Let Me Live

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I level him with a patient look. "Your mom would never let you go to your Aunt Sarah's, they hate each other." He looks dubious, unconvinced by my words.

"Perrie!" An excited shriek echoes through the library and I duck instinctively, hiding from a potential verbal warning from the librarian. We have a strained relationship and if she caught me being anything but quiet, there'd be hell to pay.

Twisting in my chair, I spot Madison and Danny walking up to us, textbooks and papers in their arms. I hadn't seen either of them around in the last few weeks, I've been busy with a certain Swim Captain.

Just the thought of Levi brings butterflies to my stomach. We haven't seen each other since that drunken morning he and his friends found Nova and me walking home from the bar at five in the morning as they were waking up for a run.

Madison bends down and presses a kiss to my cheek. "Hi," she whispers, her smile so wide. Danny pinches my shoulder and I smack his stomach in return. Madison unceremoniously dumps her textbooks next to Jonah, who glares up at her for disrupting him.

I welcome the disruption, studying is not for me.

"What's up?" I ask them. shoving some papers out of the way to clear up some table space. Danny takes a seat next to Jonah.

Danny nods toward me. "Party at my place on Saturday, I expect you both to be there, we're playing Lights Out," he explains. The last party I went to at his place was the one just after I had thrown up on Levi's sneakers. Good times.

"Yeah I'm ther—," my words are cut off by Jonah.

"We probably won't be able to make it, we've got a big test on Monday and god knows this girl won't study if I don't force her," he says, not looking up from his work.

I pout, resting my chin on my hands, giving Jonah the puppy-dog facial expression. "Come on Jonah, we can study the whole of Sunday," I whine softly, fluttering my eyelashes.

He watches me with a blank expression before sighing loudly. "Nova made me promise—."

"Nova? Come on, you know how dramatic she is with studying. I'll study on Sunday, promise. You can even take my phone away from me if you want. Lock me away in my bedroom with nothing but paper and my textbooks, please Jonah, they're playing Lights Out." I blink up at him with wide eyes. "Please."

Danny leans back in his chair. "We can't have our reigning Lights Out Champion not show up, Jojo." Jonah glares at Danny for the nickname.

I gently smack the table. "See, you have to be there Jojo."

He scrutinizes my face for a moment. Danny sits next to him with a grin, watching the back and forth. Madison is absorbed in her phone. Jonah blinks reluctance showing on his face. My nose scrunches in victory. "Fine." He flips a few pages of his textbook. "But you get to tell Nova, I'm not getting punched in the dick again by her."

"Deal," I promise, wiggling in my seat excitedly.

Madison, finally joining in the conversation, perks up in her seat. "Are you going to bring Levi?" she asks animatedly, making a point of placing her phone on the table, attention solely on me.

My eyebrows furrow at the mention of his name. Word travels fast in this place. "I wasn't planning on it," I answer slowly, shrugging.

"You totally should, I'm sure he'd have a lot of fun," she replies, nodding her head enthusiastically.

Jonah raises a mischievous eyebrow in her direction. "If you have a crush on her boyfriend Mads, just tell her," he says playfully.

"Not my boyfriend," I automatically defend. Have Levi and myself been texting all week? Yeah, kind of. We haven't had a chance to catch up face-to-face because of his training sessions since his races start next Wednesday. His private and school coach has been pushing extra practice where they can.