And I needed to breathe.

Besides, when were there ever sparks from my end?

He opened his mouth to say something but we were interrupted by a gangly arm that reached out to clasp hands with Chase. Phoenix emerged from the crowd around us all smiles and long limbs. He was wearing at least three different shirts all layered in chaos, a short sleeve, a long sleeve and then another short sleeve. His loose, low-waisted jeans were ripped at the knees and tattered at the cuffs and his hair was curlier than yesterday but I suspected that had something to do with the October drizzle this morning. He was also wearing big, pink framed, plastic sun glasses that I was sure were purchased in the Junior’s section of Target.

“What’s up, Phoenix?” Chase asked him, breaking out into a friendly smile.

I was surprised I had never run into any of these guys before this year. Although Central was a very big school, several hundred to each graduating class. Still, they were good looking enough and seemingly popular enough that they at least should have been on my radar last year. Then again, when I actually read the badges stitched to Chase’s letterman jacket I remembered soccer was his sport of choice and last year had been all about making my way through the basketball team.

“Not much,” Phoenix returned and then his attention fell to me. “Ivy,” he acknowledged happily.

“Phoenix,” I replied back in a mock imitation of his deeper voice.

“Kenna tells me you were at the show last night. You should have stuck around, you could have chilled with the band,” Phoenix’s smile widened with pride and I realized he must have been part of the band.

“You’re in the band?” I asked bluntly, a little disturbed that I hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t like I was into Phoenix for more than friendship, if that could even exist for me, but I still should have noticed him. Then again I couldn’t place faces to any of the band members.

Save for one, the stupid lead guitar.

Freaking Ryder.

He was seriously throwing me off my game.

“What? Yes! I’m the drummer!” Phoenix defended himself as if I really hurt his ego.

Oops.

“Sorry,” I gushed with a little bit of laughter. “I guess I couldn’t see you beyond the egomaniac in front.”

Phoenix nodded in agreement and gave me a look that said he forgave me. “So you’ll stick around next time? Hang out after?”

“Sure,” I conceded, hoping to avoid any future Sugar Skulls concerts and if at all possible run-ins with Kenna or Ryder in general.

“You went to see Sugar Skulls last night?” Chase asked. His eyebrows had drawn together and he seemed a bit confused and a bit more hurt. “I would have gone if I would have known you were going to be there.” His lips curved into his signature charming smile and the hurt was washed away and replaced with easy flirtation.

“It was a, uh, last minute decision,” I lied. “Plus I didn’t know I was going to see Sugar Skulls. I didn’t even know who they were until last night. I was just getting out of the house and I like the Slowdown on Wednesday nights.” That was more like the truth, but not common information either and I felt a chill of fear run through me. I wasn’t used to sharing this much, revealing this much about me.

“Right?” Phoenix agreed via question. “Slowdown gave us a pretty steady gig for Wednesdays, so there will be plenty of chances to hang. You can be like our groupie!”

“Ugh,” I groaned. “I met some of your groupies last night. I didn’t realize you thought so little of me.”

“We have groupies?” Phoenix asked, genuinely surprised.

“Well, I don’t know if they could be applied to the whole band, but um, Ryder has groupies.”

This got both Chase and Phoenix to laugh. “Of course he does,” Chase grinned. “Speak of the devil.”

Kenna and Ryder appeared from the thick mob of students climbing the steps to the school building. Ryder had his arm draped across Kenna’s shoulders and they were smiling and laughing and drooling and making googly eyes at each other and in love. And I wanted to vomit. Chase slipped his hand to my lower back in a move of possession and I sunk against his body, thankful for a place to go. I pressed against his side; half hoping he would just absorb me inside him. Gross, right? Still the desperation to disappear weighed consuming and suffocating against my lungs.

Chase wasn’t home, but he could at the very least be a shelter from the storm of my life.

“Morning love birds,” Phoenix called out to them.

Suddenly I was surrounded by people….. by friends? It was very confusing. I didn’t do friends. And what was more confusing was me.

