What are you thinking about?

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Aubry's POV

So far, the new year had been pretty crappy. I spent New Year's Eve in a crappy rundown bar on the west side of town. It was one that I knew my father wouldn't be at. I went there so I could be warm and rang in the new year with a bunch of drunk assholes.

Aiden had invited me to some party with him and the guys... Even Bri went with them. I, however, didn't. I couldn't. I know it sounds shallow, but I didn't think that I could show up to a cool New Year's party with the coolest guy in school in sweat pants and a t-shirt. It would have been a dead ass give away for my predicament. Plus, everyone would have been staring.

Instead, I let them go without me and made up an excuse, like usual. Besides, everyone probably had much more fun without me than they would have had with me. Also, I didn't think that I could handle seeing Aiden make-out with some chick at midnight... just the thought made my insides hurt. That was how I knew that I really did need to distance myself from him. I was too attached.

Then I spent New Year's Day just wandering around town because a the guys were too hungover for training. I didn't have anything else to do, so I just walked around town and tried to find places that were opened to keep warm in.

On the bright side, though, I got my stitches out a few days after Christmas! My fingers were stiff at first, but I quickly got myself back to normal and was able to fight better.

Due to the new, harder training regimen that I put myself on, my ribs were killing me. It hurt to just breathe and do little movements at most instances. I was getting good at hiding and ignoring the pain, though. I was good at simply just working through it.

My harder training over the almost two weeks proved to pay off because I did end up winning my fights that Saturday by knockouts. My pay at The underground was steadily climbing, and Trey was becoming even more impressed and intrigued by me. Although, I could do without the latter... he was just plain creepy.

That brought me all the way to the first day back to school... That day, I showed up at the gym earlier than normal, it had to be like three-ish in the morning. The temperature was hovering right above freezing and my body was shaking violently.

The bus station had apparently adopted a strict 'no homeless' policy. Although, it really did depend on which of the employees were there if they enforced it or not. Some nights I got lucky and was allowed to sleep in their vacant chairs, while other nights... I was out of luck. I had nowhere to really go except to the gym, so that was where I went. I was going to go back to the small park that I'd stayed at a few times before to sleep a bit in the tunnel, but it seemed like such a long walk and I was already so tired. So instead, I just ended up at the gym. We were going back to regular hours anyways... I would have had to have been there at five-thirty anyways. I just showed up early, it was a bit of a habit of mine.

It was at least a couple of hours before Aiden showed up. It was an extremely long and excruciating couple of hours... My body was shaking like crazy. With every shake, my ribs ached more and more. He made his way up to the door from the parking lot, and visibly sped up as soon as he saw me huddled up by the door.

"Jesus Christ Aubry! How long have you been here?!" He asked while trying to get the key in the door. Moments later, the door opened but my body didn't want to move, it was shaking too violently.

"Dammit!" He huffed and bent down to help me stand up. After a split second he had me, painfully but effectively, up on my feet. He let me lean against him as he closed the door firmly. I was shaking and chattering too much to form any coherent words with my mouth.

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