Blind Ambition | ✓

18 | All Too Well

"All actions have consequences. Nobody is invincible, as much as some people like to think they are. So in the end, maybe it's a good thing someone shot him, even if it was for a misguided reason."

It was like a vacuum had sucked all of the air and all of the noise out of the room. Dr. Fontanella took that as her cue to move the discussion along. She prattled on about Nick Carraway's reliance as a narrator, but Kaia and I were still stuck in limbo - not quite dead, but definitely not living. Everything else was background noise.

"So we're back to this?" I twisted my body in my chair to face her again and gestured between us. "Arguing in class?"

She scoffed. "Funny that you think that ever stopped. It's the basis of our relationship, is it not? I can't help it that you're combative."

I clenched my jaw and placed my palms down on her desk and leaned over the back of my chair. As much as I couldn't stand the idea of her being so angry with me, that didn't erase a history of heated class debates and extra credit mongering to try and outscore each other on every test. I lowered my voice.

"All I know is when Valedictorian evaluations start, you better not start shit with me."

She chuckled, her words threaded with some combination of amusement and annoyance. "So it's just yours to take then, is it?"

I swallowed hard. "It is."

"Then I guess it's also yours to lose."

✗✗✗

I'd never been so relieved to get out of that god damn library in my entire four years at New Livingston. Nicole Repetti was a sophomore cheerleader who used her clout from her time on a national cheer squad to work her way onto the varsity team. She then used her clout as a varsity cheerleader to edge herself into a tutoring session with me for her trigonometry class. I barely had enough time for one tutoring session a week, and it didn't take long for me to realize the work was right on Nicole's worksheet, but the answers were wrong. It took every exhausted ounce of self-restraint I had not to scream in the middle of the library. She just giggled, flipped her blonde ponytail, and batted her eyelashes at me every time I worked through an equation with her. An equation she clearly already knew the answer to.

By the time 4:30 came around, I hauled ass out of there like the devil was coming to drag me to hell. Or worse, Cornell.

The early October air bit at my cheeks as I stepped outside and shrugged my varsity jacket on. Even though it was still early enough, night began to creep in through the clouds - the most telltale sign of the death of warm weather. I hated it, because there was always something about winter that made me feel more trapped. The cold and the dark were two things that unrelentingly took and didn't give back.

The girls and boys soccer practices were still going on, but other than a few stragglers from other study groups or clubs, the senior parking lot had mostly cleared out. Everyone except for Kaia, who sat on the weathered stone steps connecting the doors to the concrete sidewalk of the parking lot. Her coral-colored North Face backpack sat beside her, and she clutched her field hockey bag on her lap. A sudden gust of wind whipped her long, dark hair in every direction.

I sucked in all the air my lungs would allow before approaching her with caution, like the way you'd approach a lioness. Except, who in their right mind would actually approach a lioness? My dumb ass, I guess.

"Hey." I kept my voice soft.

"God, this day just keeps getting better and better," she muttered before patting at her blotchy cheeks. She sighed. "What are you doing here?"