The Unloved (11 page)

Adjusting my book bag strap I started toward home. I’d only made it past the parking lot and off school grounds by about a yard or so before I heard footsteps hustling to catch up to me from behind.

“Jules, wait up!” Nick’s familiar voice filled my ears and my stomach did a flip-flop. I paused, allowing him time to catch up, and felt slight trickles of relief slide through my veins.
If I waited on Nick at least I wouldn’t be walking home alone.
That was what I told myself, but it was only part of the reason I stopped, the other being I’d missed him. I scolded myself internally for allowing those feelings to rush to the surface so easily.

“Hey, no ride today either, huh?” he asked once he’d caught up to me.

“Nope,” I said, making the P pop so I would sound nonchalant as I began walking again.

“Mind if we walk together?”

“I guess not.” I stared straight ahead. If I glanced at him I knew I’d become mesmerized by his good looks and not be able to hold onto the tiny bit of coolness I’d managed to muster in the few seconds it had taken him to reach me.

We walked in silence. I continued to stare straight ahead, but every so often I’d see Nick cast a glance at me from the corner of my eye and my stomach would flip-flop again. I bit my bottom lip, fighting to keep from picking at my cuticles, and continued to put one foot in front of the other.

We were nearly halfway home before Nick decided to kill the silence that had been building between us since we’d left school grounds and speak.

“So, what’s been going on lately?” he asked, but there was something off in his tone, like there was a larger meaning behind his words.

“Nothing much.” I shrugged, deciding I’d play the dumb card and see if he dropped it or pressed further.

“I mean between us. What’s been going on lately between the two of us?” he clarified and my heart sped up wildly.

I ran the last time we were in the shed back through my mind, focusing on the gleam in his eyes when he’d raised his gaze from the bruises Vincent had left on my arm. Emotions from that moment swept through me like a tidal wave. I turned and met his stare dead on. “Nothing, nothing has been going on between us,” I said, wishing I could have sounded more convincing than I did.

Hurt gleamed in his hazel eyes and he took in a deep breath. “All right, I’m calling bullshit.”

I stopped where I stood and spun to face him. “Calling bullshit? On me? Why?” I demanded, sounding angrier than I’d intended, but he had no right. Why couldn’t he just leave it alone?

He slung his backpack higher on his shoulder and crammed a hand into his front pocket. “That’s right. Something’s going on. Either I did something or said something the last time we were in the shed that you didn’t like or—fuck, I don’t know, Jules. Help me out here. Let me know what’s wrong. What did I do?” he pleaded.

I shook my head and squeezed my eyes shut. “You didn’t do anything; it was all me, right? That’s how it always is.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

NICK

Jules opened her eyes and I couldn’t make out the emotion that burst within the bright green of them because it didn’t make any sense. As soon as I spotted anger it became replaced by something else that resembled hurt. How had I hurt her?

“What is
all you?
What the hell did I do, Jules? Please just let me know because the way we’ve been going these past two weeks has been
killing
me.” I didn’t care if I sounded like I was pleading because I was. Hell, I’d get down on my freaking knees right now and beg if she wanted me to. I just wanted things to go back to the way they were.

“You really wanna know?” she asked. Her eyes flamed now and I braced myself as best I could for whatever was about to come out of her mouth.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“You looked at me just like everyone else,” she whispered and dropped her gaze to the sidewalk we stood on.

My mind reeled. I looked at her like everyone else? What did that mean? “What?”

“You looked at me like it was my fault, like what Vincent did was my fault.”

My jaw dropped. How could she think that? How could she think what that fucking jerk had done was her fault? And who else looked at her that way? What else was she hiding, had something unthinkable happened to her recently? My heart pounded in my throat and rage sizzled through my veins at the thought. When my eyes moved back to her, the sight of her delicate frame, her beautiful face with tears rolling down her pink cheeks, broke me.

“I never thought that,” I said, reaching out and wrapping my arms around her waist.

Jules slid from my grasp and began walking again. I stood there, drowning in a cascade of intense emotions, as I watched her walk away. My feet started toward her and all I could think about was stopping her and making her listen to me.

“I never thought that, Jules,” I said as I sprinted to get in front of her. I stopped, blocking her way with my body and forcing her to halt. “Not once. You’ve gotta believe me,” I pleaded.

“I saw it, Nick. I saw the disgust in your eyes. It’s the same look my mom, Cole, everyone fucking gives me right before they tell me it’s
my fault!
” she shouted as more tears streamed down her cheeks.

My stomach knotted and I swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat before I spoke again. “It wasn’t directed toward you…I was thinking of
him
. I was thinking of Vincent. I hated to see what he’d done to you, how he’d marred your beautiful skin. I was disgusted and angry with
myself
, Jules, for being right across the fucking street and not being able to help you!”

She shook her head and refused to meet my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

She moved past me and I reached out for her but she struggled to get out of my grip. I released her because I was no better than him if I tried to keep her here against her will.

Desperate, I threw my hands up in the air and shouted at the top of my lungs, not caring who heard or who stared, “Why the fuck is it so hard for you to let someone in—to let someone care about you?”

She stopped walking then and turned back around to face me. “Because people don’t
care
about me, Nick. They judge me, manipulate me, mistreat me, use me,
hurt
me…but
none
of them
care
about me.”

