Free Count on Me by Melyssa Winchester Page B

to eat, but today it’s not at all the same. The excitement at seeing him here is gone and like earlier, all I want to do is get as far away from him as I could.
    So that’s exactly what I do.
    I turn from the classroom, making sure to tear my eyes away from where he’s leaning and I start making my way down the hall toward the stairs. I don’t move fast enough to miss his reaction though.
    “Son of a bitch! ”
    If I actually smiled for people to see, this would be one of the times I’d do it. Kayden Walker is an acknowledged asshole and he won’t get any argument from me, no matter how cute his eyes look when he smiles. The time for him to be waiting for me would have been yesterday. Today he’s too late.
    Let him see that coming.
    I start taking the stairs quickly, knowing that it can’t be long before he’s on my heels and making me face him, but by the time I get to my locker and take a look around me, I realize he’s nowhere in sight. What I expected him to do based on the way he reacted this morning when I got off the bus, he hadn’t done.
    Crap. I thought I was being so smart. Turns out again, I’m the one being played.
    Turning back to my locker, determined to get my lunch and make my way out to my normal spot, I don’t realize that anyone has come up behind me until I see the shadow of an arm stretch out over my head.
    Guess he found me after all. I think as I close the door and look up, expecting to see his very annoyed face looking back at me. It’s not him I see though as my eyes come face to face with the person invading my personal space. It’s someone even worse.
    Noticing what I’m sure is a shocked expression, he smiles at me and the minute it happens, I’m taken back to two days before and the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach returns.
    “Expecting someone else? Maybe, I don’t know, Kayden?”
    Keep it together Belle. Do not let him see how he’s getting to you. I repeat over and over in my head as he stares at me. I want to say something to him, but like usual, the words won’t come. I don’t entirely understand sarcasm but right now, I wish I did.
    “Oh that’s right, you can’t speak. I forgot you’re retarded and mute.”
    I hate those words. I’m not any of those things, but with the amount of times I hear them, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I start believing them. I let my eyes scan the hallway around us, looking for a teacher or even another student that might be able to stop what’s about to happen, but when all I’m met with is other members of the football team, I know it’s a waste of time.
    They’re going to recreate what they did with me in the parking lot and there’s not a thing I can do to stop it. It only makes me wish I’d stayed with Kayden when he’d been waiting for me. If I did that, then maybe they wouldn’t be doing this to me.
    I’m scared and I’m pretty sure he knows it because as he bends in closer to me, he laughs as my body shivers. He has to know what being this close to me is going to do, yet he’s making no move to get away from it. It’s almost as if he wants it to happen.
    “You know, I’m trying to figure out what he sees in you. What it is about you that he’s willing to ditch all of his friends for. I can’t figure it out. So, why don’t you tell me?”
    I’m not entirely sure what it is I’m supposed to be telling him, but before I can even get a chance to make sense of what he’s asking, he speaks again and this time, it’s even worse than all of the things he’s said before.
    “Is it true what they say about the quiet ones, Isabelle? Is that what you’re doing when he drives you home? Giving it up in the backseat?”
     
    Kayden
     
    I was fully prepared to take off after her the second I saw her body turn, but before I can move, I feel the surprisingly tight grip from her teacher around my arm and I know I won’t be going anywhere for awhile.
    I watched Isabelle’s form disappear down the