3rd book the Devil May Care Series
Remember Lucas King? The suicidal kid who can barely stand to get up in the morning because he's just that tired of life? Lucas has struggled with depression since he was just a kid, always feeling like he was neve...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I've been here for twenty minutes, eyeing one of the girls bathroom stalls. Why? Because there's been a girl crying in there the whole time. My legs swing back and forth as I sit on the bathroom sink, contemplating what I should do. This usually wouldn't be a problem for me, I wasn't an empathetic person and I can tell you right now without a care in the world that I don't give a shit about anyone's feelings but still I hesitate.
Something in my chest clenches at her distress and it feels wrong to just leave her here so I wait. I sit here, resting the back of my head against the mirror before pulling out my phone. I find a message from Lucas asking about where I'm at, that message was from twenty minutes ago. My eyes skim over the time—we had fifteen minutes before school was over, I glance over at the stall once more.
I send Lucas a quick message, letting him know i'm in the bathroom before heading into the stall beside hers and climbing over the toilet to peek my head over her stall. I find a skinny and short female with fiery red hair that I share first period with pacing back and forth with tears streaming down her face, "Hi." I blurt like an idiot.
She startles, her head snapping up in my direction. I watch as her brows furrow in confusion, "Um...hi?" Her jump between me and the door, "How long have you been up there?" She wonders, nose scrunching up like a kitten.
"Not that long." I purse my lips.
She stares back at me blankly, "What if I was peeing?"
"Do you usually cry your eyes out while peeing?" I tilt my head, clicking my tongue. "What's your name?" I ask.
Her fingers rub at her eyes, exhausted. "I'm Nava. Who're you?"
"I'm Astraea," I send her a smile, "I've been listening to you cry for thirty minutes now." My phone buzzes into the pocket of my black hoodie amd I fix the hoodie on my head before resting my chin above my crossed arms. "Are you done now?"
"Are you always this forward with people you don't know?" I think about it for a second and realize how many times I've befriended a stranger— a bad habit I should probably stop. I watch as Nava exits the stall, her eyes lingering on the reflection of herself on the mirror. I follow, jumping off the toilet as her eye glaze over with something close to hatred from just looking at herself.
My stomach twists and I open my mouth before I can even stop myself, "You're really pretty." And it wasn't a lie, she was beautiful and her style was a lot different than most. I liked that. I liked people who stood out because they weren't afraid to be themselves.
Nava's face softens, "Thank you." She murmurs, "You're really pretty too." Her eyes flicker over to the scar on my face and if she thought it was ugly, she didn't show it.
I watch as she glance at herself once more, it's a long one and I bite the skin on my lips. "Are you okay?" I finally ask and as much as I wanted to leave, my feet wouldn't let me. She reminded me of Kaila, not in a romantic type of way but in a way that made you want to protect her from the world. I thought it was Eris who needed protecting from the world but Nava's sad and tired eyes stuck it's claws in you and made it hard to leave.
