“Calm down, baby,” Luke cooed again.

I threw off his hold angrily, turning to glare at him because he’d stopped me from tearing her fake blonde extensions out like I’d wanted to. “Calm down? She just slapped me!” I cried, only now registering that my cheek was stinging from the blow. I could still taste the metallic tang of my own blood where my cheek had mashed into my teeth. My arm hurt too and was definitely going to bruise.

Luke’s teeth ground together angrily as he nodded, his eyes settled on the side of my face. “I can see that. But you hit her first,” he stated rationally. “Now, what was that about?”

I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest defensively, trying to gain some self-control because my emotions were frayed and any second now I was going to burst into tears, I could feel it building. “She’s a witch. She said some stuff about you and I got angry,” I finally replied, not really wanting to get into the whole accusation thing again. We’d gotten off track and the fight wasn’t actually specifically about that, it was more about her making moves on my ex-boyfriend. What I had hit her for was her remarks about Luke, so that wasn’t a lie I’d just told.

His head cocked to the side, an apologetic look on his face. “Maisie, I’m so sorry about what happened, but fighting with her in the middle of the school isn’t going to take back what I did. You’ll get yourself in trouble, in fact, that’s probably what she wants to happen,” he explained. I scowled as his hand reached out and smoothed my hair back from my face, tucking some loose bits behind my ear. “Another couple of seconds and teachers would have been all over that fight. That’s not you, baby. My Maisie doesn’t get into trouble at school.” That’s true. Maybe I should have waited and jumped her in a dark alleyway when no one was around. “Just please don’t start anything else with her, okay?” he pleaded.

Somewhere in my angry state of mind, I registered that he was defending her. The witch that he had cheated on me with, the girl that was now starting up some sort of hate campaign against me, he was defending her.

Anger built again as my hands clenched into fists. “Oh I’m sorry, did I just ruin your chances of getting laid tonight? Will she take out my indiscretion on you and not let you tap that tonight?” I spat acidly.

His mouth dropped open as his eyes went wide. He literally gaped at me like I’d just said the most ridiculous and shocking thing in the world. “My chances of getting laid? With her? Are you crazy?” he choked out, his voice strangled as he shook his head and looked at me like I’d actually lost my mind.

Her words were ringing in my ears. ‘He’ll be begging me for it. He’ll be hanging all over me and you’ll have to watch it all.’

Before I could stop myself, I slapped his chest as hard as I could, making my hand sting and him flinch. “Well she was good enough for you last weekend!” I screeched. I could feel the angry and insanely jealous tears rolling down my face now as I lost my battle to stay composed. I looked away from his handsome face. Why do I have to love him so much still? It’s just unfair.

“That was a mistake and won’t ever happen again!” Luke growled fiercely, bending so his face was level with mine.

“Yeah, until she throws herself at you again and you can’t say no.” My heart hurt. I’d gotten up this morning fully prepared and ready to confront her, and then I’d just fallen to pieces and had made myself come across as a jealous and bitchy girl. Why couldn’t I have some of my brother’s courage? He wouldn’t have let her say all those things to him. “She said you were as good as hers already.” A sob made my voice crack and my chin wobble as I thought about Luke not actually being mine anymore. What if she was right? What if he did need something more fulfilling, what if I wasn’t enough for him? What if he did realise that he was more suited to the school cheerleader, rather than a nerdy student? What if he did start chasing her around like I frequently imagined happening lately? How would I cope with that?

I watched as anger crossed his face. His teeth ground together as he cupped my face in his hands, titling my head up so that my eyes met his. “I don’t want her. I don’t want anyone other than you. I’ll never cheat again, baby, never. I’m yours forever,” he practically growled. The intensity in his brown eyes was a little overwhelming as he gazed at me.

The ‘yours forever’ part made my hand touch the material of my shirt in the centre of my chest, my fingers tracing the outline of his locket that I had hidden under my shirt because I couldn’t bring myself to part with it. My pulse seemed to drum in my ears, and before I knew what I was doing, I’d gone up on tiptoes and crashed my lips to his possessively.