“Hey, Kenna,” I called out as way of greeting.

She had the good grace to only hesitate for a second before responding, “Hey, Ivy.”

She eyed me over like I was ready to attack her precious boyfriend at any second and I shuffled backward out of the tight circle we had created. My eyes flickered to Ryder instinctually, but not in the man-eating way Kenna assumed I meant, more in like the…. I didn’t know what kind of way! The kind that felt like a gravitational pull, the kind of way that made it feel as though I was helpless to stop the slide of my eyes. The confusing kind of way. He was watching me with careful amusement, like I was his entertainment, like it was possible for him to look anywhere else, but he chose to look at me. I had to get out of there. Chase’s arm dropped from my back and he turned to face me, confused by my retreat. I struggled for an excuse but then my phone rang, some miraculous intervention by the gods, and I reached for it quickly.

I held it up in apology, waving it around and letting the loud ringtone pierce the conversation that surrounded us. I walked into the school building away from all those impossible but bourgeoning friendships.

“Hello?” I asked into the speaker without checking the caller ID first.

“Nix is here? Why didn’t you tell me?” Exie screeched from the other line.

I waited a beat, hoping she would forgive me in the silence of the air ways. No such luck. “Who told you?” I sighed into the phone. This is why I didn’t do friendship…. I wasn’t any good at it. But I did like to protect my girls. They were the closest thing I would ever have to real relationships.

“Sloane made the announcement this morning. Her mom is throwing some kind of shindig for him tomorrow night. You should have given us the heads up.” She sounded hurt. “You should have told me this morning in the car.”

No. She sounded terrified.

And she was right.

I should have given her the heads up.

I should have texted them both last night.

“I’m sorry,” I breathed into the phone, finding my locker and stuffing my backpack into it. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have to deal with him. I was hoping he was just here for me and mom.”

“Apparently he rented an apartment. I guess he’s going to be here for a while,” she grumbled and I could feel her freaking out through the airwaves separating us.

“How’s Sloane doing?” I asked, taking some of the pressure off Exie.

“She’s freaked. Evaleen turns twenty-one in two months.”

Shoot. I hadn’t thought about anyone other than myself. “Your sister’s already twenty-one,” I reminded her on a whisper. Not that she needed to be reminded. I felt despair settle over me and pushed my forehead against my open locker door, pressing my skin to the cold metal. Ridges in the metal, vents that kept the locker from smelling like dirty socks, pressed into my cheek, indenting my skin with the harsh edges.

“Anaxandra wants this life,” Exie replied and I could tell she was near tears. Her sister was no different than anyone else in our circle.

“Anaxandra’s been brainwashed by Prada and European vacations,” I bit out harsher than I intended.

Instead of getting defensive Exie let out a tired sigh, “So has Evaleen.” There was a long moment of silence while we digested the exact meaning of those words before Exie asked in a shaken, weak voice, “Will that be us one day?”

“No,” I answered immediately, my voice steady and full of conviction. I took a breath and fortified my resolve, “Never.”

More silence on her end. She wasn’t so sure. Damn it, we were stronger than designer purses and expensive cars. Stronger than our sisters. Stronger than our mothers.

So much stronger.

“Talk more later?” Exie asked.

“Give Sloane my love,” and then I hung up.

I stared into my locker full of books and notebooks and loose papers unseeing for a long time, long after the warning bell rang. Students and teachers rushed past me, the overwhelming noise and bustle of the morning faded away. And only I remained. The hall was empty behind me, everyone else carefully tucked away in homeroom.

Eventually I pulled myself back to reality and picked out my American Civilization book and the corresponding notebook.

Crap. I was late. Again…. Mrs. Tanner was going to have my ass for this.

I slammed my locker shut with as much force as I could muster and then kicked it for good measure. I string of curse words flew from my mouth before I could stop them and my hair came loose from the effort I took to attack my locker. I threw my books down in another attempt at getting rid of the stifling anger boiling inside of me, none of it having to do with tardiness. My pen skittered across the tiled floor and bounced into the opposite bank of lockers.

