I laugh at that despite the pain it causes me. I need to lie down.
He drops me off and my sister for once takes care of me while I slowly die in bed.
I go to school on Monday, wearing my sister’s lumpy-ass foundation and other makeup that she helped me apply. I need to buy her some new ones, although she’s perfectly capable of shopping online. I need to find a wheelchair and take her out. I keep saying I’m going to but I never get around to it. Truth be told she’s become a bit of a hermit. She doesn’t want anybody to see her looking so frail and I don’t blame her. So she only goes out on days she’s feeling good and looking good. Which these days isn’t often enough.
I wear sunglasses and keep my hair around my face. People look at me as I enter. No, they don’t just look, they fucking stare.
Loki.
I bet he’s told everybody. I never should have trusted him. Though a niggling voice in my head is reminding me I never told him to keep it quiet. He’s obviously the type that loves to gossip and feed the drama.
Plus the bruise is pretty fucking obvious.
I get to the door, say, “Fuck it.” Then turn around and head back to my car.
I’m not doing this.
Why am I still trying with Nok? Why? He’s a lost fucking cause.
Why do I care?
Or maybe I’m being paranoid, and they don’t know anything.
I yank open the silver door and sit inside, pulling off my glasses and dumping my bag on the back seat. My forehead rolls along the steering wheel as I try to gather my thoughts and shut my eyes for a moment. The passenger door opens, I smell who it is before I see who it is.
“Get out of my car, Nok,” I demand tiredly.
“Drive,” he clips, his eyes front and center.
“Are you kidding?”
He levels me with a flat gaze, one void of happiness and full of frustration. His acorn-colored eyes hold the reality that he wants to be anywhere but here. “I’m not getting out of this car until you drive us to where we need to be.”
“And where’s that exactly?” He snatches my bag off the back seat and rummages through it. “Hey. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Just checking you don’t have a knife, or a gun stashed away.”
“Oh, I do,” I respond, raising a brow at him, not that he can see it beyond my large glasses.
“Course you do. You’re a fucking psychopath, you know that?”
“Yep.”
He sighs and rests his head back. We both look at the students watching us, or making it look like they’re not when really, they are.
“Where are we going?” I ask quietly.
“Back out. I’ll guide you.”
“Okay, Sacagawea.”
He starts shaking, first it’s small, but then it gets more prominent, and then he’s laughing so hard he starts choking for breath.
I smile with him, he has a nice laugh. It’s gentle, not booming, almost cute. It makes him seem less harsh than his eyes constantly emit.
“That’s probably racist,” he comments, still grinning from ear to ear. “Next right.”
“So is calling me a white whore.” We keep smiling, neither offended because even though we have beef, we also understand each other.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“No, you’re not.”
He laughs again and shrugs. “You’re right, I’m not.”
We don’t talk as he guides me around a winding path, past trees and around rocks and down a steep hill. In my dad’s fucking Prius no less. Not a 4x4 like his truck.
If we get stuck here, I’ll hurt him as payback.
“Stop here,” he instructs, and I do so, grabbing my bag and hooking it over my shoulder.
“Is this where you kill me and bury my body?” I follow him down another path on foot but have to stop when I get dizzy. I grip a tree trunk for support as he goes on ahead, only noticing I’m not there when he says something I can’t make out from back where I’m at.
“I’m not going to kill you if that’s why you’re—” He reappears but stops when he sees me. “What’s wrong?”
“My head.” I stand upright and brush it off. “I’m okay. Just need a sec.”
He reaches for my massive shades and slowly pulls them from my face. I hum a grunt of pain when the arms of my glasses scrape my temples. The sore one really fucking hurts.
I hear his intake of breath when he sees the swelling. I don’t have a black eye but my temple and cheek are really tight, bruised, and swollen.
He stares, his body tight and his diamond-heart lips dry. “I did that to you?”
“That night was wild, huh?” I joke but then the truth of the situation registers with his confused expression. “You didn’t know?”
“Why would I know?”
“Because Loki…” I trail my words off and look around, wondering why I’m here if not for his guilt. “Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s done.”
“Doesn’t matter?” When he steps back, he looks almost distressed. “You told me I’d hurt you and I called you dramatic. I thought it was just your nose.” He shakes his head and raises his shaking hand to my face. “I don’t like that you wear a mark and have pain caused by me.”
I didn’t expect him to be so upset by it. But then I honestly thought he knew already. “Loki took me to the hospital, so I just assumed you knew.”
“You went to the hospital?”
“I had to have a CT scan.”
He blanches. “A fucking CT scan?”
“Yes, Nok,” I snap, snatching my sunglasses back. “I was really bad. I collapsed and everything.” Now I’m just milking it. “I get my results in a few days.”
He scowls at the ground. “And you came to school?”
“I wanted to see you,” I admit before I can stop myself.
“Because of my truck?”
“No,” I scoff. “I’m not sorry, I’d do it again but this time I’d go for the body if you ever put me in a position where I feel unsafe.”
He nods and some of his long hair escapes the tie that holds it, my fingers twitch, aching to reach up and push it back. “Is that why you paid for the repairs?”
“Who says I did?”
“Sanders.”
I put the glasses back on and stomp past him. “Sanders is a dirty rotten liar.”
He chuckles and catches up with me. “We both fucked up that night, but what I did was worse.”
“Why did you do what you did?” I ask, glancing at him through the corner of my eye.
He grips my arm with a firm hand and guides me over a fallen tree. “It doesn’t matter the reason behind it.”
“You mean like when you slammed me up against the lockers for trespassing?”
Stopping, he turns me to face him and glares at me. “You shouldn’t have been there, you had no right.”
“Yes, forgive me for riding my bike over grass and earth in a place with no fences lining their border.”
“Those are sacred grounds you were tearing up. Did you ever ask? Did Nash never tell you?”
I roll my eyes and keep walking; despite the fact I don’t know where I’m going. “I said I was sorry and never went back. What more do you want from me?”