Count on Me (6 page)

“Maybe I should try it with her.”

Even though I know he’s joking, I can feel my blood boiling the minute he says it. There’s no way in hell I’m letting him anywhere near her after all of the things he’s done. I might have been a part of it before but that’s done now. No one is going to hurt her again, not on my watch.

“You even so much as think of pulling something on her, I will end you. Fact.”

I don’t wait around for a response. As the final bell rings, I take off for the door. If I want to make things right then it has to start now. I need to talk to my first period teacher and get the okay to be let out early.

I have somewhere I need to be at 11:15 and this time; nothing or no one is going to stop me from making sure it happens.

Not even Isabelle herself.

Chapter Seven

Belle

There isn’t a whole lot that I like about school. It’s no real secret that the only reason I’m even here at all is because of my mom. If
she didn’t think it would be good for me, going through this the way I am, then I would be happier learning at home. She can’t afford that and even if she could, she already has to deal with me enough, I can’t imagine adding another six hours to it.

Even a mom needs a break from her kid every once in awhile.

For all of the things that I hate about school though, this is definitely not one of them.

As soon as I enter the class after my altercation with Kayden,
I’m not in the mood to do much but pull out a book and get lost in it for awhile. Anything that will take my mind off the way he seems to make me go haywire every time I’m around him.

So it’s like Christmas for me
when Ms. Taylor tells us that today is free writing day. Considering how hard it is for me to talk, this is definitely something I enjoy. It makes those notebooks my mom bought me useful, which until now, other than in my afternoon classes they just haven’t been.

The only
problem is, the assignment she gives us isn’t the type of thing I’m very good at. I have to talk to someone or at least talk to them in a letter. It should be easy considering I don’t actually have to open my mouth to do it, but trust me, it’s not. Writing to someone, whether you know their name or not, is not as easy as writing a story is. I don’t like talking about myself at all, so I have a feeling that what she wants from us, I’m just not going to be able to do.

When she said fre
e writing, I kind of hoped we could write stories. You know, ones where the girl, no matter how strange or different she is, always gets the guy in the end. The ones that no matter how similar some of the experiences might be to what you’re going through, it’s still obvious that its fiction so you don’t feel bothered at all. Sadly though, I don’t get my wish.

I do the assignment and of course I give it in the way I’m expected to, but I don’t think I’ll get a very good grade on it.

Free writing, even when I hate what I have to write, does make my day easier. It’s this kind of happy go lucky thinking I’m filled with as I make my way from the class. It’s only when I see whose leaning up against the lockers, with the same smile from earlier plastered across his face, that whatever happiness I was beginning to feel starts to fade.

What’
s he doing here? What does he want with me now?

It had taken almost the entire class to get his voice out of my head and just when I think that it’s gone and I’ve escaped him, here he is, reminding me that no matter where I go, especi
ally here in school, I will never truly escape him.

When is he going to learn that
whatever it is he wants from me, he’s just not going to get? With the amount of girls I’ve overheard talking about what they want to do to him, he’s got no shortage of people to give him the attention he obviously craves, so why is he here trying to talk to me?

“You ready for lunch?”

Excuse me—what?

He can’t be serious right? There had been a
part of me yesterday that was excited at the idea of him standing outside of my class like this. It even made me stick around waiting until I almost missed my chance 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 stairs and there was this second before I turned to Ms. Taylor, that I felt a sick feeling in my stomach, something I couldn’t place. It wasn’t because she walked away from me though. No, this was something different and I didn’t like it.

“Kayden, I need to speak with you.”

Of course she does. S
he knew, just like Isabelle that I screwed her around by not showing up yesterday. I have no doubt I’m about to hear how disappointed she is.

I don’t need this now. All I
wanted to do was meet her and take her to lunch. Prove to her that I wasn’t just gonna give up and walk away even though it’s what she wants. I want to show her that the way she is doesn’t scare me. I didn’t sign up for a reprimand from a teacher.

