Lucas ✔️

Thirty-Eight

It was the first time I had felt truly awkward walking alongside Lucas. We walked slow, mainly because my knees were shaky and my body aching. It didn't help that the ghouls were clinging to me more than ever, and I cursed Lucas out under my breath because not one had landed on him.

"Are you okay?" Lucas asked me, looking down at me with slightly worried eyes.

I rolled mine at him and looked away, curling my arms around me tighter as I snapped, "don't act like you care."

He looked taken aback for a moment but said nothing more as we headed back across the grass towards the bathroom block. I wasn't sure why I was so mad at Lucas - I just was.

I could tell from the cheers that the game had ended and, thanks to everyone chanting Cole's name, I could tell that we won. We made it back to what felt like a different world, a place I didn't exactly belong in. A place where I wasn't nearly choked to death against a tree. A place where I hadn't seen Lucas, gentle and soft as he seemed, crush a man's hand into a pile of skin and bones on the ground.

I glanced to my left and eyed him for a moment. He looked calm and peaceful. Each step was graceful as usual, made with no sound. I felt out of place, as though I were intruding into Lucas' world which had no room for me. His world was full of odd happenings, gorgeous beings, and oddly evil actions; mine was simply a world full of depression, teenage drama, and a lot of accidents. His eyes flickered to mine and I looked away, not wanting to meet them or see their colour and doubt everything I knew was fact in this world. Eyes don't change colour – they just don't. But his did.

I trudged through the moving crowd, pushing my way against the current of people flowing our direction towards the car park. I hoped Janie was waiting for me.

"Oh," I muttered, patting my pocket and frowning.

"What?" Lucas asked quickly, his voice deep and airy like I was used to.

"I lost my phone." I frowned as I tried to remember where I had it last.

As usual, my memory was absolute garbage, and I shrugged, resigning myself to the fact it was probably long gone. Not that there was anything important on it anymore, anyway. Not like I needed to contact Dad and tell him where I was. The thought of Dad made me furrow my eyebrows and blink back tears. Now was not the time to be questioning his suicide.

"Lilith!" Janie's high-pitched yell could be heard from the bleachers and she was waving at me, jumping up and down crazily.

I waved back slightly awkwardly before stopping and looking at my hand like I was insane. Here I was, nearly killed in the trees just past the oval, yet I thought now was a decent time to fucking wave 'hello'? I dropped my hand with a scowl, looking at Lucas for a brief moment as he raised an eyebrow at me.

For some reason, all the feelings I had been nurturing for Lucas were twisting into something dark and dangerous. I no longer wanted to kiss Lucas, now I wanted to kill him. I wondered briefly if the number of ghouls clinging to me had something to do with this new darkness I felt crawling along my heart, but the thought was shattered when Janie's arms wrapped around my neck.

"Where have you been? I've been calling you non-stop!" Janie cried, tears running down her face as she sobbed into my shoulder.

I patted her gently, moving us out of the moving crowd and off to the side. Usually, I would have felt touched by her worry, but right now I hated her. She was worried for me? Calling me? Now I'm here, fucking comforting her? I was the one who nearly died. Me, not Janie. Why the fuck was she crying?

I couldn't help the dark feelings bubbling inside, and it made me think about how she had reacted when the knife had fallen on me at the café. Janie was a fucking attention-whore who made everything about her! How had I not realised this before? I had been best friends with her for years and-