In those early days, when she’d first left, it had messed with my head. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t focus or get my head in the game. I’d gotten into more fights last season than my entire high school football career.
All because of her.
She left and it was like she took some vital part of me with her leaving a gaping hole that had only festered over time.
I clenched my fist against my thigh, trying to rein myself in. Breathing in long and slow, forcing my heart to calm the fuck down.
“Nix,” Coach sighed. “This life is hard, kid. The Row, it’s brutal. If you’re lucky it’ll chew you up and spit you out with enough wits to survive. But if you’re really lucky, if you have the talent you have… you can escape this place, son. Put it behind you and never look back.
“Now this is what’s going to happen.” He opened his hands and pressed his palms flat against the desk. “You’re going to head straight to medical and get checked out. You better pray to God nothing is broken. Assuming it isn’t, you’re going to sit out of practice for the rest of the week—”
“Coach, I—”
“Shut it. When and only when I say you can start practicing again will it happen. Until then, stay out of trouble. Think about what you want, Nix. And I mean really think long and hard about it, and put Miss Maguire out of your goddamn head, son. She got out. You could too one day. But it won’t happen unless you show up, do the work, and stop being so goddamn reckless.”
“Yes, sir,” I muttered, in too much pain to argue.
“What was that?” He cocked his head, a faint smile tracing his mouth. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Better. Now get out of my sight and go straight to medical. Tell them I sent you. I want to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Feeling like a scolded child, I shuffled out of there, and headed for medical.
Praying to a God I didn’t believe in that nothing was broken.
“So, what’s the verdict?” Zane asked me the second he sat down at our usual table in the cafeteria.
“Nothing’s broken. Doc says the bruising will take a little time to heal, but ice should help bring down the swelling.”
“And Coach…?” He cocked a brow.
“He’s pissed. Wants me to sit out of practice for the rest of the week. He’s worried about my state of mind.” I air quoted the words.
“We’re worried about your state of mind,” he snorted, and I flipped him off with a half-hearted middle finger.
“I saw her, it’s done.”
“You’re more deluded than I thought. You two will never be done, Nix. You’re like night and day or some shit. One can’t exist without the other.”
“You’re wrong,” I said, sounding a lot more confident than I felt.
Because that’s how it had always felt to me too; like we were two opposite halves of the same coin. The same fucking soul.
Birdie had been the quiet to my loud. The calm to my storm. The voice of reason when I was reckless, a flicker of light in the endless dark.
But things had always been more complicated than that between us.
“Oh my God, Nix, baby. What happened?” Cherri arrived at our table with an over-dramatic gasp.
“Relax, Cher, your boy will live.”
I kicked Zane under the table. The last thing I needed was Cherri misreading his tone.
“Jesus.” She leaned down and gently cupped my face. “Does it hurt?”
“What do you think?” I said, wincing as she smoothed her thumb over my jaw.
“Need me to kiss it better?”
“I bet he has something you can kiss.”
I shot Zane a hard look and he chuckled. “I’m out of here. Mrs. Kyrie wants to discuss my future, like we don’t know my options are pretty fucking limited. Text me later.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot, friend.”
His dark laughter followed him out of the cafeteria.
Asshole.
Cherri continued checking over my injuries as if she was a qualified nurse. “You need me to—” She reached for me, but I snagged her wrist.
“Just leave it, yeah, Cher. I’m not in the mood.”
“You’re never in the mood lately, Nix. Is it because of her? You know, I’ve heard the rumors. We all have.”
“What rumors?”
“That she started DA. Prancing around with her new rich friends, acting like she didn’t grow up in The Row like the rest of us. I heard she’s been seen with Miles Mulligan. You know his father is the town planner, right? I bet her daddy is hoping they’ll get together and have little rich babies and Trevor Mulligan will have no choice but to give Michael Rowe whatever he wants because they’ll be fam—”
“Cher.” I slammed my fist down on the table. “Stop. Talking.”
“You’re so miserable lately.” She yanked her hand free of mine and trailed it up my neck, leaning in close until our breaths mingled. “But I can help with that. You just have to—”
“Mr. Wilder, Miss Jardin, keep it PG-13 in my cafeteria please,” Principal Marston boomed across the room.
Cherri rolled her eyes, sliding off my lap.
“Better, thank you. This is a high school cafeteria, people, not a club.”
“Don’t we know it,” she murmured. “How about I come over tonight and nurse you better?” Hunger blazed in her eyes as she let her finger hover over the waistband of my sweats.
“I can’t.”
“So come to mine? We can—”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t?” Her brows narrowed, and her expression turned icy. “Or you don’t want to?”
“Don’t start with this shit, Cher. You know the deal. We’re not—”
“Not what? Together? So that’s why I was the only girl you were fucking all summer?” She sneered.
“You said it yourself…”
“You’re a bastard, Phoenix Wilder. I’m yours. I’ve been here. I’ve been the one you’ve come to for the past six months whenever you need…” She steeled herself. “Do you know what, forget it. This summer I thought that maybe you were ready to move on. But it’ll always be her, won’t it?”
She stared at me expectantly, as if I had answers to give her.
I didn’t.
I had nothing.
Not a damn thing.
Cherri’s expression morphed into a deadly calm, but I saw the jealousy and anger in her eyes. Felt it rippling off her.
“You think she’ll really want you now she’s living it up with her rich daddy? Now she can have anyone or anything her heart desires? Little Harleigh Wren might have been born and raised here but she never had what it took to survive The Row. She never had what it took to be the kind of girl who—”
“Word of advice,” I said in a low growl. “Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Cher. I suggest you run along before I remind everyone in here why you don’t ever cross a Wilder.”
Hurt flickered in her gaze, but she quickly masked it with pure rage.
“You’ll come crawling back eventually, Nix. And when you do,” Cherri stood, looming over me as if she held power over me. “I’ll enjoy telling you to go fuck yourself.”