Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (73)

“You know you don’t have to come with me,” Keely pointed out.

Joe shrugs, shoving the keys of his car into his pocket. “Its fine, I figured you’d want someone to go with you after the last time.”

Sending him a withering look, she kept her voice aloof as she replied, “I would have been fine.”

Apparently not perturbed in the slightest by her words that happened to be on the rather haughty side, he just sent her an even look before pushing out of the car. Outside he stretched slowly, his muscles flexing beneath the bright sunlight, but she didn’t even notice.

Despite her proud bridging on snooty words from before, Keely didn’t make a move to get out of the car.

No, she just sat immobile in the passenger’s seat, her eyes glued onto high school in front of her. Not since that last disastrous visit had she dared to come back to her old high school, yet here she was, sitting like a coward wishing she could be as far away from here as possible. Yeah, how good of an idea was this?

It was just as bad as before, that panic that was seizing up inside of her. Although now it was different, she wasn’t as scared of falling back into that rut as before, she had her voice and it wouldn’t be easy to fall back now. However, what she was scared of was that open hostility she knew was waiting for her inside. Not only from Haley, but from the rest of the school as well, the only friendly faces she was sure of were Tony and Sadie.

While she wasn’t expecting nor hoping that the school would welcome her back with open arms – firstly because it was the last thing she was wanting – just because she was famous now, she hadn’t been expecting the opposite. They did care that she’d done some things to make her on the front page of gossip magazines, though they didn’t know she didn’t want to be there. However, they didn’t care in a good way; she hadn’t forgotten the cold looks the last time she’d visited.

Oh, why was she doing this again?

Suddenly the door beside her was yanked open, making Keely jolt out of her thoughts as Joe looked down expectantly at her. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he pointed out, “I’ll take you home.”

For a moment she just stared up at him, her eyes searching his face and couldn’t help what Seth would have been doing at this moment. He wouldn’t have gotten out of the car, he would be sitting beside her with those golden hazel eyes locked on her so tightly that she could imagine she was the only person in the world with him, and he’d tell her that she had to do this, that she couldn’t run away from things.

Grimacing, Keely shook her head, removing all thoughts of Seth from her head. “No, I have to do this, I promised Mr Summers,” she returned.

With a sigh and an almost foreboding expression, Joe simply held out his hand for her.

Sending him the first grateful smile of the day, Keely took the hand he offered, allowing him to pull her out of the chair. Trying to translate her thanks for the support without speaking since she had the irony of not being able to put her emotions into words with these people, she simply squeezed his hand tightly.

However he didn’t seem to understand the point she was trying to make, because Joseph didn’t respond in any other way than slamming the door of the car behind her.

Gritting her teeth to stop her from sighing, she dropped his hand turning around to the entrance of the school.

In what was becoming to seem like an everyday occurrence since she’d come home to this little town, she felt like the air was knocked out of her body, the breath escaping through her lips as she froze in spot.