He responded immediately, crushing his body against mine, kissing me back fiercely. The kiss was hot, sizzling, scramble your brains hot. It was different from any kiss we’d ever shared before. This one was filled with jealousy, passion, lust, and a lot of pure neediness. Every cell in my body seemed to come alive as our tongues tangled together. I couldn’t get close enough as everything seemed to fade away, the graffiti, the party, the cheating; all of it just disappeared as I lost myself in the beautiful familiarity of Luke’s kiss.

My hands twisted into the back of his hair, making him moan into my mouth and clutch me closer to him. Everything was so incredible, just like it used to be, but filled with more passion where it hadn’t happened for a while.

But as he broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to mine, his eyes still closed and his mouth pulled into a dazzling grin, I realised that nothing had changed. He’d still cheated, and everyone knew it - that wouldn’t go away just because of one kiss, and neither would the hurt that accompanied the knowledge that things would never be the same again. It was easy to pretend that everything was fine while his lips were pressed against mine; it was easy to forgive, but the forgetting part, that was the hardest.

He sighed contentedly, his hand stroking my back as he kissed my nose, my cheeks, and my forehead, before hugging me so tightly that I could barely breathe.

I reluctantly pulled out of his arms and looked at him apologetically. I knew I shouldn’t have done that. I’d accidentally just built up his hopes that everything was fine when, in reality, I felt far from fine. I still wasn’t ready to move on yet. I couldn’t let him go, but at the moment I wasn’t ready to get back with him, and I wasn’t sure I ever would be. I loved him, that much I knew for certain, but I still didn’t know if I could get over seeing him screwing another girl. The image was still engrained in my memory every time I saw her smug face.

Instantly Luke’s face fell. A small line formed between his eyebrows as his arms dropped from my waist down to his sides. A wave of guilt washed over me, making me feel like the one that had done wrong instead of him. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you. I was just caught in the moment and upset,” I whispered, swiping at the tears that were now drying on my face.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his sorrowful eyes. “Don’t apologise,” he replied, shrugging, obviously trying to go for casual indifference.

I gulped at the pain I could see behind his fake smile. “I’m trying to forget it, it’s just hard. I need time,” I explained, taking his hand and rubbing my fingers over his knuckles. His hands felt so soft and my mind wandered to memories of them in mine, or his fingertips caressing my cheek. Another lump formed in my throat.

He nodded, stepping closer to me again and wrapping his free arm around my waist. “Time is something that I have a lot of,” he whispered. “I’ll wait until you’ve cleared your head. We both know we’re made for each other.”

The sincerity of those words made my eyes prickle with tears again. Deep down I knew he was right. When it was just us, like now, I could see my future with Luke, my happy future with the house and the kids. But my stubborn pride and my self-worth were trying to force me to move on and let him go. My head was telling me to be a stronger person, one who didn’t need a man to complete her, but my heart was still stuck in the moment with Luke. My whole being was revelling in the feel of being in his arms again and being surrounded by his smell. I was torn. With his warmth and protectiveness wrapped around me I knew I needed him, even if I didn’t want to admit it.

While I was still figuring out what my next words should be, he pulled back and smiled at me. “Let’s get you to class, huh?”

I nodded, thankful for the reprieve. His hand tightened in mine as he stepped away and opened the door, leading us out into the now deserted hallway.

Chapter 14

Being the centre of attention really wasn’t my strong suit. The staring and curious glances that were directed at me made my head ache and my shoulders stiff. Whispering erupted everywhere I went that morning, excited gossiping as I walked past people. ‘That’s the girl that I was fighting with Sandy,’ or ‘Apparently her boyfriend cheated and now she’s lost the plot’. I tried to ignore it, I really did, but it followed me around like a grey thundercloud, dampening my mood with a wave of depression and humiliation.

