandered over and offered a hand to help me up from the crash matt. We had all opted for our running kit for the self-defence class, and I had been hoping to treat it as more exercise than what it was.
“It’s proving more painful than I thought,” as I stood up, I stretched out the new bruises on my back. The instructor patted me comfortingly on the shoulder as Cara led me back to the side of the room.
“No pain, no gain, it’s what they say,” Ellie smiled as she marched forward for her turn. She was struggling just as much as me but had definitely brought a better attitude than I had.
Leonora had been attending the classes all year. When I finally spilled the beans to my friends on Kyle’s uncomfortable encounters, pressured into it by Tye who wanted others to look out for me, Leonora had wasted no time in getting to work. She had signed us all up for the self-defence class on campus, saying it was long overdue and it never hurts to be prepared.
“I like it,” Cara had taken to the class as a fish would to water, or a dolphin to playing in waves. For someone so tiny, she was athletic and fierce. It helped she danced as well, she had significantly more hand-eye coordination than Ellie and I put together. “What’s not to love? We just get to beat up a fit instructor for an hour.”
“I’m not sure I’m doing much beating up.” I rested my back against the wall and tried to wipe some of the sweat from my face. “It just all feels a bit pointless.”
“It’s not pointless and you know it,” Leonora looked at me with surprisingly sharp eyes. She had not taken too well to the news and was annoyed I hadn’t told her before.
“I really don’t think he’s a threat, Leonora,” my tone was soft, trying to offer comfort, but it was no use.
“Yeah right. We never do,” she looked away and followed the instructor as she was called up for her turn.
“You know why she’s thinking like she is,” Cara explained as she threw me a towel.
“I know,” I winced, remembering the story she had told the three of us last term. It was the reason why she behaved the way she did. It was even more crushing we were the only three people she had ever told.
“She’s also right. There’s no harm in being prepared for something that might never happen.”
I stopped complaining after that and threw myself into the session, but things were still not quite right between Leonora and me.
As we walked back to our halls in Lafrowda, she stopped talking altogether for a bit.
“Please talk to me,” I begged for what I thought was the third time. She was marching ahead, her arms poker straight by her side. I was struggling to keep up, my own muscles sore from the strange workout and bashing it had just been given. “Please, Leonora. I’m sorry.”
She stopped suddenly, still not looking at me as I jumped in front of her, trying to gain some eye contact.
“You can yell at me if you like?”
“I don’t want to yell at you,” she shook her head, turning away and finding a nearby low wall to sit on. She dusted off the petals that had fallen from the magnolia tree behind the wall and sat, her eyes finally lifting as they gazed between me and the wall, issuing that I should sit too.
“You’re kind of freaking me out. You’re not acting like you,” I sat down anyway, keeping my focus on her. “What is it?”
She waited a few minutes. When all was quiet and there was no one around us, she snatched up my left hand from its surface on the wall.
“No more secrets. What is this.” She said harshly, gesturing down to the fresh doodling of ladybugs. The black sketches were standing in a circle, holding their little spindly hands and dancing.
“It’s –”
“Don’t you dare say it’s nothing,” she tossed my hand back down. “You’re in danger of that becoming your motto. ‘Ivy says it’s nothing, always nothing.’”
“Because it is.” I was starting to get angry too. No longer disappointed that I’d upset her,
