جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 10

You know that feeling of staring longingly at something inches away from touching or reaching out to…. but can’t get..?That’s how I felt watching the cheerleading team practice. You might wonder why I couldn’t join them or what was holding me back….well a lot.For starters I obviously didn’t fit in or so I was told, I sighed as Alison’s shrill voice pierced the air as she yelled unfiltered insults to one of the girls who fell behind in step.Alison was the queen bee of my school. She was the dream of most boys here. Not short, stunningly gorgeous, long sexy legs, and perfect shape and figure but she was mean as a stray cat.She was one of the reasons I couldn’t join the cheerleading team. Alison had been a thorn in my side constantly reminding me of how quaint my background was compared to hers, she was the daughter of the most wealthy, renowned and dangerous billionaire in the city and she was someone you obviously didn’t want to mess withYeah, now she made sure to make my own life

ThreeThe days after I received the news of my father's death went by in a blur. I’d stopped counting how many times I woke up and forgot, only to remember and feel the loss all over again.Two weeks. That's how long it took for the reality of our situation to crash down on us completely.Mom had sat me down at the kitchen table one night. The same table where Dad used to do crossword puzzles. Where he'd help me with math problems even though he was terrible at them. Where he'd kiss the top of my head every morning before work.I felt like smashing it right now."We need to talk, baby." Her voice was raspy; she must have been crying again. She was always crying now, or pretending not to cry, which was somehow worse."Okay." I braced myself."The funeral costs..." She swallowed hard. "And the medical bills from before, the mortgage. Your father's life insurance—it's not enough. It's not nearly enough.""How much are we talking?"When she told me the number, my stomach dropped to the f

Jace's POVWe lost the fucking game.Now, Coach was screaming at me, the team captain who’d royally fucked up, and I stood there with my helmet under my arm and took every word with my mouth shut because what the fuck was I going to say.That I couldn’t see the field, because every time I’d lined up to throw, I kept seeing her face instead, those stupid brown eyes looking at me from across the hallway.I hit the gym showers, not the locker room, because I was still too full of shame and disappointment over losing that I couldn’t yet face my team and give them the encouragement and morale they needed.But despite the hot water rushing over my head, I still couldn’t focus.The thing that was killing me, the thing I couldn’t get my head around, was that it made no fucking sense.She was nothing. She was a plain, stubborn, broke, socially invisible nerd who had no business being within ten feet of my life, and yet there I was, throwing interceptions, losing games, unable to concentrate be

SEVEN"What?"I never expected it, he’d been such a quiet kid so far, asking very few questions, and now all of a sudden he was asking me that?!Martin blinked at me, tilted his head in confusion, then he repeated himself again like he'd been perfectly clear the first time."I asked you a question. I said are you my brother's girlfriend?""No," I said. "Absolutely not."He considered it for a while, biting his lip and thinking hard. "Are you sure?""Very.""Because there's always different girls here and he tells me they're his girlfriends." A pause. "You could be one and not know.""I think I'd know.""He has a lot.""I'm sure he does." I didn't bother hiding my disgust at those words.There's no way I’d ever go out with a guy like that, he’d cured me of my crush completely. Sure I was plain and on the bigger side and I wasn’t exactly his type, and everyone would probably say I would be lucky to be with a boy as great and handsome and popular as him…"But I'm not one of them. I'm her

NINEMartin had fallen asleep mid-sentence.One moment he was telling me about the classification system he'd invented for his train collection that was colour-coded by era, which I chose not to point out was exactly the kind of thing I did with curriculum notes at two in the morning, and the next his head was drooping toward the table. No warning. Just gone.I sat there for a moment watching him sleep, his cheek pressed against his forearm, with his model train, apparently his favourite one, still tucked under his elbow.He trusted me enough to fall asleep in front of me.I didn't know why that hit as hard as it did. I just sat with it for a second before I carefully gathered his papers, stacked them, capped his pen, and then walked him upstairs with one hand on his shoulder to keep him pointed in the right direction. He didn't wake up fully. Just shuffled alongside me on autopilot, climbed into his bed still mostly unconscious, and curled around his train as he'd probably done a t