Cherish

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I groan and reach my arm out from under the covers to smack at my alarm clock on my bedside table. Once the incessant beeping stops, I slowly peel open my eyes and peek at the time. My eyes widen.

“Fuck!” I untangle myself from the covers and scramble to get ready. I’m so fucking late.

Shockingly, I manage to take a five minute shower, brush my hair and teeth and get dressed within fifteen minutes. My mom chuckles at me from her seat at the table while I search through the pantry for a breakfast bar.

“You slept in again, didn’t you?”

“Ugh. Yes, I did. I don’t see how I can sleep through my alarm like that.”

“You actually don’t. You wake up enough to hit snooze then you pass back out.”

I stop rummaging and stare at her. “I do not.”

She nods, taking a sip of her coffee. “I’ve seen you do it, Cherish.”

I frown as I think about that. Shaking my head, I groan when I can’t find the breakfast bars. “Are we out of cereal bars?”

“I think your sister had the last one before school yesterday. I’ll pick more up tonight,” mom promises.

I sigh and grab an apple out of the fruit bowl. “Whatever. I’ll take an apple. I don’t have time to sit down and eat.” I lean over to give my mom a quick kiss on the cheek. “Love you. I’ll see you tonight.”

“I love you too, honey. Happy birthday!” she yells after me, just barely getting the words out before the door slams shut behind me.

I cringe at the noise before hopping in my car. I pull out of the driveway and attempt to get to school as quickly as I can without speeding.

Okay, without speeding too much.

The bell rings the second I climb out of my car, and I groan. So close!

Oh well, there’s no sense in rushing now that I’m already late. I toss my keys into my backpack after locking the doors. I purse my lips as I make my way into the school. Walking into the office to sign in the receptionist shoots me a dirty look.

“Late again, Cherish,” she tsks. I do my best not to roll my eyes.

“Yeah, I know. I slept through my alarm.” I grab a pen and sign the annoying sign in sheet that I will probably sign at least twice more this week. As is my unfortunate habit. If being late were an Olympic sport, I’d have a shit load of gold medals.

“Again,” Ms. Johnson sneers.

“Yeah, add it to the other million times I’ve been late this year,” I snap, not interested in hearing her bitch about being late for an entire fifteen minutes like she’s prone to doing.

She narrows her eyes at me then hands me a pink slip of paper to give to the teacher, letting me know that I’m late–because, you know, me just walking in doesn’t already clue their asses in–and gives me a dismissive wave.

Resisting the urge to flip her off, I turn and my eye catches on three guys standing with their backs to me in the principal's office.

Ms. Johnson snaps her fingers at me, stopping me from trying to see who the new kids are that are coming in with only three months left in school. “Miss Marsh. Get to class.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m going. I’m going.”

* * *

The first half of the school day has been pretty uneventful. Thankfully, I was only late to my first class, and the teacher is usually late, too.

My one annoyance today has been that I haven’t seen or heard from Adam. Which is strange since we have our first and third classes together, and I saw his car in the school parking lot when I walked in.

I take two steps into the lunchroom and stop, ignoring the person cursing at me for stopping so suddenly from behind me. I grind my teeth as I make my way to my boyfriend. He’s currently doing nothing to push away Gloria, who’s in his space and clearly pressing her breasts against his arm.

“Adam,” I say softly, doing my best to keep my anger out of my tone. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

Adam looks at me for a long minute before sighing heavily. “Sure, babe.”

I ignore the way my stomach twists when he stands and leads me out of the lunch room. He takes me to one of the empty hallways away from the cafeteria.

“I think this is far enough,” I finally say, stopping him in his tracks. I cross my arms over my chest as he turns to face me. “Care to tell me what the hell is going on with you?”

He shrugs. “I don’t really know what you mean, babe.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How about the fact that you’ve been ignoring my calls and texts?”

He meets my eyes for a second before glancing away. “I’ve been busy, Cher.”

“Doing what?” I ask, an eyebrow raised. He says nothing. “Gloria?”

He looks up at me, shock plastered across his face before he blanks his expression. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that not only have you been ignoring me, but you just had Gloria’s nasty ass sprawled all over you a minute ago and did nothing to stop her.” It’s definitely no secret that Gloria and I hate each other.

He rubs his hand across his forehead and lets out a breath. “I don’t want to be with you anymore, Cherish.”

I swallow the lump in my throat. Even though I knew this was coming that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt like hell. We’ve been together for over a year. “So, instead of talking to me about it and telling me that you don’t actually love me. That you don’t want to be with me, you start ignoring me and bumping uglies with fucking Gloria of all people?”

I don’t actually know if he’s been with Gloria, but with how comfortable he seemed to be by her hanging all over him, I’m making an educated guess. From the way he blanches, it would seem that I’m right.

“Yeah, that’s essentially it,” he admits. “I honestly figured that you’d take the hint.”

