Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,114

Kristine is missing, and Shane is out there somewhere.

Haunted but not scared. I’m tired of fear. It’s just made me do stupid things that have cost me a lot.

“Well, I figured you and I have this awkward and pretty fucked up tradition with hospitals and it was my turn to ambush you, unexpectedly,” he says, a small smile on his gorgeous face.

Yeah, I remember the time I just up and left school to visit him when he was in hospital after his near miss with death.

“You ditched school?”

“Fuck yeah,” he says nonchalantly. “Besides, a little birdy whispered in my ear that you wanted to flee with no one the wiser. You know, just slipping under the radar as you always do.”

I stare at him, only now seeing that his bravado is all masking his tentative, almost uncertain shifty vibes. That’s so unlike him.

Liam Fitzgerald is nothing but a sexy, chiseled god with a blazing inferno of confidence and magnetic charm. But right now, he just looks… strange.

“Anyway, hello,” he mumbles, running a hand through his already messy hair. He stands just inside the door, looking at me with pretty sad eyes.

“Hello?” I mock. “After that entrance, that’s all you have to say?”

“It’s a start.”

“A start to…?”

“To talk to you, cupcake.”

Cupcake. When was the last time I heard him call me that?

I’m silent, not knowing what to say as I look at him.

It’s awkward, the energy between us so different than anything we’ve gone through before.

First it was lust—I mean, I was ready to give up my V-card to him at a party where Julian decided to ‘teach me’ a lesson—and then second, it was hate, then the blunt, cutthroat banter that turned into friendship… until a few weeks ago when he decided to side with his brother, it was back to hate.

Like I said, whiplash.

Now, we’re just looking at each other from opposite ends of the hospital room, only this time, I’m the one who was just wearing a hospital gown and he’s dressed in faded black distressed jeans, a black shirt and a long black hooded cardigan cloak and black Balenciaga sneakers.

He looks like a punk rock sex machine, all dark and broody. And sad.

That’s not Liam. Don’t get it twisted, Liam Fitzgerald is an expressive asshole who says anything he wants to say, with no regard whatsoever for anyone’s feelings or the repercussions, but even with all that, he wasn’t like his brother.

Liam is the life of the party kind of guy, the one who makes you smile when you don’t want to, but right now, he looks as beaten up as an abandoned puppy and just as devastated.

“Are you all right?” I whisper, my heart tugging as I look at him.

“Am I all right?” he scoffs, looking at me as if bewildered. “Are you fucking serious right now?” I shrug, not knowing what else to say. “Look at you. Look at where we are, and you ask me if I’m all right? Jesus, I should be the one asking you how you are feeling? How’s your head? What about that gunshot injury? Does it hurt? Did they take the bullet out?”

“It’s—” I start but he cuts me off, now pacing in front of the door.

“And why the fuck were you jumping in front of a fucking gun for, Mia? My brother that bastard could have taken that shit and if he died well, shit happens, either way, it wouldn’t be you!”

“I…”

“How could you be so reckless with your life like that?”

“Liam, listen—”

“And what happened to all the bandages you were wrapped in?”

“The bandages?”

“Yeah, Nicky allowed me to sit with you for ten minutes each day when you were in a coma.”

“She did?”

“Well, I had to grovel so hard and basically gave her a PowerPoint presentation that I wasn’t my brother and that I care for you and you’re like my best friend, so you’d appreciate me sitting with you a bit.”

“So, basically you lied. Typical,” I mutter. “But it’s not your fault. You did warn me that you and your brother were recovering liars. I guess some habits never die.”

He shifts on his feet, then he looks away from me. “I didn’t lie.”

I turn away, wanting to keep my hands busy. “You must’ve otherwise, why would you tell her you and I are best friends, Liam?”

I feel his silence as the tension between us expands.

“Mia…”

“You come in here, berating me about jumping in front of guns and everything I did, but you were the one who told