Lahat ng Kabanata ng Over My Dead Body, Hockey Alpha.: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 19

EVA.I stopped walking the moment I heard my name come out of his mouth, because it didn't sound the way I expected it to.It wasn't sharp or demanding or loaded with his usual attitude, it was just quiet, almost soft, like the word had slipped out before he could catch it.Something about that made me stay right where I was before I turned around.I knew he would call me back.I had walked away half expecting it, but actually hearing it happen did something to my chest that I wasn't ready for.I stood there for one second before I finally turned and looked at him.Graham was walking toward me with his jaw tight and his eyes doing something unfamiliar. Something that looked almost unsettled, like watching me leave was bothering him more than he wanted to admit.When he stopped in front of me and reached up to tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear, slow and quiet, I had to remind myself to breathe at a normal pace because this version of him was way more dangerous than the arrogant on

EVA.The car was completely silent.Not the comfortable kind of silence where nobody needs to say anything.It was the heavy, suffocating kind where every single breath felt too loud and every passing second made the next word harder to wait for.I sat in the passenger seat with my hands folded in my lap and my eyes fixed on the road ahead, watching the street disappear.My heart sat somewhere between my stomach and my throat was refusing to calm down as my aunt's hands were tight on the steering wheel.I had grown up knowing that expression well enough to stay quiet and let her get there on her own terms.She sighed heavily, and the sound of it filled the whole car."I'm sorry, auntie," I said quietly. "I really am."She did not answer immediately, but kept her eyes on the road.Then she said, "You promised me, Eva. Before you left, you sat in my house and looked me in the face and promised me that you were going to be different this time. That whatever happened before was behind you

EVA."Logan, what are you doing here?" I hissed down through the window, looking left and right like my aunt and uncle were going to find me mid-conversation with a boy climbing through my window.He just grinned at me like he had done absolutely nothing wrong.I helped him up anyway, grabbing his arm as he pulled himself through the window and landed on the floor of my room with a soft thud.I immediately crossed to the door and locked it before turning back to look at him properly.He was standing in the middle of my room looking around like he was taking in a museum exhibit, completely unbothered, and smiling at everything."Logan," I said quietly but firmly. "This is not grade eight. You cannot just climb through my window like nothing has changed. Do you understand how risky this is right now?"He looked at me and shrugged easily. "Hey, chill. Your family knows me, so relax, you're safe."I rubbed my forehead with both hands and took a slow breath, because he genuinely had no ide

EVA.I was still looking at Logan, when the door handle rattled again.My heart jumped straight into my throat."I think my aunt is home," I whispered, staring at the door like it was personally betraying me.Logan frowned. "I thought they went to the hospital. Why would they be back alreadyI had no answer for that, and the footsteps in the hallway meant I had no time to figure one out either, so I turned to him with wide eyes and barely any voice left."Why are you still sitting there? Get under the bed right now." I whispered.He blinked. "Under the....""Go, Logan." I queried.He moved fast, dropping to the floor, and I grabbed his shoes, his belt, and everything that looked like it belonged to someone other than me and shoved it all under with him.I straightened the bedsheet, ran my fingers through my hair, and opened the door just as my aunt raised her hand to knock again.She walked in without looking at me too closely, which was the first lucky thing that had happened to me a

"Are you okay?" Jody asked, falling into step beside me as we walked toward the party arena."Yeah," I said, smiling at her. "Just a little nervous."It was a lie, and every step I took beside her made it harder to maintain, because Graham's words had been living in my head since the moment he climbed back out of my window.And walking next to Jody right now while knowing what I knew, or what I thought I knew, was one of the hardest things I had done all week.I kept telling myself to slow down and think clearly, because what if Graham had made all of it up just to get me on his side and hand him the captain position back? He was more than capable of that.But then again, the video had been real, the voices had been real, and Jody's face in that footage had been relaxed and comfortable in a way that did not look like someone who had accidentally ended up in the wrong place.Jody grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "Hey. Look at me. You have got this, Eva. Whatever happens in there, you h