By lunchtime I just wanted to go home and cry. Luke and I had eaten together again, which was slightly weird after the fact that I’d kissed him in the morning, but thankfully he didn’t mention it. The rest of the day was much the same. People weren’t getting bored of staring at me in the slightest. Gym was especially hard because Sandy was there too. I noticed with some measure of satisfaction that she looked a little weary of me, and didn’t really make eye contact with me at all. That, coupled with the fact that she had a subtle bruise forming across her cheekbone, made me feel marginally better. Of course Zach was there, making jokes, fooling around, being sarcastic to the teacher and generally not doing anything he was told to do. As usual he made the class more bearable for me. I even managed to laugh a couple of times, despite Sandy, the boyfriend stealing hoe, being within a hundred yards of me.

By the end of school I was well and truly ready to go home and crawl into bed, maybe get a huge hug from my dad and curl into his side when we watched TV like I used to when I was a little girl. I didn’t want to wait for Alex to finish his football practice, so I decided to walk home instead. Lucky for me it was a fairly pleasant day, so I enjoyed the sunshine as I walked. After a couple of minutes my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

I pulled it out and answered it without looking at the caller ID. “Hello?” I was met by nothing but silence. “Hello?” I tried again, frowning. “Hello?” When no one answered I sighed and disconnected the call.

I barely managed to get the phone back in my pocket before it vibrated with another call. Glancing at the screen I saw it was an unknown number. “Hello?” I answered. This time it wasn’t dead silence. No one spoke, but I could hear quiet breathing. Someone was on the other end of the call, they just weren’t talking.

“Alex, is that you fooling around? Because it’s not funny!” I snapped, glancing around the deserted road as I shifted my bag on my shoulder.

The breathing continued on the line.

“Who is this?” I asked, pulling the phone away from my ear and looking down at it again as if the answer would magically appear. “I think you have the wrong number.” I disconnected the call again and suddenly the phone buzzed in my hand - unknown number calling again. What the hell? I decided to just leave it this time. It was obviously someone playing a joke on me and I wasn’t rising to it this time. I rejected the call and turned the phone off, shoving it in my jeans pocket.

Anger built up inside me. Had I not been through enough recently? Now someone had decided to heavy breathe on a call? People sucked! My mind suddenly wandered to Sandy again. But she wouldn’t call me, would she? Not after this morning, surely.

I huffed and lifted my chin, pulling back my shoulders, trying to appear unaffected. Whoever was calling me - probably Sandy - was obviously trying to upset me and was probably watching my reaction. Well she wasn’t getting the satisfaction of upsetting me, not this time! I marched home angrily, my thoughts only on her and how much she’d screwed up my life. I’d never hated anyone more.

The following day was better in the sense that someone had broken into the school overnight and vandalised the Principal’s office with wet toilet paper and silly string. Talk was therefore no longer on me, it was more guided towards speculating who had pranked the principal. For that I was grateful at least.

My day passed quicker than the previous one. At lunchtime I did however get another of those silent calls from the unknown number. I had been sat with Charlotte and Beth at the time; I’d passed it off as nothing, just a wrong number, when in the back of my head I was wondering when this was going to end. I’d noted at the time that Sandy wasn’t in the lunchroom; she was probably holed up in the bathrooms, giggling with her friends as she tried to torment me into making another scene. I was convinced that Luke was right in what he’d said the previous morning - the hag was trying to get me into trouble. Therefore I just wouldn’t rise to it, I’d pretend as if it weren’t happening and hope that she got bored before it started to play on my mind.

Today was Friday, so thankfully I had a whole weekend of relaxing to look forward to. I just had to get through tutoring Zach first though, and then I could relax, but even before that I had to go with him to watch his parkour training that he did on a Friday night with his group. I really had no idea what to expect.

We pulled up in the parking lot of what looked like an old abandoned building instead of a gym like I was anticipating. I was still clinging to him like my life depended on it, grinning with unbridled excitement because of the ride on his bike. He smiled over his shoulder at me as I unwound my arms from his waist and scrambled off, pulling the helmet off and ignoring his chuckle as I smoothed my hair back into place.