Count On Me(72)

“Stupid girls.” He says before coming back and sliding his hand in mine again. “Let’s call Mommy. I wanna go home now.”



Kayden



There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

We won the game, I’ve talked to a total of three different scouts for various schools, I’m riding the biggest high of my life and she’s nowhere to be found. Not only that, but she hasn’t been here the entire time and I should know. I checked every single time I was brought in off the field.

No Isabelle. No Tristan.

I knew asking her to do this for me was huge and I sort of figured she might not make it the entire time considering that a football game can be overwhelming, but she didn’t even make it through half of it. It’s like I talked to her and she disappeared.

I saw the looks I got when I pulled her close to me earlier. I also saw the reaction when I placed my lips to hers. None of these idiots understand it, so they’re sitting there judging it. It’s like we’re some weird kind of reality show to these people and I can’t stand it. If I wasn’t trying to stay calm for her, I would have said something to every single one of them for the shit they were whispering and the looks they were throwing our way.

You never really think about what people go through until you’re thrown into it. I did a lot of things believing that the impact would be worth it when I picked on people, but I never gave much thought to how the actual person being picked on feels. I get it now. Hell, I see it because I’m getting it too.

People are way too ignorant and I should know because I was the same way. If I can learn to be different though, can’t they? Is change really that scary?

I have no idea what this means, her not being here, but I’m not gonna spend the night walking all over the field looking for her or waiting for her to come back and find me. No, I’m going to her and I’m gonna find out once and for all what made her run. If it’s because it was too much, I can handle that, but if something else happened then I need to know so I can deal with it.

If no one else is gonna stick up for this girl then I’m going to do it and I honestly don’t care what it means for me in the long term. I would rather be a total nobody at school, kicked completely off the team if it means I can change the way things have been here from day one. Something has to give and if they aren’t gonna do anything on their own, I’m gonna change it myself.

It’s only when I pull up in front of her house twenty minutes later that the doubt starts creeping in.

Am I the reason she left? Is being with me too hard for her and she’s finally realizing she can’t handle it?

I make my way to her door, watching my feet as I place one foot in front of the other, each one leading me one step closer to what’s waiting behind that door. Will she be the one to answer or will it be her mom? Will they be happy to see me or just want me to get as far away from her as possible?

Before I can even raise my hand to knock, the door slides open and the light from inside spills out into the darkness, bringing a shadow across me from the person inside.

As my eyes adjust to the lights, I see it’s Isabelle and the look on her face tells me everything I need to know. There are dried tear marks on her cheeks and the brightness I’d seen only a few hours before is completely wiped out. Her lips that for the past week have been frozen in a permanent raised position are mirroring her eyes as they’re completely straight and displaying no real emotion at all.

Seeing her this way makes my worst fears a reality.

“Belle…”

She shakes her head at me, something she hasn’t done in weeks and I swallow the lump in my throat. She’s shaking her head because she doesn’t want to talk to me. It hurts.

I watch as she moves away from the door and I wonder if I should follow her, but before I can move my foot in the direction she just disappeared into, she’s back and this time she’s got her phone with her. The problem with this is that I left my phone in the car, which means anything she says, I won’t get.

“My phone’s in the car. So whatever you wanna say, I won’t see.”

She slides her phone across to me and the minute our hands connect as I take it from her, she flinches and backs up. Whatever happened tonight while I was playing has done a lot more damage then I realized. It’s almost as if we’re right back where we were weeks ago. I don’t like it.

I need to find a way to fix it.

You need to go.

“I’m not going anywhere, Isabelle. Not until you tell me what’s going on.”

I hand the phone back out to her and she grabs it, but this time she positions her hands differently somehow because we don’t touch. She doesn’t have a clue of course, but not touching her is ripping me apart inside. I want to be able to touch her. I have never felt so lost in my life.