Chapter 38 The Lounge
POV: Carly
She saw him before he saw her.
He was in the general lounge with his friends, sketchbook open in his lap, pencil moving. Enzo and Marcel were on the couch across from him and Aurora was somewhere to the left and they were all doing the Game of Thrones thing they apparently did on a regular basis and Niko was not participating in any of it.
He was drawing.
Or trying to.
She was at the table across the room with Tommy and her coven, pretending to be engaged in a conversation about the upcoming homecoming decorations, and she kept her eyes on her notes and told herself she was not going to look over at him.
She looked over at him.
His pencil was moving fast. Too fast. The kind of fast that had nothing to do with drawing and everything to do with having somewhere to put something that had nowhere else to go. His jaw was tight and his shoulders were set and she recognized the specific tension in his body the way she had learned to recognize all the small things about him that nobody else seemed to notice.
She looked back at her notes.
Tommy was saying something about the homecoming court nominations and she nodded and smiled and wrote nothing on her notepad.
She looked over again.
Niko's pencil tore through the page.
The sound was sharp enough that the whole room paused. Four pages going at once, the ripping cutting through the lounge noise cleanly. His broken pencil hit the table. Every head turned.
Including hers.
Their eyes met across the room.
She felt it the way she always felt it. That pull. That specific awareness that lived in her chest whenever he was near and doubled whenever he was looking at her.
He looked wrecked.
Not dramatically. Not performing it. Just genuinely undone in the quiet way that people who never showed anything looked when something had gotten through anyway.
She felt it in her sternum.
Around her the table had already moved on. Quiet comments, a few pointing fingers, the way people did when someone else became briefly interesting. Tommy made a low comment beside her that she did not hear.
Niko grabbed his bag and walked out.
She was on her feet before she made the decision to be.
"I'll be right back." She said to nobody specific and followed him.
POV: Tommy
He watched her go.
She had said I'll be right back and was already moving before the words were out and he had turned to see which direction she was heading and watched her walk toward the door that Niko Monroeson had just walked out of.
He sat with that for a moment.
The table kept talking around him. Whitney was saying something about the homecoming decorations. Jerry was laughing at something on his phone. The noise of the lounge filled in the space the way noise always did.
Tommy looked at the door.
He thought about the east lawn.
He thought about the blue ticks on his phone that took two hours to get a response.
He thought about his father standing in the study room with that calm unhurried certainty saying some things are just what they are whether we like it or not.
He thought about asking Carly directly.
He thought about what happened if he asked directly and the answer was something he couldn't put back.
He picked up his drink and took a long sip and turned back to the table.
"What were you saying." He said to Whitney.
Whitney looked at him for just a second longer than the question required.
Then she answered him and he listened and he kept his eyes away from the door and told himself he was not the kind of person who looked for problems that hadn't announced themselves yet.
He almost believed it.
POV: Carly
She found him in the corridor outside the east stairwell.
His back was against the wall and his fist was against what used to be the glass frame of the bulletin board which was now in pieces on the floor. Dark red blood moved down his hand and onto his wrist and she stopped walking and stared at it.
He was not looking at her.
She made herself move forward.
"Hey." She said.
His jaw tightened.
"I was worried about you." She said carefully. "You weren't in class."
"I'm fine." He said. Flat and cold and nothing like him.
"You're bleeding." She said.
"It'll heal." He said and jerked away when she reached toward him.
She pulled her hand back.
They stood in the corridor and neither of them spoke and the silence had a specific texture to it. Not the comfortable kind they had built over weeks. The other kind. The kind that came after something real had been said and broken and not yet repaired.
"You stormed out pretty dramatically." She said. Trying for lightness. Not finding it.
"Are you seriously going there." His voice came out low.
"I'm just saying I was worried."
He laughed once. Short and humorless. "Now you're worried about me."
"Yes." She said. "I am."
"That's convenient." He said.
Her jaw tightened. "What is that supposed to mean."
He finally looked at her. His eyes were dark and the set of his face was the controlled version of anger, the kind that was more dangerous than the loud kind because it was doing its own math quietly.
"It means." He said carefully. "That not seeing me made it easier for you to go back to your perfect life and pretend the past few weeks didn't happen. And now that you've seen me fall apart in a room full of people your conscience needs attention." He paused. "Don't mistake guilt for concern."
She felt that land.
"That's not." She stopped. "That's not fair."
"No." He agreed. "It isn't."
She exhaled. "You didn't come to class."
"Didn't think you'd notice." He said. "Or care."
"I noticed." She said quietly. "I cared."
He looked at her and said nothing.
She held his gaze. "Can we please not do this in a hallway."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he pushed off the wall and she followed him to the nearest empty classroom and she closed the door behind them.
Author's Note:
Tommy sitting at that table watching the door and choosing not to follow is the most heartbreaking kind of love. He knows and he is choosing not to know yet and it is going to cost him everything. Drop a like and tell me in the comments, are you still rooting for Tommy or have you fully crossed over? Add us to your library because this classroom conversation is going to break everything open!