Free Crash by Nicole Williams Page B

everyone’s talking about,” he said, taking a seat.
    Snickering circled around the table.
    His face turned red, realizing his mistake. “I mean, everyone’s talking about in the sense that you’re the new girl,” he clarified, which did nothing more than earn another round of laughter from the table.
    “Of course that’s what you meant,” Taylor said under her breath.
    He shot her a give-me-a-break look before turning in his seat towards me. “I’m Sawyer,” he said, smiling that artificially white smile. “Sawyer Diamond.”
    Oh, man. Even his name was too . . . annoying. If dad found out I went to school with a guy whose last name was Diamond, he’d try to shove an arranged marriage down my throat. His Lucy in the sky . . . a Diamond.
    “Lucy,” I said, taking a sip of my water, reminding myself that making rash decisions in the heat of anger was always a bad idea. Next time I found myself marching away from someone, I’d march a million circles before sitting down at this table again.
    “Lucy,” he said, pulling a sandwich from his lunch bag. “A pretty name for a pretty girl.”
    I was mid-eye roll when I felt an ominous figure hovering above me.
    “You’re in my seat, Diamond.”
    I didn’t look back. I didn’t need to. I’d recognize that voice if I heard it in my next life too.
    “I didn’t realize this seat was spoken for.” Sawyer twisted in his seat, squaring his shoulders.
    “Your mistake,” Jude said, gripping the back of Sawyer’s chair. “You make a lot of those, don’t you?”
    Sawyer rose to a stand, turning on Jude. He wasn’t quite as tall as him, but close, and he was nowhere near as filled out as Jude.
    “Care to expand on that, Ryder?” he said, crossing his arms.
    “Not really,” Jude said, staring down at Sawyer purposefully. “You and I both know what I’m talking about.”
    I had a premonition I was about to add an all-out cafeteria brawl to my list of things that should only happen on reality television list, and whether or not I was pissed beyond repair at Jude, I couldn’t stand watching him dragged away in cuffs again.
    Popping up, I slid in between the two of them. “I’m leaving. You can have my seat if you want.” I didn’t look him in the eyes. I didn’t want a reminder of what I was turning my back on.
    Without another word, I stepped away, exiting the cafeteria one beat shy of a jog.
    I wasn’t sure what was required for home schooling, but I’d take ten hours a day, seven days a week, with no bathroom or lunch breaks if it meant never returning to this cesspool of suck again.
    Dodging around students, I didn’t stop until I found an empty hall. Ducking into the closest locker alcove, I slid into a corner, curling my head into my legs. I wanted to cry so badly right then, I wanted to let every tear I’d held back for years have their moment, but something wouldn’t let them form. Some mental block inside me would not allow the release I needed so badly.
    “Dammit,” I muttered, slamming my fist into a locker.
    “Luce?”
    So not what I needed right now. So just what I needed right now.
    Why did he have to be everything I did and everything I didn’t need at any given moment?
    “How did you find me?” I said, keeping my head ducked.
    “It was easy,” he said, taking a seat beside me. “All I did was follow the cursing.”
    I laughed. Hard. I was always emotionally unstable in these kinds of moments when I needed to cry and couldn’t.
    I was an emotional wreck next to a man that defined wreck and who, if I let into my life, would turn me into the same. He scooted close against me, hitching his arm around my neck, and pulled me into him. I should have resisted, at least put up some fight given I still knew nothing of Jude’s past, present, and future, but I didn’t.
    “So?” he said, his voice muffled by what was left of my hair.
    “So,” I said, as a herd of boys shuffled by us. They didn’t say anything while they were in