Chapter 141 Chapter One Hundred And Forty One
LENA’S POV
I turned on my heel and started walking away, my footsteps echoing down the hallway.
Behind me, I could hear Jace following stubbornly, his longer strides easily keeping pace with me.
“Get back here, I’m talking to you,” he said, his voice tight with frustration.
I kept walking, my chin held high even though my heart was hammering.
I could feel the eyes of so many students hanging around to watch our every move as though we were the morning’s premium HD entertainment.
“Go away, Jace,” I said without looking back. “People are staring at us. You’re embarrassing me.”
Suddenly, he was in front of me, moving fast with that athletic speed that came from years on the field. Before I could protest, he reached out and yanked the stack of reports right out of my arms.
“Jace, give those back—”
“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” He fell into step beside me, carrying my reports while glaring daggers at the side of my face.
His jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscle ticking. “Do you want even more of her trouble? Do you have a death wish? I thought you were smart enough to stay away from Allison.”
“Go away,” I repeated, walking faster and trying to keep my voice down. “I didn’t ask for your help.”
“Her father is a fucking senator, and you’re here on a scholarship.” His voice dropped lower, becoming more urgent as he tried to reason with me.
“Think, Lena. Think for a second about what that could mean for your future. One call from her dad to the scholarship board and you’re done. Don’t you get it? And so close to graduation too.”
Just like that, his words hit the bullseye.
My steps faltered slightly, and I felt the first crack appear in the armour of confidence I’d been wearing all morning.
He was right. Damn it, he was right. Allison herself was crazy vindictive, but her family could deal even worse damage than whatever she may have had in store for me.
They had the kind of power that could destroy me completely if she ever so much as made a single phone call to them. What the hell was I doing?
“Mind your own business,” I said, but my voice was weak and unsure.
“I can’t always be around to protect you from her, Lena.” There was a desperate tone in his voice now, almost pleading. “Be smart about this.”
stopped walking and whirled to face him, hot righteous anger flooding through my veins.
“Protect me? Half the time you’ve been attacking me right alongside her!” My voice rose despite my best efforts to keep it down. A few students nearby stopped to stare. “Since when were you ever one of my protectors? Huh?”
I turned and started walking again, faster now, nearly running away from him. Meanwhile, Jace scrambled to keep up this time, his longer legs striding faster to match my frantic pace.
“What the actual fuck are you talking about?” He sounded genuinely confused, maybe even hurt. “When have I ever—”
“Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it.” I stopped abruptly in front of the staff room door, holding out my hand. “Now give me my reports back.”
He held them out of reach. “Just open the door.”
“Jace—”
“Open the goddamn door, Lena.”
I huffed in frustration and yanked the door open, stepping into the staff room with Jace right on my heels.
The conversation inside died out the second I entered inside.
About a dozen teachers sat around the large conference table; some of them with coffee, some with stacks of papers, all of them now staring at us with varying expressions of surprise and disapproval.
Mrs. Sinclair, the vice principal, was standing at the head of the table with a presentation remote in her hand.
“I don’t know how they do things where you come from, young lady,” Mrs. Sinclair said coldly, her lips pressed into a thin line, “but here at Westbrook, we knock before interrupting a staff meeting.”
Heat flooded my face as I looked around the room. “Oh. I didn’t know you guys were in a meeting. I’m sorry.”
I fumbled with my bag. “I just came to hand over a few… well, a lot of late assignments before classes started. I was a little worried that forget about it if I got too busy with classes.”
Jace walked past me and unceremoniously dumped my carefully organized reports onto a side table, making papers scatter everywhere.
He completely ignored the teachers’ shocked expressions and turned back to me.
“Lena, I’m still fucking talking to you,” he said, his voice rough with frustration. “Will you look at me, for God’s sake?”
I kept my eyes firmly on the teachers, my face burning with embarrassment.
The silence in the room was nothing short of suffocating. Mrs. Sinclair looked was just about to say something scathing when—
“Lena?” A different voice asked, sounding surprised “Lena Hartwell?”
Coach Ellis stood up from his seat at the table, his chair scraping loudly against the floor.
He’d been the only teacher, in fact the only person, who’d ever treated me like a human being in all the years I’d been at Westbrook.
He was my only safe space, giving me extra academic lessons and sharing pizza with me sometimes after school while I helped him record his graded papers.
Mr. Hendricks, the notoriously messy history teacher, squinted at me over his coffee mug. “That can’t be the same girl who hangs around here all the time, can it?”
Coach Ellis walked toward me, going around the table with a smile spreading across his face. “Is that really you, kid?”
I couldn’t help but beam up at him, my embarrassment was gone now, replaced by genuine happiness. “Hi, Coach. How was spring break?”
He looked like he wanted to give me a hug or something. I could see it in the way his arms twitched, how his smile went all soft and paternal.
But he was a teacher and I was a student, so instead he gave me an awkward pat on the shoulder that was somehow more heartfelt than a hug would’ve been.
“Look at my brightest student,” he said, his voice full of pride. “You’ve changed.”
I smiled sheepishly, very aware of everyone staring. “I just got a few new clothes and lost a few pounds, sir. I’m still the same old me.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out the biology reports I’d stayed up late perfecting. “I’m sorry I missed these before the break, but they’re done now.”
His hand was warm when he took them, nodding with satisfaction “Another A plus, I’m sure. I never doubted you’d turn them in.”
I moved to the conference table where Mrs. Sinatra, my English teacher, sat with her reading glasses perched on her nose.
She’d always been strict but fair, and she hated my last assignment and found it “disappointing” but that was okay, because I knew she was exactly the kind of teacher who respected hard work, even though it was a little late.
“Good morning, Mrs. Sinatra. Nice to see you gain. Here are the English reports.” I handed them over carefully. “I hope you’ll like these better than the last ones. I put a lot of work into them.”
“Yes. I’ll take a look at them and get back to you with your results.” She took them from me with a slightly dazed expression, as though she was still processing that I was standing in front of her looking like this.
“Wow, teenagers grow so fast these days, don’t they?” She murmured under her breath.
“Um, math, Spanish and social studies are on the table. I only have history and chemistry left,” I continued, addressing the room at large. “Can I please have one more day to turn those in?”
The teachers exchanged glances.
Mr. Hendricks blinked several times, then actually took off his glasses to clean them on his shirt to squint at me in disbelief.
“Of course,” Mrs. Sinclair said slowly, her earlier irritation seemingly forgotten. “You have until the end of the week.”
“Thank you, so much,” I said, relief flooding through me. “I really appreciate it—”
“And what about you, Jace?” Coach Ellis’s voice turned cool, professional. “Any reports from you?”
Jace’s expression went cold, glaring daggers at the teachers. “You’ll get it when you get it.”
The dismissive tone made several teachers stiffen uncomfortably, even I wanted to wave goodbye and escape this increasingly awkward situation.
Coach Ellis’s eyes narrowed slightly, “Now listen here, young man—"
“Fuck this,” Jace muttered. “We're leaving.”
All of a sudden his hand wrapped around my wrist and he pulled me toward the door with enough force that I stumbled.
“Jace, what are you—”
But he was already dragging me out into the hallway, the staff room door swinging shut behind and cutting off Coach Ellis’s voice mid-protest.
“Mr. Dawson, get back here—”
The door slammed shut, and Jace kept walking and pulling me right along with him with a firm grip on my hand.
“Jace, I’ve had enough of this. Please let go of me—”
“No,” he said flatly. “Not until you listen to me first.”