AllFreeNovel
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People come and go, and a few glance at me, as if they know me. I don’t get it, but I also don’t really care.
I’m about to leave when Iris finds me. Her smile is the overly bright one she uses when she wants to cheer me up.
“I guess you had a rough day,” she says, as she sits in the chair opposite me.
“What are you talking about?” We both know. But I don’t know how she knows.
“It’s all over social media that Battle Baylor had a ‘lover’s tiff with some foxy redhead’ on campus today.”
Foxy? Wait, what?
“People fucking talk about that?” is all I can blurt out. Holy shit. It’s on social media? Who the hell are these people? Don’t they have a life?
Iris looks at me as if I’m ignorant. “Of course they talk about it! He’s Drew Baylor, girl.”
“And how the hell did you even see this?”
Iris shrugs. “There’s several hashtags. #BattleBaylor, #BaylorsBootieCalls, #BattleBaylorWorksOut, #BestOfBaylor. I follow them.”
“You follow them? Are you kidding me?”
“Me and thousands other people. I started to follow them when you hooked up with him.”
I groan and press the cold heels of my hands against my aching eyes.
“Don’t worry, sweetie.” Iris gives me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “At least there’s no video. Not yet anyway. Though I haven’t checked Instagram or TikTok in a while. We’ll do that later.”
“Oh, God.” I hadn’t even considered videos. I want to die. Just die. I think I might if there is photographic evidence of Drew shouting at me. My chances are nil. I officially hate fucking social media. I’m banning myself from it. For life.
“So.” Iris picks up my coffee, finds it cold and sets it back down with a frown. “What happened? You get tired of all that endless sex?”
The question punches into me like a fist. She’s grinning as if my heart hasn’t just been ripped out of my chest. Apparently, I’ve been too effective in my protest that Drew and I were nothing serious. Either that, or misery loves company. Whatever it is, I want her gone.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you ask for exclusivity, and he gave you the brush-off?” There’s a hard glint in her eyes. “Because I’ll kick his ass if he hurt my Anna Banana.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” I say dully. “The fact that you think I was part of some harem or that you think I would be begging.”
I don’t address the laughable idea of Iris kicking Drew’s ass. That part is kind of sweet. Even if the twerp just called me desperate.
“I know.” Iris snaps her fingers. “You fell in love with him and blurted it out. And now he’s running scared.”
That is it. I’m done. I collect my laptop and shove it into my bag.
“No,” I say in a falsely bright voice. “It was because he wanted to kiss me in public, and I treated him like he had the fucking plague. And when he said he wanted me to be his, I was too worried about what other people thought of me to say yes.”
I stand and shoulder my bag as she gapes up at me. “Don’t you know? I’m incapable of falling in love and all that emotional shit.”
Night finds me alone, listening to Trent Reznor sing “Closer,” the volume so loud that poor Siouxsie’s picture vibrates against my wall, in danger of falling to her doom.
At least I’m not wallowing on the floor, hugging a pillow like the poster child for broken hearts everywhere. No, I’m beating the shit out of the punching bag George set up for me on my twenty-first birthday. Because, as he said, I ought to be able to beat the shit out of something now and then.
But the only person I want to beat up now is myself. My knuckles hurt as I pummel the hard bag. It isn’t enough. I hit it again and again. Sweat pours down my face, burns my eyes. I don’t hear the door open or his footsteps as he crosses the room.
I don’t even notice him until he stands next to me. My breath saws in and out as I halt, resting my gloved hands on my hips.
George’s dark eyes take everything in. Sadness and sympathy dwell in those eyes of his, but he does his best. “Nine Inch Nails?” he asks. “Really, Banana?”