She was serious. I could tell by looking in her eyes she firmly believed that, and it tore a piece of my heart out.

“I do, Jules. Jesus,
I
do,” I said, my voice sounding hung up somewhere between a sob and plea, but I didn’t care because it was true. I
did
care about her.

“Well don’t—don’t care about me because somewhere along the line I’m bound to break your heart or mess things up somehow. I’ll disappoint you, Nick. It’s what I do,” she said as she fidgeted with her fingernails.

“It’s my heart to break; I’ll be the one to decide if I want to risk it or not.”

“Why? Where is all of this coming from?” she questioned and I wondered if now was the time to tell her exactly how I felt about her. Exactly how I’d always felt.

“I just don’t want things to be the way they’ve been. I want to go back to the way we were before,” I whispered, chickening out on telling her exactly how I felt. Now wasn’t the time to confess my love for her; she wouldn’t believe me. Not yet. “I won’t ask for a second chance because I know you don’t believe in them, but please understand that I care about you. You matter to me. You’re my best friend.”

My words seemed to open another flood gate within her eyes, but this time I thought maybe they were good tears. I took a few steps toward her.

“Please don’t be mad at me anymore,” I begged once I’d reached her again. “Don’t make me get down on my knees here.”

She cracked a smile and I knew all was well. I had been forgiven.

CHAPTER THIRTY

JULIE

I lay in bed that night replaying the conversation Nick and I had shared earlier and reliving the butterflies that his words had created in my stomach. He’d said he cared about me. This shouldn’t make me as happy as it did, but it wasn’t something I could control.

This was something I was learning quickly. With Nick, my feelings were uncontrollable.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

NICK

It was Halloween. I’d taken mom’s car out, rented some old horror flicks, and swung by the grocery store for some popcorn, cookies, and Pepsi. I’d been invited to go to a party with Blake, Quiet Tom, and the rest of the gang, but I knew Jules had already said no. Parties weren’t her thing. So, I planned on surprising her with movies and a request to stay in.

Things had been progressing between us and had finally gotten back on track, but once again I felt like the closer I got to her
in that way
, the more she reiterated that we were
just friends
to everyone and nothing more. I hated that, but knew if I wanted to get to where I wanted to be with her, I’d have to take it slow. Snail slow. And I was fine with that.

I knocked on her door and held my breath. It was a little after nine on a Saturday night so I knew her mom would be gone and I prayed that her brother would be, too.

“Coming,” I heard her yell from inside somewhere.

She opened the door and I held up the movies and bags of groceries in front of me, then flashed a smile. “Care to join me for a horror marathon and some junk food?”

Jules scrunched up her face like she was thinking about it. “Only if there’s corny
Friday the 13th
movies in that mix,” she finally answered with a smile.

“You know it. Halloween wouldn’t be complete without them,” I said, stepping inside.

The house was silent and dark and smelled of stale cigarettes. I’d been back across the street for about three months now and this was the first time I’d stepped foot inside her house since shortly before I left. Everything still looked exactly the same—the same faded green couch and old black recliner sat in the middle of the small living room; the same TV on the same bowed out stand; the same thick, grungy looking brown shag carpet that I was sure was still just as sticky from years of built-up nicotine as before; and the same yellowed walls with nothing hung on them.

Jules sat down on the couch, tucking one leg beneath her. “What do you want to watch first?”

“Actually, I was gonna make some popcorn first and then put in a surprise movie,” I said, setting the movies down in front of the TV and heading straight for the kitchen to my right. “No peeking at those movies, either,” I called over my shoulder when I heard the couch squeak from her getting up to do just that.

“You know I don’t like surprises,” she muttered, coming to stand at the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. She leaned against it and a stray strand of hair fell out from her ponytail and draped across her left eye.

“It’s a movie, Jules. I think you’ll survive.” I winked and began rummaging through the cabinets, searching for a large bowl to dump the popcorn in once it was finished. I couldn’t remember where anything was in the cabinets, even though I’d been in this kitchen a million times.

“Here, use this one,” Jules said, moving to a cabinet behind me. She bent at the waist just as I turned around, and in the tight space known as her kitchen, her ass was nearly pressed against my lap.

My breath caught in my throat and I thought my eyes might bug out. I quickly turned back around and opened the microwave, crammed the bag inside, and slammed the door shut. I stared at the buttons like it was in some foreign language while my mind replayed her bending over in slow motion on repeat.

“There’s a popcorn button on this one…right here,” she said, pressing it and then start. “Mom dated a guy who worked at Lowes for a while. She’d used his ten percent off discount on top of the extra ten the store was offering at the time and got us a really nice one. Too bad there’s hardly anything ever here to cook in it.”

“Thanks,” I said, slowly gaining control back and incredibly glad that she hadn’t noticed I’d even lost it.

I hoped like hell this night went as well as I’d planned. I’d rented Steven King’s
It
solely with the intention of her snuggling up to me on the couch because I knew how much Jules hated clowns. Maybe it was a bad, premeditated move on my part, but I had to get past this
just friends
thing with her and step closer into
together
territory once again. I figured having her cuddled up into my side was a start.

“So, is Cole home tonight?” I asked, wondering for the millionth time if we were alone.

Jules shook her head and grabbed two cups from a nearby cabinet. “Nope, it’s just you and me.”