Something Else Entirely

27 - I don't think it really hit me until last night.

If I thought it was pointless being at school before, it became ridiculously so the next day when literally all I could think of was Logan, when I would see her again and what I would say to her when I did.

Sitting through six hours of my dumbass classmates pissing around, wasting time and doing nothing when they actually had work they needed to complete before they were able to graduate in a few weeks was torturous.

I got yelled at about five times for being caught checking my phone, hoping by some miracle that Logan had got my number and messaged me. Or even that Byron had messaged me on her behalf to pass on a message for me to call her. Or even simply to question what was going on between us, hoping he had picked up on the unmissable vibes and was going to bring it up so I didn't have to tell him I liked his cousin myself.

But I didn't hear from either of them.

I didn't hear from Byron until lunch when he was texting me as I sat with some friends out on the school oval. Byron's texts consisted of him just finding out he hadn't been selected again for the Seniors side in the Grand Final this weekend, meaning his season was now over. His U18s side had lost last weekend so they had no more games, and the poor guy was devastated. His only consolation was that he was now free to come to my game this weekend as I actually had been selected, despite missing quite a few games while away, including all our previous finals except the first one. I felt guilty that I would be playing and he wouldn't, knowing how much it would have meant to him.

I felt even more guilty when I found out he wasn't playing and would be coming to my game, because my first thought was that I hoped he would bring Logan with him.

"You look gleeful, Weasle, especially for having your ass kicked recently by the looks of it. Where'd you get the shiner?"

Cole fucking Thompson. How this piece of shit has made it through to the end of our last year of high school is beyond me. That half-baked loser is about as clued in as a raw potato.

"Can you not just drop it, Cole? How old are you? Jesus," I retorted, returning to my phone to reply to Byron's text.

"Old enough to give you a matching one on the other side if you don't watch yourself," Cole sneered, looming over me and rubbing his jaw menacingly. His equally stupid friends were sniggering behind him excitedly, clearly hoping for a fight they're just not going to get from me.

"Look, I'm not playing your games, Cole. Not today, not ever. So, fuck off, give it a rest, and leave me the hell alone," I said definitively, returning to my phone and conversation with my mates, ignoring Cole's huffing reply of "fucking dickhead" as he walked away with his cronies.

This was one of the times when I wished I had better friends at this school. Most of my friendships in this hellhole were tainted by the reputation I had previously held before I pulled my head in and moved in with Dad. I had a few who I'd consider mates, but that was mostly just because we were in the same classes. The guys I was friends with before I got my shit together had all dropped out years ago, getting too hooked on drugs, thrown in juvie for a while for something dumb, or just didn't care enough to continue attending school. And my best friends in Ryder, Jasper, Kirra, Hadley, and I guess now Byron, too, all went to different schools; all except Hadley, who finished last year and was now studying social work at university, just like Sadie had.

I didn't really trust myself staying outside with Cole still lingering nearby, my track record of late showing a couple of serious errors in judgment. So I excused myself from my group, claiming to need to take a piss before the next period started, which I did actually do . . . on why way to find Tanner in his staffroom.