sakura
“Wait, Sakura. Slow down,” Callan shouted and started after me, hurrying down the hallway to catch up to me. “This is all a big misunderstanding. I don’t want to sleep with someone else. That’s not what I meant.”
I rushed down the hallway, desperately trying to hold myself together.
Dumb. Why am I so dumb?
He sprinted after me, grabbed my wrist, and yanked me back. “You have to fucking believe me. What you heard … it was taken out of context. I don’t want to fuck anybody else. I was trying to—”
After yanking myself out of his grip, I stormed down the hallway toward my next class. “Fuck you,” I growled.
I didn’t have time for this shit. I had been in the restroom, trying to gather enough confidence to go back into his room and apologize for the way I’d reacted last night. I knew he was just trying to protect me. Or at least, I’d thought he was. But what I had heard him talking to the principal about … I couldn’t believe it.
Did I mean that little to him? One little fight, and suddenly, he wanted to fuck someone else? Maybe he had been doing that this entire time that I had been with him. How many other innocent girls had he given detention to?
“Leave me alone,” I said between gritted teeth.
The bell rang through the hallways, and I cursed at myself. I was late. I was freaking late, and I was running away from the only thing that mattered to me. I had thought I mattered to him. But I had been nothing but a plaything to him.
A stupid, dumb plaything.
He continued to run after me, but I grasped the door handle to my next class and flung it open. I didn’t care what people thought about me. Not now. Not after I had my heart ripped out and stomped on right in front of me. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fucking fair.
How could I be so stupid? What the hell is wrong with me?
“Sakura, you’re here,” my teacher said with a smile.
I hurried to my seat and slid into it, dropping my backpack to the ground. I yanked out my computer and opened it up, my lips pursed. When the door swung open again, Callan scanned the room wildly for me.
My teacher glanced over at him, eyes widening. “Mr. Avery, what are you doing here?”
He stood in the doorway, staring at me. “I need to talk to Sakura.”
“Sakura, why don’t you go out into the hallway with Mr. Avery?” my teacher offered.
I ignored her.
I straight-up freaking ignored her. I didn’t want to go anywhere with him, especially after what I’d just heard him say. I didn’t want him touching me, trying to convince me to stay with him, to ignore everything he had just said.
Callan had been my first everything, and I meant nothing to him.
Nothing.
“Sakura,” my teacher said a little bit louder.
All the students looked over at me, patiently waiting for me to leave with the only man in this entire world that I now officially hated with my entire heart.
I peered up at her and swallowed hard, firmly shaking my head. “No.”
Murmurs erupted through the classroom. Everyone stared at me in shock. I’d never once talked back to a teacher. I was at the top of the class, the sweetest girl Redwood Academy had ever known. This wasn’t like me. But I didn’t care anymore.
I couldn’t care anymore.
I hated Callan. Tears welled up in my eyes. I really fucking hated him.
I wish I hated him.
Truth was that I refused to walk out into that hallway with him because I feared that I would let him lie straight to my face. I feared that I’d forgive him. I feared that I would wrap my arms around him and tell him that it was okay, that it was fine, that I didn’t mind what he had said.
But I fucking minded. I wanted to hurt whoever the fuck thought they could sleep with him too. Callan had been—was—mine. And if he thought that something like that would slip by me without a second thought … he had another thing coming.
My heart clenched. My chest was tight. I wanted to scream at him, cry, ask him what the fuck was wrong with me. Why wasn’t I enough? Why did he have to go fuck another girl? Was that what our relationship was all along?
“Excuse me?” my teacher asked, clearing her throat and straightening her shoulders.
I glared at my desk, tears threatening to spill over. I didn’t even want to look at him, but I forced myself to show him that I wasn’t going to be played with any longer.
I dragged my gaze to his. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He probably had followed me in here and thought that I wouldn’t put up a fight in front of everyone else. But he was wrong. He wasn’t going to push me around anymore. Nobody was. I wanted this year to end. I wanted to be out of Redwood for good. I hated it here.
I had no friends, and he had taken advantage of that.
He stared at me with wide eyes that were filled with what looked to be tears. I glared at him for a few moments, feeling nothing but anger, rage, hate.
How could he do this to me? How could he do this to me and then look at me like he was innocent?
“Sakura,” my teacher scolded, “you will either go into the hall with him or to the principal’s office by yourself. You choo—”
“No,” Callan said, stiffening at her words. “It’s fine. I’ll talk to her later.”
Before my teacher could say another word, Callan walked out of the room and left. When the door shut behind him, I looked back down at my computer and frowned, holding back the tears. The cries.
He had been using me the entire time.
The entire time, and I wasn’t good enough for him.