My breath caught at his sudden presence. I had sank into my high, but my pulse raced at seeing him. I was a strange contradiction of tense and relaxed. Rogue was wearing his school uniform, but it looked effortlessly casual. The collar hid the tattoo I knew was creeping up his neck. His hair was wet, like he’d just taken a shower. That’s right, he had gym first period. I nearly slapped myself for knowing his schedule. We weren’t friends anymore, so why did I torture myself with trivial information?
I felt his eyes sweep over the skirt covering my white underwear before he met my gaze with annoyance. “What are you doing here?” he asked.
“What does it look like I’m doing here? Do you own the bleachers now, too?” I sat up and crossed my legs in front of me before I put the joint to my lips and took another drag.
Maybe this was how I could handle them. It almost didn’t hurt to look at him when I was like this. One of the first indicators that I had been shunned was that “our” places were now “their” places. I couldn’t go to my favorite restaurant off Bloomington Street or jog at the trails near City Park. I had thought that the bleachers were safe, but I guess not. It’s hard to know where was safe when these assholes decided they owned everything.
There was a time that I called Rogue my best friend. There was a time he didn’t look at me like I was dirt beneath his boots. I didn’t know what I did wrong. Seven months ago, they just suddenly claimed that they were done with me. They humiliated me in front of the entire school.
I’d pleaded for answers, stood outside his house with tears streaming down my face until security escorted me off the property. Not a single one of them told me what happened to ruin our friendship. The not knowing killed me.
“I own this whole town, Scarlett.”
“You keep saying that,” I mused with a dark laugh. “Yet, here I am. Free of the Heirs. Free of you.”
“We don’t make it a habit of owning trash, Scar. You aren’t the Heir’s queen anymore.”
I felt my body relax even further, taking me away from the pain of his words and protecting me with a hazy and all encompassing comfort. Rogue couldn’t hurt me if I was a pillow. Yeah, this weed was fucked up.
I laughed, my giggles feeling like a balloon carrying my pain up. I felt weightless. “Then you don’t own everything. Is this the part where you tell me I’m worthless? Or slam me against the lockers? Tell Stephanie to beat me up? I’m just wondering how to prepare for the next round of bullshit coming my way.”
I watched Rogue stare at me as I stretched my arms high up above my head. Closing my eyes, I danced my fingers along the chilly air and smiled when I heard his annoyed exhale. After a few beats of this, I opened my eyes again, greeting his dark stare. I wasn’t sure if it was the weed, or my wishful thinking, but I saw a hint of wistfulness about him.
“There he is,” I whispered with a smile. Right then, he looked like the boy I once loved. Out of all of them, I knew Rogue best. We met in kindergarten. I fell off the slide, and he helped me hobble over to the teacher for a band-aid.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
There was movement from the side of the bleachers, and I watched his eyes slice in that direction. I started to pick at my nails to distract myself from the dull sadness in my chest. The moment was lost, and the glimpse of the boy I knew was gone again.
“Oh. He’s gone now,” I said as a giggle escaped my lips.
I heard someone call Rogue’s name, and I pulled another long inhale of the joint as his face slipped into that familiar fury I’d come to expect from him over the last few months.
Rogue mumbled something under his breath that sounded like, “Fucking stoner.” He looked frantic now, eyeing the bleachers with unease as he ran a hand through his dark hair.
He then walked over to one of the trash cans under the bleachers. “Get the fuck out of here. I have a girl meeting me in a few, and I don’t want an audience,” he said while crossing his arms over his chest.
It shouldn’t have hurt me, imagining him with another girl, but I’d always loved Rogue, hadn’t I? I couldn’t remember, now. I was too busy counting the seats of the bleachers above me. “No,” I replied with a shrug. “Fuck you. Go get off somewhere else.”
A distant male voice called his name. Rogue stood there for a moment, just staring angrily at me. I refused to let him ruin my high. I sunk lower and lower, until I was nothing but melted chocolate on concrete.
Then Rogue Kelly ruined everything.
He gripped the rim of a nearby trashcan and picked it up before walking closer to me. “Time to take out the trash,” he said with a sinister smile before flipping it over and dumping the contents of it right there on top of me.
Sludge and trash coated my skin. It smelled rotten, like it was leftover food from last week’s football game. I shrieked as cold, cruel sobriety washed over me in a dull wave of disgust.
I wiped at something resembling a curdled milkshake from my arm and cried when I saw maggots in my lap. First my morning with Stephanie and now this. I lost it.
I looked up at Rogue, as tears pricked at the corner of my eyes. I debated on getting up and running away. I should have. But courage was a fickle thing, making itself known in those moments when pride and rage shook hands and poured gasoline on the situation. I stood up, trash slipped off my skin at the movement. Then, I glared at Rogue, who looked like a complex mix of annoyance, fury, and…stress. So he wanted to get off with another girl here? Good luck.
I meant to tackle him, but when I lunged at him, that fucking blend of muscle memory and hope bled through my pores. I wrapped my arms around his rigid middle instead, getting the nasty trash all over his body. “Fuck you, Rogue Kelly.” I whispered.
For a moment, he didn’t push me off, he just let me hug him for the exact amount of time it took me to exhale the sadness balled up like a fist in my chest.
When he did shove me away, it was a cruel sort of push that sent me soaring towards the ground. My ass landed on the concrete with a thud, and I cried out in pain as he wiped off his shirt. “You nasty ass Trash Whore,” he snapped.
I heard footsteps from behind me, and since I didn’t want to see whatever beautiful girl he would be spending time with, I got up and ran. I ran past the sadness. Past the sharp pain in my tailbone. Past the sound of Rogue’s laugh and my breaking heart, and went straight to the gym showers.
Chapter Three
After I washed off, I visited the nurse for the second time. She gave me a sympathetic smile before handing me her last pile of clothes. I wondered if I needed to start leaving spares up there. I didn’t go to class. There was no point. So instead, I went to the one place that still brought me happiness.
The gym was my safe space. It was where your last name didn’t matter, and the only thing that you had to bring to the mat was your body. It was where it didn’t matter who you were or how much your daddy made. Hard work trumped status here.
Gymnastics was my favorite thing in the world. Mama signed me up as a kid because I’d had so much energy. As a kid, I constantly chased after the guys and climbed the walls. She wanted an outlet, so she signed me up for monthly lessons. Then, it became twice a week. Then daily. She had no idea it would become my obsession. Sometimes, I wondered if she ever regretted signing me up in the first place.