The Unloved (3 page)

CHAPTER SIX

JULIE

There was only one more class left; the day was almost over. For most of my peers this thought sprung to life glimmers of excitement in their eyes because school was the worst part of their day. For me, it was a distraction, a diversion from real life, an escape from the horrors of my home life. A bittersweet evil.

With my eyes turned toward my feet and my books clutched tightly against my chest, I glided through the halls unseen and unnoticed—exactly the way I liked to be—as I headed to my final class.

“Julie, wait up!” I heard Tiffany yelling from somewhere behind me. I paused and turned just in time to see her push her way through a little group of underclassmen girls. “
Excuse you
,” she muttered all snobby like and I cracked a smile. If I had half of her I-don’t-give-a-shit-what-you-think-of-me attitude my life would be a whole lot easier. At least I thought it would.

“Hey,” I said when she finally caught up to me.

“Where are you headed to? I’ve got math last.”

“Science,” I answered as we began walking again.

Her head flew back and she sighed dramatically. “Oh thank God, we’re going the same way! I have
so
got to tell you something.”

I shifted my books and looked at her instead of my shoes. “Okay.”

“Have you seen Sean today?” she asked and I shook my head no.

Sean Booker had been Tiffany’s boyfriend over the summer. They’d broken up about two weeks before school started because she’d caught him cheating with Caitlin Hess, a girl that he worked with at Wendy’s. After they’d broken up, he and Caitlin had started dating officially and I was sure Tiffany was about to inform me of either: A, some juicy gossip, or B, some drama.

“Well, I just spent all of last period talking with Casey, Caitlin’s best friend, about him and Caitlin. Apparently he had been screwing around with her behind my back for a lot longer than I realized.”

“Why do you say that?”

Tiffany stopped walking for a second and shifted to face me. She waited a few dramatic heartbeats before finally answering. “Because rumor has it, he got her pregnant!”

“Nu-uh! Oh my God, are you sure?” I was shocked. I knew that things like this happened. Even in our little town we weren’t immune. It was just an odd feeling to know that someone I knew, someone who was my age, was about to have a baby. “What is she going to do? What are
they
going to do?” I couldn’t imagine being seventeen and pregnant.

“I’m positive. Casey was there when she took the test. And who cares what they’re going to do; Sean was a jerk.” Tiffany shrugged her shoulders and pasted this indifferent look on her face. “I hope their happy raising that baby off welfare and love, because they aren’t going to get much more than that. Especially not from
Sean’s parents
.” There was a sick sense of satisfaction that twisted her lips into the hint of a smile, but I saw right through it. Tiffany was pissed by this news and maybe even a slight bit hurt by it.

I bit the inside of my lip and silently hoped for her childish crush on Luke to consume her mind like every other crush she’d ever had. At least then she wouldn’t think about Caitlin and Sean anymore, which meant that Caitlin would only have to deal with being pregnant in high school and everything that went with that and not a vindictive, scorned ex of Sean’s, too. Because that was what Tiffany would quickly turn out to be, I knew her well enough to know that much.

“This is me. I’ll catch ya later.” She smiled. “Oh, you still want a ride home after school?”

I nodded. “Please?” It was so embarrassing being a senior and still having to ride the bus because you had no car.

“Sure thing,” she called over her shoulder as she disappeared into the math building.

I started walking again, my eyes back to my shoes. I was more comfortable that way. I didn’t know what people thought of me with my hair always pulled back into a tight ponytail and my baggy sweaters and hooded jackets swallowing my body even in the middle of summer, but I could imagine. And in my imagination the things that they thought were never good.

“Jules!” an unfamiliar voice called from behind me. My stomach knotted and my heart began to beat wildly in my chest as I readied myself for some stupid jerk to make another since-your-mom-is-a-stripper-you-must-know-how-to-work-a-guy’s-family-jewels-just-right crack at me.

I kept walking, feeling my insides tremble. I
so
did not want to deal with this crap again this year. When would the guys my age freaking grow up? When would they realize they weren’t funny?

“Jules, wait!” he called again, whoever he was.

I stopped and spun around, ready to face this jerk who was obviously not going to let his sick little bit of amusement for the afternoon walk away so easily.

“What? What type of lame joke are you going to make about me and my name, or better yet about my mother and her occupation, because I can guarantee you that whatever it is you’re about to say I’ve heard it before. God, when are you losers ever going to grow the hell up?” I snapped, unable to stop myself, even when I realized who it was that had been pursuing me—muscle guy from the hallway this morning, the one with the hazel eyes I’d known from someplace but couldn’t remember where.

“Whoa,” he said, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Take it easy, I’m not going to say anything about your mom or your name—it’s me, Jules. Nick.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

NICK

Once the anger deflated from her big green eyes, they left mine in favor of the concrete we both stood on. I didn’t know what I expected her to say, if anything, but I was sure the silence building between us wasn’t something I’d expected either.

“Nick?” she whispered my name like it felt familiar on her lips but distant. Forgotten.

Her eyes rose to my face and I could feel them trailing across my features. Obviously she was comparing the older me standing in front of her now to the fifteen-year-old boy me that I was before I left her. The scrawny, shorter me with the longer hair and bruised face. Her eyebrows drew together as an emotion I couldn’t name swelled within her eyes.

“Nick Owen, remember me?” I asked only because I couldn’t stand the silence anymore. She had to remember me. How could she forget? It wasn’t like I was some stud-muffin or anything, no, but we shared stuff with each other that we didn’t dare share with others. We knew each other. We shared secrets and escaped them together in the white shed with that stupid, dented green door.

