Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,60

Julian grits out, but I have a feeling he’s barely holding on, trying his hardest not to blow up in anger right now.

And I’m right there with him, if not far gone with my own misery. Silence stretches between us. I can hear him breath and I’m sure he can hear me cry or struggle through feeling like this.

“Listen baby, it’s all going to be all right,” he whispers after a while, the softness of his voice making me feel everything in that moment.

“No, it’s not!” I cry. “It’s never going to be all right because she’s gone, Julian.”

The admission falls from my lips with an agony that would break a nation’s back. The truth is, I’ve been free falling to hell and now I’m self-harming and the truth is, something tells me that I’m probably going to do it again, just to get some relief.

“Wait for me, Little Minx.”’

I want to tell him that I will, that I’m going to wait, but when I open my mouth to say the words nothing comes out.

“Wait for me.”

In that moment, I feel so small, so fragile and so broken, my insides feel so damn raw, all I can do is try to exist from one moment to the next, acute guilt existing along with me.

“She’s gone,” I whisper brokenly, my body trembling now.

“I know, baby,” he whispers right back. But I’m unable to tell him what happened. To confess what I did that night.

God, I just stood there. She needed me and I… I just stood there.

“Little Minx, I’m coming for you,” Julian whispers hotly, his voice now so damn low, I hang on to it, wishing so damn hard that he was here with me, holding me, but I know better than to trust him. I know better than to give him another chance to shatter me so when he says, “I’m coming, baby.” I don’t believe him.

14

“Where to all by yourself, little miss?” the cabbie questions when I get in, with my backpack and a heavy heart full of nothing but regrets.

“The airport, please,” I say, clearing my throat.

“Isn’t it a bit hot for that attire?” the old man questions. Unlike his whole Amazon essential polo shirt and the old navy carpenter pants I can see from here, and I’ll go so far to guess that he’s got the good ole sketchers nonslips on his feet—he’s even got one of those cabbie driver caps on his head—unlike his entire look, I’m dressed from head to toe in black.

I have on a new black hoodie I bought two days ago just downstairs of the hotel, along with black sweatpants and a black pair of Ultra Boost trainers. I probably look like I’m going to rob someone, or a ninja, but it’s been really dark out lately and I just wanted to blend along with it.

“I’m feeling cold,” I say as a way of explanation that I really don’t owe him. I look out at the darkening sky, my mind racing a hundred miles per second. I knew Julian was tracking me somehow so I left the phone I bought just in case it was the one that led him to find me—though I have no idea how he tracked that.

“Well, okay,” the cabbie says, and we drive away.

There’s a part of me that knows that I’m running away from Julian, running away from everything really, but there’s a bigger part of me that knows if I stay, there’s a good chance that everything will blow up in my face. Especially with Nancy’s funeral tomorrow, I just… I can’t stay.

So why the hell did you tell Julian that you believed him and now you’re running, bitch?

Urgh, I know what I said but seeing him is a whole other thing. I don’t think I have the emotional bandwidth for that right now so I’m taking the next flight out of here. There was something in Julian’s voice when I talked to him earlier that spooked me, made something in me break.

I didn’t like how that felt and I’m still scrambling for a way to shake it off me. Julian Fitzgerald had too much power over me and I hated that. I hated how I began to lean on him, how I fell for him and now according to Nicky, I can’t even be close to him because of dangers unknown.

This is all messed up.

In no time at all, we arrive at LAX with only thirty minutes left to check-in. I rush to