“Do we really have to do this now, Ms. Taylor? I wanted to take Isabelle to lunch since I didn’t make it yesterday.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie, but not the entire truth either. I actually want to get as far away from here as I can right now because no matter what I do, I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. That I should have chased after her instead of leaving her alone. It’s made even worse by the fact that I know Dillon saw us this morning. There’s no telling what he’ll do if I’m not there to stop it.

“This will only take a minute of your time and then you’re free to catch up with her if you like.”

Doing as she said, I make my way into the classroom and while she follows after me I take in my surroundings. I’d been in here yesterday but didn’t really take the time to check out the class. Now that I’m getting the chance though, I can see that it’s not all that different then my classes. There were a lot less seats, but other than that, everything looks the same.

“It’s not
all that different is it?” she asks as she takes a seat behind her desk, motioning at the same time for me to take one of the now empty seats across from her.

“No.”

“Kayden, the reason I wanted to talk to you, it’s about Isabelle.” She says her face all business, matching the serious tone of her voice easily. “There’s something I think you should see.”

Well, this isn’t the way I expected it to go at all. When she said she wanted to talk to me, I assumed she would drag me in here and let me know, in no uncertain terms, what she thought of the stunt I pulled yesterday. Not to mention what she assumed I was probably pulling now. The last thing I expected was that she would want to show me something.

“Show me what, Ms. Taylor?”

I watch as she opens her desk drawer and pulls out a piece of paper that I can see has writing on it
, but I can’t make out what. She passes it across the desk to me and as I reach out to take it, she speaks again.

“I gave the class an assignment today. I thought after everything that happened yesterday, she would enjoy it. I’m not entirely sure she was expecting it to be what it was, but with Isabelle, it’s hard to honestly tell if she enjoys it or not.”

“What was the assignment?” I ask, knowing that I have the answer to the question in my hands, but wanting to hear it from her.

“I wanted them to write a letter to someone in the future. Sort of like a time capsule assignment. I’m sure your teachers have done the same thing over the years in different ways. Anyway, writing is something Isabelle enjoys, so I thought this would be good for her.”

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I have no doubt she’s handing me Isabelle’s paper. The one that she wrote to the person in the future and holding it now feels wrong. It’s like in some way I’m invading her privacy even being this close to it, let alone actually reading it.

“Why do you want to show it to me?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure I know the answer to that myself. You just seem conflicted when it comes to Isabelle and I think that reading what she wrote, given that it is to someone in the future, might help.”

Holy shit. Is it really that noticeable to everyone, the effect this girl is having on me? I thought it was bad with Dillon and the others catching on to it, but now I’m sitting here with a teacher, being told she can see it too. What the hell have I gotten myself into?

“I’m not sure I feel right reading this…” I answer hesitantly.

“Well we agree on that Kayden. I can tell you that what she wrote is more personal than what the other students did and I felt like I was invading something private, but I have a feeling that you need to read it, even if you don’t feel right about it.”

I have no idea what to say, so I just nod in response.

“Take it with you, but please be careful with it. I do not want it getting into the wrong hands. When you’re finished you can bring it back to me. I’m here until four thirty tutoring.”

Yeah, I don’t want this getting into the wrong hands either and by wrong hands I think of Dillon and Tim. Even though I don’t know what she wrote, I can only imagine the way the guys would use this against her if it ever got out. She’s already a laughing stock; it doesn’t need to be made worse.

Warning has been heard loud and clear. This is for my eyes only.

“Before you go, can I ask you for one more favor?”

“Yeah, of course, Ms. T. Anything.”

“Whatever the reason is for you paying her this attention now, be sure of what you’re doing before you do it, Kayden. That girl, despite being one of the strongest students I have, is also fragile and very trusting. The last thing I want to see happen is for her to get hurt.”

I can hear in her words that my reputation precedes me. It’s no secret the way I’ve been over the last few years and I’m sure all of the teachers are aware of just what an asshole I am. It’s no surprise she’s warning me off.

Blowing off this warning would have been my response before. In fact, it’s not the first one I’ve had about certain people I’ve tortured over the last three years. I’m not going to do that this time though, because despite the teacher’s concerns, this time, we’re on the same page.