Page 17 of Leave Me Broken
“Sure.”
A red car whips around before squealing their tires as they exit the parking lot. Hero curses under his breath and that’s when I realize that was his friends. What assholes! I don’t care how into them Janelle is, she is not fucking any guy that abandons their friend in the cold. Especially when they didn’t even consider his allergies. Don’t they care their friend looks so skinny the wind could probably blow him away? There’s shadows under his eyes that look like no matter the amount of sleep he gets will never go away. What about how his clothes hang from his too-slim body like rags? They were dressed in name brands from head to toe.
“Why do you hang out with them?” I blurt out of nowhere, surprising even myself.
“We grew up together.”
Somehow, that’s hard to believe. Not just because the obvious; they have money, Hero doesn’t but because he seems so . . . kind. Reserved maybe is a better word and they . . . well, they are the opposite. “Really?”
That earns me a weak smirk. “Hard to believe because I’m poor and they’re not?”
He’s joking—I think, but I don’t laugh. “No, they are dicks, and you seem like a decent enough guy.”
Hero lets out what I assume is a laugh but it’s raspy and now that I remember Kyle, or Ryan, one of them said he was outside smoking. “Decent, eh?”
“How do you afford smokes?” More word vomit.
He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a single cigarette and a silver flip lighter. Like one of the fancy ones. He flips the lid, cups a hand around it, and lights the cigarette. His hand is bright red, and I wish I had gloves to give him. Once the cigarette is lit, he sucks in a long drag, tips his head back, and blows it back into the sky. “I steal them.”
“There are better things you could steal. Smoking is bad for you, you know?” Payson, shut up, no one cares if it’s bad for you.
He cracks a smile, biting down on the cig but not enough to bite through it. “Is it?”
“You already know that, I assume, but yeah. It is.” I take a few steps back and throw my thumb over my shoulder. “Do you need a ride?”
“Nah.”
“Okay, well. Don’t forget your food.” I point to the ground next to his feet. “See ya, Hero.”
“Later, Streaks.”
Janelle whips around as soon as my ass touches Monica’s back seat. “So . . . What was that all about?”
I expected it so I just laugh and shrug. “Just being nice.”
Janelle and Monica swap faces. “Payson Murphy isn’t ever ‘just being nice.’”
My gasp is loud and I slap a hand to my chest. “Ow! That’s not true. I’m totally nice.”
“No, you’re nice to girls, adults—relationships that will never turn romantic—but you’re not ever ‘nice’ to boys. I’ve seen you turn down guy after guy for years,” Janelle says.
Monica adds, “I’ve never even seen you look the way of a hot-blooded male besides Coach Pearson.”
I’m thinking of something to defend myself, but I can’t . . . because they’re right. Sure, guys have asked me out, asked for my number, etc., but I’ve never agreed. I used to make up excuses, then I started saying no and ever since guys learned I will not say yes, they stopped talking to me altogether. Proves that guys only talk to girls if they think they have a chance in their pants, if you ask me, but I digress. All but one guy. “What about Clay? I talk to him every day in class.”
I can basically feel them rolling their eyes. “You and Clay are the most platonic thing I’ve ever laid eyes on. You could strip naked for that boy and he wouldn’t even blink an eye.” Funny, I said the same to Ash and he didn’t believe me.
“Okay, it’s the same for Hero, then.”
Apparently, something I said is funny because they are laughing like hyenas in the front seat as Monica drives down the street. I drop my chin to my hand and huff. “Whatever. I was just being nice.”
Janelle is still laughing when she reaches back and taps my leg, in what is meant to be comforting, I think. “Maybe to you it’s the same as Clay because you got a lifelong hard-on for our coach, but if you were to ask Hero to go to the bathroom with you for sexy time—he wouldn’t say no, Pay.”
I don’t know how I feel about what she said, so I push it from my head and change the subject. “Ash told me he loves me, and I haven’t said it back.”
6
Ash