Chapter 145 Chapter 146

Chapter 145 Chapter 146
“I just think you’re important. You’re not this.” Sebastian gestured to the surrounding scene. To the students watching the throw-down with ashen faces. Their bodies swayed as people at the other end of the room kept moving to the beat of the bass. Some of them shivered when Ravi's gaze swept past them, and others took a step back. 
There was saliva pooling in his mouth. He wondered if he was about to throw up.
“Let go of me.” He tried to free himself of the lads – his team. “I’m not going to fucking hit him.”
Theo muttered to Dean and Seamus to do as told, their grip turning soft before disappearing. He felt strangely untethered without their callous palms holding him down. Maybe they’d been right, maybe he was an animal.
He walked up to Sebastian, but it was a slow approach. Like a procession at church, he walked towards the redhead with agony on one side and bitterness on the other. He stopped in front of him, watched the familiar face, the freckles, the ginger eyelashes. He knew as he watched Sebastian wipe blood off his lips that it would never be them, them, them ever again.
“I warned you.” The words were nothing but air. “I fucking warned you so many times.”
Sebastian looked up at Ravi from the teacup in which he dwelt. He said, “I just want you to be happy.”
Ravi pivoted. The room was spinning so fast he feared he’d been thrown into the eye of a tornado. It was hard navigating the blur of colour and moving bodies. The lads did not follow, allowing him to make his way through the sea of students, all parting before him like the Red Sea for Moses. Halfway to the door, Sam found him. Tears clumped her lashes, her usual stern face nowhere to be seen. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled, but now the skin around her owl-eyes was smooth as untouched snow. 
“Ravi.” He knew what she was going to say, knew it in the way her eyes gleamed like the surface of a lake. 
“Did you know?” he asked her, because that was all that mattered.
She closed her eyes, the act an admission in itself. “Yes.”
“I’m leaving Harvard. Keep Sebastian out of our room if you ever cared for me.”
She was shaking her head, small noes making it past her lips. She tried grabbing him, but he avoided her hands. Just a couple of hours ago, she’d leaned her head against his shoulder, breathing deeply as she’d watched Sebastian and Theo argue with the Hufflepuffs. When she’d chuckled at their antics, he’d felt her body move against his. Thin shoulders moving up and down, elbow rubbing against his waist. For a moment, they’d been so close.
“I thought you would understand. You knew him, too.”
“Oh, Ravi.” 
But he didn’t want to stay with her. She’d known this whole week what Sebastian had said to Denis. Had known and decided not to say. Both of them had always taken every step to make him feel included, to bring him along despite them becoming increasingly intertwined. He would rather have been forgotten than lied to. 
What was it with everyone deciding what was best for him? It was such a load of fucking bull.
He left her behind, wiping his eyes with a harsh fist. If only he’d brought a couple of vodka shots with him.
The entrance was fairly empty as he stormed out, moving with urgency as he aimed for the doors. Outside, there was a scatter of students smoking. He walked up to a girl with red hair, asking her for a cigarette. She glanced at him nervously, eyes lingering on his bruised knuckles. But she gracefully pulled out a fag, setting it aflame with a flick of her lighter. She handed it to him, the glowing end first. Plucked it from her hand, he ignored the way she flinched, offering her a muted “ Ta .” 
The road called him. Lit by the new moon, the gravel path shimmered before him in the dim night. A breeze ruffled his hair as he inhaled deeply around the cigarette, the soot burning his lungs. He breathed out, watching the smoke swirl towards the stars before fading into the night. 
It took two tries to reach into his pocket to grab his phone, hand uncoordinated and mind adrift. It took four tries before he found the contact he’d saved as Mr Moody, and another three tries to press the right button to call him. He coughed as the smoke overwhelmed him, then stubbornly forced his protesting lungs to take their beating. 
Mr Moody was tired when he answered. Thinking of it, he’d probably been sleeping. The clock was going on three in the morning.
“It’s Ravi Baldwin from Harvard.” He didn’t think he was slurring his words. He inhaled more smoke, the nicotine forcing his sleepy mind to wake. “I want it. I want to join the national team, if you’ll still have me.”
Mr. Moody was silent, nothing on the other end but faint background noises. Maybe he was pouring out of bed, leaving his significant other beneath the covers while tip-toeing into his office? Not that someone like Mr. Moody would ever tiptoe. The ludicrous thought made Ravi snort.
“You call in the middle of the night to tell me this?” His voice was decisively awake. Ravi felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention.
“Yes. Do you still want me?”
“Do you still make your opponents piss their pants when you walk on the field? Then yes, we still want you.”
“Tomorrow?”
“No lad. You can join next week for the training camp in France. But are you sure? You won’t be able to go back to university for a while. Your studies will need to be put on hold.”
“Yes,” Ravi might have hollered in reply. It was hard to tell. “Yes, I’m sure.”
He didn’t see Mr. Moody, but he knew the man was smug. “Then, welcome Mr Baldwin. To Scotland's National Team.”