Her eyes finally met mine, but only for a brief moment. “I remember you.”

Relief filled me and began to steady the hammering of my heart. “So, how have you been?” It was a lame question, but I wanted to talk to her. I liked hearing her voice. It had been way too damn long.

“Nobody calls me Jules anymore,” she said. “Not unless they’re making some sick joke about my mom being a stripper.”

I blinked, taken aback by the sharp tone to her voice. I’d always called her Jules. “Okay,” I said somewhat deflated.

She walked away without saying another word. I stood there like a dumbass, wondering what had just happened. It didn’t take long before anger began to scold my insides. While I’d been gone things for Jules must have gotten worse. The thought of assholes making fun of the nickname I’d given her, tainting it with crude humor, burned me.

I watched her small frame, head turned downward as though she were watching her feet as she walked, slip through the door to the science building before she disappeared out of my sight for good. She seemed so broken now, so hollowed out. The familiar need to fix things for her that had plagued me since we were kids hit me like a ton of bricks. The desire to see her smile—even if I had to do something stupid like when I was little—bit at my insides and I promised myself I would at least see Julie Porter smile at some point today if it was the last thing I did.

CHAPTER EIGHT

JULIE

I couldn’t believe that he was here. I couldn’t believe he’d finally come back after all this time. I couldn’t believe that I’d just been so harsh to him and left him standing there like that. I tapped the eraser end of my pencil against my bottom lip while the teacher droned on about what we’d be learning in her class this semester.
Where had all those muscles come from?
The thought popped in my head, and I felt my cheeks flush as I fought to quickly push it and the mental image that followed from my mind.

Regardless of how flustered the sight of Nick’s muscles made me feel, something else still stirred inside my chest directed toward him. Fuzzy warmth I hadn’t felt in what felt like forever—the warmth that came with feeling safe and secure. That was what Nick had always done for me, even when we were little.

I remembered the summer between eighth grade and our freshman year, the summer Nick left me. The day had been hot, mom had been sleeping, Cole had been at a friend’s house, and Logan had been out some place with a group of his friends. I’d decided I was going to change into my bathing suit and lay out in the sun for a while since mom’s newest pervert of a boyfriend wasn’t around. About ten minutes after I’d began enjoying myself, a car pulled into the driveway. It was Logan with one of his friends. I’d immediately grabbed up the towel I’d been lying on at the edge of the driveway, where I was hidden from view of the neighbors by an overgrown hedge we later ripped out, and wrapped it tightly around myself for coverage. Logan had run inside to get something, leaving his friend waiting in the car. Tyler had been his name.

I’d started to go inside but Logan pushed past me in a huge hurry and I’d stepped backward onto a scrap piece of broken glass I’d already thought to pick up after I was finished sunbathing, cutting my heel. Tyler had gotten out of his car and jogged over to where I’d stood cradling my bleeding heel, trying to get the jagged piece of glass out. I’d never forget how his eyes trailed along my exposed skin or the fear that had filled my stomach in the moment when his hand snaked its way around my waist in an effort to steady me. He was smoking a cigarette. He exhaled and gave me a sly smile before he said, “Here let me help. You shouldn’t have moved so quickly to cover up that hot little body of yours and this wouldn’t have happened, you know?”

Tyler then released my waist and bent down in front of me to retrieve the glass from my foot with one little tug. His hand pressed against my upper thigh as he appeared to be assessing the cut, but then his hand slid upward. I jumped backward, causing myself to yelp in pain as I put pressure on the gash in my foot.

Tyler smirked at me and said, “So you’re in to playing hard to get, huh? I can handle that.”

In the next instant Nick had been right there, coming up behind him with a pissed off look gleaming in his eyes. I’d later wondered if he’d been watching me sunbathing and I just hadn’t noticed.

Nick had taken a swing at the back of Tyler’s head and connected. Something I still think surprised the heck out of him, as well as Tyler and me. Tyler had rebounded quickly though and beat Nick pretty badly before Logan came rushing out of the house with stacks of CDs in his hands and pulled him off.

It was just a few days after that Nick left. I’d wondered if his mother had seen the mess Tyler had made of Nick’s face and thought it was his dad who’d gotten hold of him again, like it was the last straw for her or something and that was why she’d sent him away. I’d beat myself up for that too many nights to count before I realized that if that was the case, then maybe I’d helped save him by creating the entire situation unintentionally.

Obviously not for long though, because now he was back.

But there was a difference now; Nick looked like he could take care of himself. I smiled slightly again at the image of his muscles and those all-consuming hazel eyes thickly framed by dark lashes.

CHAPTER NINE

NICK

I walked home after school. It wasn’t as far as I’d remembered and plus, I could use the time to think. Jules had been on my mind since I’d spoken to her. I couldn’t get over how angry she’d seemed when she’d looked at me. It was haunting. I wondered all afternoon what had been going on in her head when we stood there talking, or better yet, staring at one another.

Jules’ house was coming up quickly and I walked a little slower than I should while I stared at the windows on both floors, wondering if she was home yet. My thoughts were answered seconds later when a little silver car pulled into the driveway, cutting off my thoughts. Jules jumped out the passenger side and stood with the door open.

“Thanks for the ride,” she said to the person inside and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was a boyfriend.

My curiosity got the best of me and I slowed my walk to an almost standstill, waiting to find out.

“Not a problem,” a girl answered back and relief flooded my mind. “So, are we still on for tomorrow? You’re not going to chicken out on me or anything, right?” the girl asked in a teasing tone.