Bile burns in my throat, and before I know what I’m doing, my hand has already made contact with his face. Tears fill my eyes. “I can’t believe I actually thought that I was in love with you, you fucking dick,” I hiss. “Go burn in hell with your new toy and stay the hell away from me.”

Adam stares at me, his hand rubbing against the cheek I just slapped, his expression shocked.

I shake my head and turn away from him, not willing to let him see me cry over his worthless ass. I walk away from Adam, wiping the few tears off my cheeks that manage to slip through.

With my focus on wiping the tears, I don’t notice that anyone else is in the hallway until I run straight into something solid, and the force causes me to stumble backwards. The only thing that saves me from falling on my ass, is a pair of strong hands gripping my arms and keeping me upright.

I swallow hard and look up to see three sets of eyes narrowed in on me. I mumble out an apology to the one I had bumped into and quickly step around the group of new guys, not wanting to have an audience to my stupid tears. I seriously can’t even believe I’m crying over that asshole.

Then again, that’s what happens when you spend over a year with someone and they manage to trick you into falling in love with them while they’re busy playing you the entire time.

“Cherish,” Lucy calls out from the entrance to the lunch room, getting my attention. “You okay?”

I shake my head and let out a breath, composing myself. "Yeah, Luce. I'm good."

Zoe appears behind her and is watching me carefully. "Are you sure, honey?"

I purse my lips. "Yeah. I'm going to just go outside for lunch and hang out away from all the people."

Lucy opens her mouth, about to speak when Zoe smacks her hand over her mouth. "We'll get you some food and meet you out there."

I give her a small grin. "Sounds awesome. See you guys in a bit."

By the time that Lucy and Zoe catch up to me, I'm relaxing against a large oak tree in the back of the school, doing my absolute best to ban all thoughts of Adam and Gloria.

"So, you gonna tell us why you were crying?" Lucy asks bluntly as soon as she and Zoe are sitting down on either side of me.

I chuckle humorlessly. "Adam and I are done. He didn't outright say it, but I'm pretty sure he's been cheating on me with Gloria."

Lucy scowls. "She's such a fucking bitch."

"You know she only went after him because he was yours, right?" Zoe asks, taking a bite out of her sandwich.

"I guess. She's been after him since before we got together last year, though," I point out.

"It's not like it matters, anyway. They deserve each other. You know that I never really liked Adam in the first place." Lucy bites into her apple and shrugs. "He and I never got along, but I always did my best to keep my mouth shut to him whenever he was around. I did it for you, though. Now that you've kicked his ass to the curb that means I no longer have to bite my tongue."

I can't help but laugh at the eagerness in Lucy's tone. She's probably excited to be able to tell Adam off for the first time in over a year.

"Can we stop talking about that asshole, though? It's pissing me off," Lucy admits. Her face brightens. "Oh, have you seen any of the new guys we got today?"

I purse my lips. "Yeah. They were in the principal's office when I came in this morning."

"You were late again weren't you?" Zoe looks like she's attempting to fight a smile.

I narrow my eyes at her. "By, like, one freaking minute. Anyway, I also ran into them after my showdown with Adam. I wasn't actually paying attention when I ran into them, though."

Lucy snickers. "Leave it to you to not notice running into three of the most seriously gorgeous male specimens we've got at this school."

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Really?" I drawl.

She shrugs. "They're fucking hot, Cher. Tell her, Z."

Zoe nods her head, a ghost of a smile on her lips. "They're definitely hot."

"I know!" Lucy suddenly shouts, making me jump slightly. "Why don't you try to hook up with one of the new guys! You know that whole thing that says that the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

I snort a laugh. "You're crazy, Luce."

Zoe shrugs and gives me a weird look. "She actually has a point. There is a saying like that. Although, I'm not really certain that it's actually the best idea."

"Why is that?" I ask, curious.

"Gloria was sniffing all over them once you and Adam left the cafeteria. They didn't stay long to deal with her shit, though. That must be when you ran into them."

Lucy laughs loudly. "That was seriously the funniest thing ever. They kind of just stared at Gloria while she chatted them up then walked away without saying anything to her."

Zoe's eyes catch on something behind me, and she nudges me with her foot. "That's them."

"They're looking over here." Lucy sounds confused, and I chuckle before turning to look at the people who caught both of my friends' eyes.

It takes a shitload of willpower to keep my mouth shut. I thought my friends were just exaggerating on the guys' good looks, but they weren't. The three of them are too far away to get a good look at. But I can definitely tell they're absolutely drool-worthy. Black hair on the tallest, blond hair on the shortest, and brown hair on the middle. Though they're all close in height, there's still a slight difference.

From how tall they seem, they're all definitely taller than my friends and me. Considering that I'm the shortest out of our little group at a whopping five-foot-three, it's really not that hard to be taller than me.