The back of my neck prickles and goosebumps cover my skin due to that annoying awareness.
That unbreakable connection.
It’s like he’s invading every part of me and engraving himself under my skin.
I find Kim hiding beneath the staircase in the corner. Her eyes are bloodshot and swollen, and her hands shake as she grips her backpack tighter.
Her hair is in disarray, the mint-coloured strands appear like a lab experiment gone wrong.
“Kim…?” I approach her slowly like she’s an injured animal.
A part of me wants to shout at her and demand why she let Aiden hug her.
It’s like I don’t know her after she returned from her summer camp. Kim didn’t only change physically, it’s like she’s been building a wall around her.
My chest aches. She’s slipping from between my fingers and I don’t know how to keep her or talk to her.
Her dark green eyes meet mine. They’re filled with so many emotions, but the most prominent of all is sorrow.
Deep sorrow.
She throws herself at me, and I can’t help but wrap my arms around her. A sob tears from her throat as she buries her face in my chest.
I feel like a horrible friend for not detecting her breaking point and not being there for her.
This is probably why she cried in Aiden’s embrace. She only wanted comfort.
Like a shark to the blood, Aiden must’ve smelled it and stepped in like a white knight.
If he planned to rattle me by using her, then it worked.
“Kim… you’re my best friend and I love you, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
She steps back and wipes her eyes with the heel of her palms. “Have you ever wondered if you could be the villain in someone’s story?”
“The villain? You? You’re the kindest person I know.” I laugh but she isn’t laughing along.
“Sometimes villains look so innocent, Ellie.” Her gaze is lost in the distance. “Actual villains don’t know they’re villains because they think everything they do is right.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did something unforgivable and I’m paying for it.” She releases a strangled breath. “I just have to find a way to survive this year.”
“Kim.” I clutch her shoulders. “You did nothing wrong, okay? Don’t believe whatever rubbish Aiden told you. They’re the bullies, not you.”
“Should we egg their cars?” She smiles through her tears. “Better idea, we can steal their jerseys or do some voodoo at the pitch so they’d lose their upcoming game.”
I mirror her smile, feeling loose now that she is. “That’ll bring me down to their level and I refuse to stoop so low.”
“Ugh, you’re like an old lady.” She jokes. “Stop being a mature bitch.”
“I’d rather be mature instead of a bully.”
“You know…” she trails off, meeting my gaze. “Aiden wasn’t always like this.”
“Nope. Not hearing it. I don’t care what he was like.”
That rule about not attempting to understand bullies? I take it to heart.
“Maybe you should care, Ellie. Don’t you ever wonder why he picked you? Why does he never bother anyone but you?”
“So what do you suggest? I dig around his life? Find his traumatic past and fix him because he’s such a good person on the inside with a heart of gold?” I sigh. “That only happens in your romance novels and Korean soap operas, Kim.”
“Rude!” She hits my arm. “Don’t go insulting my romance novels and for the thousandth time, they’re called K-dramas.”
“Yeah, sure. K-dramas.”
“Exactly.” She feigns a curtsy. “So tell me, did something happen with King?”
“Why would you say that?”
“You seem more aggressive about him than usual. I mean, you just said an entire paragraph about him when you used to refuse to even say his name.”
Something in my chest shrinks. I want to tell Kim all about yesterday, but I’m such a coward.
I don’t want Kim to judge me for being weak. She always calls me strong and hardened, but I crumbled with a single push yesterday. I’m ashamed to even look her in the eyes, let alone tell her what happened.
“I’m just angry that he hugged you.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? He’s being his manipulative self.”
“How do you know that when you refuse to get to know him?”
I purse my lips.
“Come on, Ellie, don’t they tell you in your Chinese war books to keep your enemies closer than your friends? You can’t defeat him if you know nothing about him.”
I want to protest, but she’s right. I know nothing about Aiden and that puts me at a disadvantage.
Whenever Kim offered to tell me what she knows about him from the years they grew up together, I always shot her attempts down.
Aiden is that itch that makes me all uncomfortable and aware. The mere mention of his name smashes my mood and pulls at my sanity strings.
I did everything to erase him, but the king can’t be erased, can he? Even if he’s not there, his name floats all over RES. Hell, even at home, Aunt and Uncle always talk about King Enterprises.
He’s like a ghost haunting me wherever I go.
Maybe I’ve been looking at things wrong. Maybe erasing him isn’t the solution.
If I choose to get to know him, it’s not to understand him. It’s only a tactic so I’d know how to counter him.
“You know Xander,” I tell Kim. “It did you nothing, though.”
“Knew Xander. Past tense. He’s been a stranger for years.” She releases a pained sigh. “Besides, I don’t intend to fight him. You, on the other hand, seem bent on challenging King.”
“I’m only defending myself and…” I clutch her hand, my throat suddenly dry. “Our friendship. I hate that he’s getting between us, Kim.”
“My relationship with King isn’t like that.”
Relationship?
Before I can question her, the last class’s hour dings.
“Your track training,” Kim says.
I give her a quick hug. “I’ll see you later?”
She doesn’t take any sports classes.
A grin breaks on her face. “We’ll binge Lucifer?”
“Absolutely.”
In the locker room, I finish changing my clothes in record time before the other girls arrive.
I’m always the first or the last and usually in the far corner so none of them catches a glimpse of my scar.
A scar that’s now surrounded by hickeys.
I wait in the hallway for Coach. Some of the girls are chatting amongst each other.
Since the first day when Aiden deemed me as an outcast, the track team doesn’t really like me.
I remain in my zone and they stay in theirs.
I retrieve my phone and open social media.
It’s only to know what I’m up against, I tell myself.
Nothing more.
I find Aiden_King on Instagram only because he’s been following me for about a year. I never thought much of it at the time and I always ignored the itch to go through his profile.
He has a few hundreds of thousands followers. Hundreds of freaking thousands. Geez. It’s not like he’s a celebrity or something.