Chapter 19 Ch. 15. 1
Chapter 15
The past few days had sucked in every way imaginable for Zara.
She had been dragging herself to school, yes, but the moment her dad’s car pulled away from the school gate, she was out. Slipping through the back fence behind the cafeteria and heading toward the track behind the rec center.
She wasn’t going to class. What was the point? Half the teachers didn’t even notice she was gone. And the ones that did just gave her that look. That weird, disappointed look like they expected her to be better. There was also her coach who was bagging her and expected her to act like a champion.
State champion Zara Santiago.
Yeah. That title didn’t feel like hers anymore.
Reina had apparently been killing it in training. The team group chat kept going off with videos of her sprinting like she had fire under her heels. People were talking and were comparing the both of them. Reina too was allowing it to get to her head and trying some sort of false humility and trying to encourage her, by sending her texts and trying to get the two of them to train privately, but she knew Reina talked behind her a lot.
And Zara couldn’t blame them.
She felt like crap.
Her dad barely said anything these days except things like, "You better show up to practice" or "You need to fix your pace before the qualifiers." There were no other questions, no concern. Just about her performance for cross country. Like that was the only part of her he actually cared about.
So she trained by herself.
She’d sneak off after pretending to go to class and jog down to the track. It was always quiet. No other students. Just her, the stopwatch on her phone, and her own ragged breathing in her ears.
She timed herself, over and over again trying to beat her previous time.
One mile. Two. Three. Rest. Again.
But it never felt like enough.
She wished now that she could just be like Ethan who did not have a problem with keeping up with his records. Everything was too easy for him.
She had read stories of vampires being able to turn humans too. Should she ask him, and maybe then her problems would be solved? She wouldn't even have to train anymore. She'll just keep breaking records.
Her chest had started acting weird too. It would happen when she ran, or did random tasks. Sometimes it even happened when she was sitting down. It felt like a sharp pinch, then pressure. Not enough to knock her down, but enough to make her pause and clutch her ribs like she could press the pain away.
It scared her, so she ignored it.
She kept running. Kept timing herself. Kept lying to her dad about going to class. She didn’t even sit with Noah anymore. He texted, called, dropped snarky emojis. But she didn’t answer.
She was tired.
Tired of trying to explain herself.
Tired of being asked what was wrong.
Tired of pretending that Ethan’s anger hadn’t rattled her more than it should have.
He’d looked at her that day like she was poison. Like she’d done something unforgivable.
And now, today, she decided to actually sit in class. Maybe just one or two periods. Enough to prove to herself that she could still exist around people. That she wasn’t falling apart. At first, she hadn't wanted to, but she had gotten a very surprising email from Mrs. Penelope, asking if she was alright. Mrs. Penelope had mentioned that she was going to ask her father but she had a feeling her father was not aware so she decided to send a mail instead. She had mentioned she felt something was wrong especially after she spaced out in the last class, and if Zara wanted to talk, she was always there.
It was sweet.
Unfortunately, her first class with Mrs. Penelope had been cancelled, the next was biology and after that, a free class so she went to train and then, she walked into chemistry late, ignored the teacher’s raised brow, and slid into her usual seat at the back.
Ethan looked at her.
Of course he did.
She rolled her eyes and faced forward.
She didn’t have the energy for whatever drama he was building up in his head.
But after lunch, she couldn’t take it anymore.
The constant staring was weird so she caught up to him by the lockers and asked the question that had been on her mind all morning.
"Why do you keep looking at me like you’re waiting for me to explode or something?"