Chapter 37 Damn Niko
POV: Carly
"5, 6, 7, 8."
She snapped her fingers to the beat and watched her squad move through the routine in front of her and registered approximately none of it.
Abigail was off beat again. Sierra's footwork was a disaster again. The formation on the left side was breaking apart the same way it had broken apart at the last three practices and Carly was standing on the track field in the cold air of Black River Falls watching all of it happen and thinking about none of it.
She was thinking about his hands on her waist.
About the way his lips felt when she pressed hers against them the first time, soft and certain, and the way the second kiss had been something else entirely. The sounds he made. The way he had looked at her after, like she had given him something he had been holding his breath for.
And then the way his face went when she took it back.
She pressed her clipboard against her chest and stared at the grass in front of her.
The weekend had come and gone. She had FaceTimed Tommy before his full moon departure and said the right things and smiled at the right moments and felt like a complete stranger wearing her own face. She had read her grimoire. She had sat with Whitney in the common room and laughed at the right times. She had done everything she was supposed to do.
Niko had not been in class.
She had noticed his empty seat immediately and spent the entire period telling herself she had not noticed.
She was worried about him. She did not want to be worried about him. She was worried about him anyway and the specific quality of the worry was the kind that came from caring about someone more than was convenient and she could not make it stop no matter how many times she told herself to.
She closed her eyes briefly.
He was impulsive. Unpredictable. And she had hurt him. She had watched the light go out in his face when she said the things she said and then she had walked away and left him standing there and she had been replaying it in slow motion ever since like a scene she kept hoping would end differently.
She opened her eyes.
The squad had finished the routine and was standing there looking at her.
She had not noticed they stopped.
Whitney was calling her name from the second row.
Carly blinked and pushed the loose strands of hair behind her ear and straightened up.
"Okay." She said. "I'm just going to say it. I don't think any of you need me to tell you how bad that was."
"Maybe if our captain actually showed up to practices we'd be better." Sierra said from the back.
Carly walked toward her slowly.
Sierra's confidence visibly decreased with every step.
Carly stopped directly in front of her. "You really don't want to play that card with me today." She said it quietly. "I could be here every second of every single day and it wouldn't fix your rhythm because you weren't born with it. So don't blame me for your misfortunes." She held her gaze for one more second. "Does anyone else have something to say."
Nobody did.
"Good." She turned back. "We'll pick this up tomorrow. Nobody is late or we run laps the entire session."
She dismissed them and heard Whitney's footsteps come up behind her immediately.
"That was rough." Whitney said.
"She had it coming." Carly said, already packing up her bag.
"I don't blame you." Whitney said. "Half of us have been wanting to say it for weeks." She paused. "Are you okay though Care?"
Carly's hands slowed on her bag.
"Of course." She said. "Why."
Whitney was quiet for a moment. "You just seem like you're carrying something. Like there's twenty pounds sitting on your chest and you keep walking around pretending it isn't there."
Carly laughed. It came out smaller than she intended. "I have a lot going on. That's all."
"I know." Whitney said gently. "Tommy mentioned he was worried about you too."
"I made up with Tommy." Carly said quickly. "We talked. It's fine."
Whitney nodded slowly. "Okay." A pause. "You know you can talk to me about anything right. Whatever it is."
Carly looked at her best friend. At the genuine open expression on her face that had been there since they were twelve years old and had never once been anything other than real.
She wanted to say it so badly.
She wanted to sit down on the grass and tell Whitney everything from the beginning and let someone else carry some of the weight of it for five minutes.
She couldn't.
Whitney would not understand. Could not understand. Not this specifically. Not him specifically. And once it was out it could not be put back and Carly was not ready for what came after that.
"I know." She said. And gave her the best smile she had.
Whitney searched her face for another moment.
Then she nodded and let it go because that was what Whitney did and Carly loved her for it even when it broke her heart a little.