It was too much. All of it.

Breathing was suddenly difficult, the world fading out around me. My vision narrowed to pinpricks and a high pitched ringing pierced my ears. I was so frustrated. So, tirelessly frustrated. I hated it all…. Nix, my mom, this stupid world I lived in, that my hair had gotten messed up, that I had to care about my hair at all. And now a party? I couldn’t do this.

Some days, after everything I had been through in my life, some days eighteen didn’t feel that far away.

But then there were days like today when eighteen might as well have been eighty and the end was nowhere in sight.

“You alright, Red?” a voice asked from just a few feet away.

I hammered my head back against the lockers before I opened my eyes to meet the voice.

Ryder.

Chapter Eight

“Just fine,” I answered Ryder, not trying to hide the despair choking the life out of me. He wouldn’t care anyway. Actually, he’d probably ignore it completely.

Thank God.

“Sure about that?” He asked with a sarcastic edge to his voice that grated across the space between us.

Today Ryder was wearing a long sleeved gray thermal shirt and dark washed jeans over leather flip flops. His hair was layered carelessly at least a good inch off his forehead, pushed out of the way by an obsessive need to run his hand through it. His gray eyes were gunmetal with concern and he was holding a stack of papers divided up with yellow sticky notes labeling them.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I snapped.

“That’s why you’re at war with your locker instead of in class?” he assessed me judgmentally from where he leaned against the opposite wall. I wanted to think he was joking, but there was nothing light or teasing in his eyes. He was radiating worry and it was driving me crazy with the need to prove I didn’t need him to care about me.

I gave him half a smile anyway for his attempt at humor and then turned away from him so that I could stare down the long hallway. Light from the arched windows skittered across the floor, breaking up the dull florescent lighting that buzzed with the effort to stay on.

“It’s just that… this locker really pisses me off,” I finally admitted.

Ryder choked on surprised laughter and I turned back to face him. His expression had relaxed into amusement and I could finally suck in a much needed breath. “You two should probably get couples’ counseling then, since you have to put up with each other for the rest of the year and all.” He bent over to retrieve my pen before he crossed the hallway in three strides so that we were just inches away from each other. He remained calm and cool, my presence doing none of its usual tricks. So I was even more irritated by how unfair it was that I was struggling to remain indifferent. He was just fine, completely freaking fine. He was like this presence that penetrated every last bit of my consciousness, even his shadow weighed heavily on me, pressing me back into the bank of metal lockers. And his smell, maybe his cologne that clung to his clothes and floated in the air between us was surprisingly delicious and maybe a bit peculiar… like coconut and cookies. It infiltrated every one of my senses until I could barely suppress the need to lean into him and nuzzle against his neck. His smell threw me off. Way off.

“You smell like a girl,” I blurted out a little bit too loud.

Ryder paused, giving me a look of complete confusion, before his lips slowly turned up into an amused grin. “Shut it, Pierce. It’s my shampoo.”

An unexpected giggle burst from my throat and I smacked my hand over my mouth to stop any more foreign sounds from escaping. “Your shampoo?”

“It’s coconut oil,” he admitted, dipping his head as if embarrassed.

“Why?” I asked simply, shaking my head at him.

“Don’t ask questions you’re not prepared to hear the answers to,” Ryder growled ominously, but I could tell he was being sarcastic.

“What does that even mean?” I shook my head at him, laughter bubbling up inside me again.

“I don’t really know,” he laughed too, mimicking the side to side motion of my head. “But I was trying to sound manly again. You know, most girls like it. I usually get complimented.” He finally defended himself with an air of self-importance, crossing his arms across his chest and pulling his t-shirt tight across his pronounced muscles.

My eyes dropped from his silver pools of eyes to his chest for just two and a half seconds before I popped my gaze up hoping he hadn’t noticed. The narrowed slits of his eyes told me there was no chance in hell I got away with checking him out. Shoot.