Hawk stared at the empty seat in the row in front of him, unable to focus on anything else.

Ms. Hardinge had made a new seating arrangement and moved Hawk from the back row closer to the center. She had also mixed the pairs so that now, instead of Sky, Hawk was seated next to some random, chubby chick who was so shy and awkward that her whole, round face turned bright red when she saw who she was supposed to sit with. Any other day that would have been kind of cute, and Hawk would have started teasing that girl mercilessly, but today he just wasn't feeling it. His whole mind was occupied by Sky.

The classroom was full already, and the empty seat in front of Hawk - well, it had to be hers. She was the only one missing. She was skipping school again, and even if Moon had told Hawk the other day that Sky had texted her back, telling she was fine, Hawk knew for sure that couldn't be true.

He knew there was no way in Hell Sky was fine after the things he had yelled at her face that night. He knew she must be devastated, and he couldn't shake the worry that ate his guts like a beast with razor-blade teeth.

He turned his eyes away from the empty seat, into his hands that lay on the table, trying to force his mind off Sky, to think about anything else than the look in her eyes when he had crushed her.

His knuckles were bruised and scraped, they looked worse than ever. When Mom had seen them she had started asking questions again, and again Hawk had yelled at her to leave him in peace, had shouted to her that it was none of her business, that she knew nothing, that he didn't want to talk. Yet another secret, another thing he could never tell Mom. He didn't want anyone tending to these wounds - but he wasn't ashamed of them either. They were scars, earned in a war, and he wore them with pride.

He had no regrets when it came to these bruises.

First, there had been Rickenberger, then the fight in the arcade (the snapping sound of a breaking bone suddenly lured its way into Hawk's stomach and he had to clench his jaw to keep the sickening feelings under control), but the last battle—

He clenched and unclenched his fists a couple of times, observing the movement of muscle and tendon under the skin that had turned purple and blue.

Who would have thought these hands, his once so delicate hands, with long fingers and soft skin, could be such weapons? That they could so easily break bone, draw blood?

He had wanted to kill Brucks. He had almost done it too.

When he had been finished with that asshole, he hadn't given a rat's ass if the boy lived or died. The burning, justified rage had turned him into something not quite human, and he had kept on hitting and punching Bruck's face for a long time after he had stopped resisting.

His pathetic pleas for mercy had only fueled Hawk's anger. How many times had Eli begged like that when Brucks had been the one doing the punching? And when had Brucks ever given him mercy?

Never. So Hawk had given none for him.

When he had stood up and spat on Brucks' face, the boy had laid limp on the floor, a big, ugly lump of flesh and blood, his features an unrecognizable red mess. Only then had Hawk known that nothing remained of the asshole who had bullied him throughout his life.

So in the end, it didn't matter if Brucks lived or died - Hawk had killed him in all the ways that mattered.

He'd been so lost in his thoughts, that he hadn't even noticed that someone had knocked on the door, that Ms. Hardinge had opened it, and now, walking into the English classroom was—

Sky!

His heart skipped a couple of beats at the sight of her. She was wearing a short skirt, knee-high socks paired with sneakers, a cute top that hugged her curves. She looked absolutely breathtaking.

He couldn't take his eyes off her.

Gone were the loose sweats or jeans and simple hoodies she'd been wearing since she'd been injured in the school fight. This outfit was something she could have worn the first day he had ever seen her, and it brought back all kinds of thoughts and memories. They hit Hawk in the gut like a wrecking ball. His hands sliding under that skirt, his tongue running along the neckline of that top, her fingers gripping the back of his neck when he fucked her and she breathed into his ear I love you, Eli, I love you so much—!

She didn't even look at him, but he stared at her, open-mouthed, like a total ass, when she walked the short distance to her new seat, laid her backpack on the floor, and took a seat.

Some kids were laughing and snickering at her, but she paid them no attention, and Hawk barely heard it. His ears were ringing.

Sky's skirt rose a bit when she sat down, revealing her thigh almost all the way up. The familiar scent of her hair reached Hawk's nostrils, the sweet, intoxicating mix of vanilla and roses. Hawk felt like his chest would explode. His heart would break through his breastbone, snapping the ribs, the blood of his insides would splatter onto the floor and he would die here in this classroom because he had been the biggest idiot in the world.

Sky had been his. And he had ruined it.

He looked down, trying to swallow off the tightness in his throat. What the fuck did it matter what Sky was wearing anyways? She had always been beautiful in his eyes, even in the hospital bed wearing the robe and the slippers and the bandage around her head—-

Besides - she was probably wearing those clothes just to make him feel like shit. Maybe she wanted to show him that she truly didn't give a fuck about what he had said, to show him what he was missing now that he had lost her.

Whatever. Hawk clenched his fists on the table and kept his eyes on them. He couldn't keep staring at Sky's ass and her legs, at her beautifully arranged hair, for the rest of the class, could he? No matter how fucking heartbroken he was, that would eventually lead to him having a huge boner under this table, and he desperately wanted to avoid that.

That nerdy girl sitting next to him would no doubt notice and freak out, which was the fucking last thing he needed.

But it didn't take more than a minute, and his eyes were back on Sky. She was like a magnet that pulled his attention towards her, she was the sun and he was a comet, traveling through the cold loneliness of space, attracted to her gravity.

Sky - unaware of the torment Hawk was going through - ran a hand through her hair, let out a sigh, and bent to take something from her backpack. A notebook, her copy of Macbeth, her pink Hello Kitty pencil case. Her hair fell to her shoulder, it was incredibly red, like burning flames in the bright sunlight that entered the classroom through the windows. Hawk couldn't stop looking at her, the movements of her hands, her slender fingers, when she picked up something that looked like a small coin purse and opened it under the table. Then she slid something from it into her fingers, and only seconds later Hawk saw how she slipped that something into her mouth. His throat went tight when he realized what he had seen. A small, white tablet. Sky swallowed, then took a gulp of her water bottle and returned both the bottle and the coin purse to her backpack.

What the fuck—?

Hawk couldn't stop staring.

Maybe— maybe it's for a headache? Moon said she'd had migraines—

But he couldn't stop the sickening fear that was forming in his gut. It felt like he had swallowed a cold stone, it weighed heavily on his chest and he could barely draw in a breath.

She wouldn't do drugs in school, right? Because that's just nuts.

He forced his eyes off her, leaned his head into his hands. Ms. Hardinge was going on and on about Macbeth, but Hawk didn't hear a thing.

Is it really so nuts, though? After what I said to her—

He had known Sky would do something bad to herself, so he really shouldn't have been surprised, but still—

He felt like he was slowly dying, suffocating to death.

There was no way to take back the things he had said, no way to undo the damage he had caused. She would never forgive him, so there was no point in apologizing. But by God, he wouldn't just sit by silently if she was really doing drugs.

He would do whatever it took, to make her stop.

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