The dance continued. Once I was inside, I was greeted by Ruth, who was eager to dance with me. I didn't have the heart to say no, not with her smiling so big. Apparently, I wasn't allowed to sulk.
Even as I glared down at her, she didn't budge, knowing that I was going to cave and give her whatever she wanted, "You owe me," I said, trying to save some face.
"Mm-hmm," Ruth nodded eagerly in agreement, though I'm pretty sure it was done to humor me. She put her hand in mine and I led her to the dance floor. Mostly because I didn't feel like having her drag me there.
How was I the leader of the squad? I was a sucker for all of the rest of my teammates and their whims. Oh well. Dancing with Ruth wasn't any trouble. She was energetic and... surprisingly good at it. Keeping up with her kind of helped to take my mind off of my kiboshed relationship.
And speaking of owing people...
"You owe me money, dick," I said, elbowing Eddie once Ruth and I drifted close enough to him and Cessily, who were chatting with other students.
"What?" Eddie hissed while Cessily tried not to laugh, "Dude, nothing happened to you!"
"Sorry for disappointing you, but that wasn't the bet," I said. In the meantime, Ruth had basically wrapped herself up in my arms, back pressed to me while she kept bopping to the music, "I told you how this was going to go. Five dollars, please."
Ruth put her hand out, palm up, waiting for money to be placed into it, "Pay Bellamy, yes." She said, never ceasing her movement.
I pointed to the middle of her hand for emphasis, "Pay me, yes."
Eddie looked around, finding no help from anyone else. Even Cessily seemed amused, "...I don't have five bucks on me right now," He said sheepishly.
Not a good enough response for Ruthie, "No. Get it, please."
"Yeah, get it," I said. By now I was bopping in time along with Ruth to the song playing, "I'm not gonna be nice enough to say 'pardon' or 'please'. Get my money, fool," We didn't welch on bets at Xavier's.
"Fine! I'll get it!" Eddie eventually exclaimed, throwing his hands up, "Way to profit off of your relationship going up in smoke, Sol."
I didn't want to hear that out of him. He was one of the ones who wanted me to perk up. Well, this was part of my coping mechanism – me taking shots at myself, "Think of it this way; the five dollars you give me will buy me some kind of crappy snack to make me feel better for being Pixie-less. Sans Pixie, as the French in France would say."
At that remark, Cessily frowned, walking over to put a hand on me, "I know what I said to you about it before, but I am sorry that you broke up. Pixie's a friend of mine too, and I did think you two were cute."
I spared a glance across the gym, where I could see Megan, spending her time at the dance with others the way I was. I could pick her out in a room in a heartbeat. Maybe one day soon my eye wouldn't be drawn to her so easily. Maybe soon enough it wouldn't hurt a bit when I did notice her.
Not tonight though.
XxX
After everything wrapped up, it was eerily quiet all across the school. Between midterms, Field Day, and Homecoming, everyone was exhausted. Salt of the earth man that I was, I felt was very considerate in how I crept through the dorms and across campus to get to my late night workout.
I was tired too, just not physically, which meant no sleep. It was getting harder and harder to drain myself of enough energy to go to sleep. Giving drugs to kids was probably frowned upon, but I had to talk to Dr. McCoy about letting up on that little taboo to give me something to let me rest.
I didn't want to be awake. Being awake in the dead of night with no one or nothing to occupy me meant that I had to think. There was nothing really important on my mind other than the pretty girl I'd let slip away.
'Stupid piece of shit,' The words rolled around in my mind as I leaned against a light pole, 'You could have kept her. You knew you could have, even without Laura telling you. And why didn't you? Pride? You could have sucked it up one time and done what you needed to do to win her back over. You could have compromised. You could have tried. Now what do you have?'
I grit my teeth and thought back angrily to get out of my head. But I was only raging at myself. No Quire. Not in my head. Not this time. That was all me; 100% the thoughts of Bellamy Marcher.
I had to take a few deep breaths and try to clear my head. If I was going to finally lose it, it wasn't going to be there and then. I was not going to allow my breaking point to be girl trouble. The first chance I got, I was going to have to... ugh... schedule a session with Dr. Garrison. And every fiber of my being wanted to punch myself in the face for suggesting that.
Before I could take out my (perhaps misplaced) frustrations on myself, I caught sight of a large shadow moving across the grass. Looking up at the moonlit night sky, I saw the unmistakable winged figure of Jay Guthrie.
...Okay? I thought I was the only person crazy enough to be awake at such an hour. And that was only because I had no choice. For a straight-laced, God-fearing kid like Jay to be doing anything of the sort was odd.
My curiosity was piqued, and my boredom had a target. But I couldn't do it alone. I needed backup.