"Oh." Whitney pointed toward the far end of the track. "Reba Monroeson has been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes."
Carly's heart lurched before she could stop it.
Then she saw it was just Reba and exhaled so visibly that she had to hope Whitney didn't clock it.
She walked over.
Reba was standing with her bag over one shoulder and her hair down and that specific Monroeson composure that looked effortless because it was. She smiled when Carly approached and it was a real smile, not performed.
"Hey." Carly said. "Sorry, I should have checked in with you sooner. How are you finding the routines."
Reba's smile turned slightly sheepish. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about." She said. "I need help. Which is possibly the most painful sentence I've ever said out loud and I've lived through some genuinely painful things so."
Carly looked at her.
"I know." Reba said. "I know you didn't exactly want me on this team and I know the squad isn't exactly thrilled either. But I'm not here to make friends. I actually care about this and I want to be good at it." She crossed her arms. "You're the most approachable person here. Relatively speaking."
Carly blinked. "I don't hate you Reba."
"You don't have to be polite about it."
"I'm not being polite." Carly said. And meant it in a way she hadn't expected to. "I should have been more welcoming from the start. That's on me." She paused. "Send me your availability and we'll find time to work on it."
Reba's whole face changed. Just briefly. The practiced composure dropping into something that looked genuinely surprised and then genuinely relieved.
"Right." She said. "Brilliant." She pulled out her phone. "I'll need your number."
Carly recited it.
Reba typed it in. "Thanks." She said. Then. "And for what it's worth." She looked up. "He's an absolute pain in the arse with a head the size of a football stadium. You don't have to defend him."
Carly stared at her.
"I'm not." She said carefully.
"I know." Reba said with a small smile. "I'm just saying."
She grabbed her bag and flashed away before Carly could figure out exactly what she meant by that.
Carly stood on the empty track and stared at the space Reba had been standing in.
Then she picked up her things and walked back toward the building and told herself it meant nothing.
POV: Whitney
She watched Carly walk away and stood on the track for a moment after she was gone.
Something was wrong.
She had known something was wrong for weeks. The late nights. The missed dinners. The way Carly laughed at the right times but never quite reached her eyes. The texts that went unanswered for hours when Carly always replied within minutes.
Whitney was patient. She always had been with Carly. She knew how Carly worked, knew she needed to come to things on her own timeline or she would dig in and refuse to move. Pushing her only made her close tighter.
But standing here now Whitney was starting to wonder if patient was the right strategy or just the comfortable one.
Tommy had asked her twice in the past week if Carly seemed okay to her. She had said yes both times. She had believed it both times because believing it was easier than the alternative.
She was less sure now.
She picked up her bag and looked at the far end of the track where Reba Monroeson had just flashed away.
A Monroeson.
Whitney turned that over slowly without letting herself follow it anywhere specific.
She started walking back toward the building.
Carly would tell her when she was ready.
She just hoped ready came before something that couldn't be undone.
POV: Reba
She flashed to the corner of the east building and stopped.
She leaned against the brick and looked out at the track field where Carly was gathering her things alone and thought about the way the witch's face had done that thing when she mentioned her brother.
The slight widening of the eyes. The micro-pause before the carefully neutral response.
She had seen it the night she watched them go over the wall together. She had seen it again just now.
Reba had been at this school for two years and in that time she had watched her brother be many things to many people. Intimidating. Magnetic. Deliberately unknowable. She had watched girls chase him and watched him not run fast enough to actually lose them and watched him keep everyone at a comfortable distance that never quite became closeness.
She had never watched him climb a wall for any of them.
She pushed off the brick and started walking toward Silas Hall.
She was not going to say anything.
Not yet.
But she was going to pay very close attention.
Author's Note:
Whitney is right on the edge of figuring it out and Reba is already there and neither of them is saying a word yet and the tension of that is going to be everything. Drop a like and tell me in the comments who you think cracks first, Whitney or Reba?