Chapter 5 Little Mouse

EIGHT MONTHS AGO

Tobias

The roar of my motorcycle swallowed the quiet streets as I tore through Montmore faster than I should have, the engine vibrating beneath me while cold wind whipped against my jacket and slipped beneath my helmet.

Riding had always been the one thing that cleared my head. It didn’t matter how bad practice had been, how many lectures I’d sat through, or what my father had said before I left the house that morning.

A few miles on the road was usually enough to leave everything else behind.

Today, it wasn’t working. Every twist of the throttle only seemed to make one sentence echo louder inside my head. For thirty seconds… not everyone in this hallway was looking at you.

My grip tightened around the handlebars. Ridiculous. She was ridiculous.

A quiet little nobody who suddenly thought she’d figured me out because she’d managed to string together a few clever sentences in front of an audience. She didn’t know the first thing about me.

She didn’t know why people looked at me, why they listened when I spoke, or why none of it had mattered to me in years.

So why the hell couldn’t I stop hearing her voice? Why did those words keep replaying with the same infuriating calm she’d used when she said them?

I accelerated without realizing it, only noticing how fast I was going when my driveway appeared sooner than expected.

The bike rolled to a stop with a sharp crunch of gravel beneath the tires. I killed the engine, pulled off my helmet and let it rest on the fuel tank, but I didn’t move. I just sat there, staring straight ahead at nothing.

The silence that followed felt unnaturally loud after the constant growl of the engine.

Somewhere inside the house, the front door opened. “Tobias?” my mother called. “Is that you?”

I heard her footsteps, then the screen door creak open. “Dinner will be ready soon.”

Normally I would have walked inside without a second thought. Instead, I stayed exactly where I was, elbows resting on the handlebars, the keys still dangling from the ignition.

I’d never sat on a parked motorcycle doing absolutely nothing before. The realization irritated me almost as much as the reason for it.

With a frustrated exhale, I shut my eyes for a brief moment, but it made no difference. Behind them, all I saw was Lisa Darien looking me dead in the eye, not with fear or embarrassment, but with something far worse. Pity.

The next afternoon should have knocked the whole thing out of my system. Football always did. The second Coach Luke’ whistle cut across the field, everything else usually disappeared beneath instinct, discipline and muscle memory.

The world became routes, tackles, timing and the familiar weight of the ball in my hands. It had been that way for as long as I could remember.

Today, it wasn’t.

The first pass thrown in my direction slipped straight through my hands before bouncing across the turf.

Coach’s whistle shrieked almost immediately. “Thomas!” I barely heard him. My eyes stayed fixed on the football lying a few yards away as though it belonged to someone else.

“Wake up!” he barked. “That’s the easiest catch you’ll get all day.”

A few of the guys laughed, more surprised than amused. I never dropped passes. Not easy ones. Not difficult ones.

Justin tossed the ball back toward me with a puzzled look. “You good?”

“I’m fine.” The answer came out sharper than I’d intended. We lined up again. Another play. Another whistle. This time I caught the ball, but I ran the wrong route, forcing Mason to change direction at the last second before Coach blew the whistle again, louder than before.

“Thomas! Where the hell is your head today?” I didn’t have an answer because I was asking myself the exact same question.

Every time the play stopped, every time the noise around me faded for even a second, I saw her again.

Lisa Darien standing in the middle of the hallway, looking straight at me without flinching. She hadn’t looked frightened. She hadn’t looked embarrassed. She hadn’t even looked angry.

She’d looked… sorry for me. The thought made my jaw tighten until it almost hurt. I’d have preferred it if she’d slapped me across the face in front of everyone. I’d have preferred she’d screamed, cried or thrown something at me. Anything would have been easier to dismiss than pity.

By the end of practice I’d lost count of how many times Coach had called my name, and judging by the look he gave me as he dismissed us, he was already wondering whether I’d left my brain somewhere in the locker room before training had started.

The hot water pounding against my shoulders did nothing to wash away the irritation simmering beneath my skin. By the time I changed back into my uniform and stepped into the hallway, most of the building had already emptied, leaving behind scattered groups of students making their way toward the parking lot.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and started toward the front entrance without really paying attention to where I was going.

Then I saw her. Lisa was walking toward the library with a book hugged lightly against her chest, her backpack hanging from one shoulder, completely absorbed in whatever was on the page she’d opened while walking.

She came closer. Closer still. I waited for the familiar hesitation, for her eyes to lift nervously, for that instinctive tightening in her shoulders whenever she noticed me. It never came.

She walked right past me without so much as a glance, as though I were just another student standing in the hallway. That should have been the end of it. It should have been exactly what I’d wanted all along.

Instead, something uncomfortable hardened low in my chest. Why wasn’t she looking at me? Yesterday she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off me. Today it was as if I’d stopped existing altogether. The thought irritated me far more than it had any right to.

Before I could stop myself, my feet moved.

Not because I wanted to talk to her.

I told myself it was because I refused to let her think she’d won. Because I wanted to remind her that one lucky speech in a crowded hallway didn’t suddenly make us equals.

Whatever the reason was, it sounded convincing enough in my head that I didn’t question why I was walking in the same direction she’d gone.

The corridor had thinned out after practice. Most students were already outside waiting for rides or heading toward the parking lot, leaving the building unusually quiet.

My footsteps echoed softly against the polished floor as I rounded the corner she’d disappeared around only moments earlier.

She was still there but not alone.

She’d stopped just beyond the rear entrance where the afternoon sunlight spilled across the concrete steps, turning the glass doors into mirrors. Standing in front of her was a guy I recognized after a second.

Daniel.

The history nerd.

The one from this morning.

He was saying something I couldn’t hear, one hand moving animatedly while Lisa listened with that same quiet smile I’d caught on her face earlier. The one that had somehow managed to get under my skin before first period.

She laughed. Just enough for her shoulders to lift.

Daniel laughed too.

Then, without thinking much about it, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t passionate.

It looked… familiar and comfortable. Like something they’d done before.

Lisa hugged him back without hesitation.

When they pulled apart, Daniel reached up, brushed a loose strand of auburn hair away from her face and kissed her gently on the forehead.

The gesture lasted barely a second.

Yet something about the sight rubbed me the wrong way, and I couldn’t have explained why if someone had asked.

I frowned.

What the hell…

They were just standing there, talking and smiling, Nothing about it should have mattered.

But it did. It fucking did and I was pissed about it.

Daniel said something else that made her laugh again before waving goodbye and jogging toward the student parking lot. Lisa watched him leave for a moment, adjusted the strap of her backpack, then turned and started walking toward the bus stop.

Only then did I realize I’d been standing perfectly still the entire time.

My helmet was still dangling from my fingers.

My motorcycle was on the opposite side of campus.

And somehow I’d walked all the way here…

Just to watch her leave.

The thought irritated me enough that I let out a quiet scoff.

“Unbelievable.”

I turned sharply on my heel and headed back the way I’d come, trying to convince myself I’d only wasted five minutes.

The lie would’ve been easier to believe…

If I hadn’t memorized the look on her face when she smiled at someone else.

I didn’t want her smiling at anyone else.

And sooner or later… I was going to do something about it.