Read Online Last Stand by Niki Burnham - Free Book Online Page B

sarcasm in my voice.
     
    Griff smiles, then adds, “Oh, and don’t look now, but Connor Ralston and a couple of his friends are sitting down at table behind her. She’s pretending not to notice.”
     
    “Great.” I wonder if part of her hooking up with me was to get back at Connor. For someone with no regrets, she sure doesn’t seem to have him out of her system. I bet Griff’s right. The flirting before band was probably two-way.
     
    Griff mutters, “For a girl with a broken heart, she sure seems to be loving all the drama and attention.”
     
    And that’s when it hits me. Serious déjà vu.
     
    “What?” Griff asks, catching my eye. There’s concern in his voice, but to his credit, he still looks like he’s Mr. Casual. “What’d you see?”
     
    “Nothing,” I wave him off. “Just realized that you’ve been right all along whenever you’ve called me dumbass.”
     
    “Well, of course. I’m always right.”
     
    The first time I had lunch with Amber was this week, last year. We’d just gotten together, and everyone in school was speculating about us. Connor was seated a few tables away. Since the two of them had broken up over the summer, most people hadn’t heard about it. Not until school started and Amber sat with her new boyfriend at lunch and the gossip began.
     
    She’d been happy and giggly that day, smiling like I hadn’t seen her smile in months. I’d thought it was because she was happy to be with me, that she’d totally forgotten Connor left her for some other girl. Now I’m thinking she was happy for the attention. What was the term Ginger used?
     
    Attention junkie.
     
    Guess it should be capital A, capital J. Like a syndrome.
     
    We get to the front of the line, skipping the trays and hot food choices in favor of pre-made, wrapped sandwiches, apples, granola bars, and sodas we can carry out. I’m about to pay when the basket of candy calls to me. I grab myself a Snickers, then toss it back in favor of a Twix—no peanuts in Twix—and add a bag of Skittles.
     
    Griff oinks behind me.
     
    “I owe Ginger some Skittles from lunch yesterday. I’ll give ‘em to her at her locker later,” I explain.
     
    I toss the food in my backpack, then Griff and I make a beeline out of the caf. I hear Amber’s cheery laughter as we pass near her table—she’s not laughing at me, but it’s definitely meant for my ears—and decide that Ginger was dead-on. Amber wanted me for the attention and the attention only. It’s probably why she was so insistent about sex. If the relationship didn’t escalate—if I couldn’t meet her demand for increasing doses to feel the high—it meant she wasn’t getting her fix.
     
    If she really wanted
me
, she wouldn’t have thrown her public fit. And she’d wanted it to be public, otherwise she’d have answered my text asking her to meet me at home so I wouldn’t miss cross-country. I know she got it; she’s obsessive about checking between classes.
     
    Of course, if I’d have ignored one of her texts for hours, she’d have been pouty. I wasn’t paying attention to her. I didn’t
love
her if I didn’t jump to answer right away.
     
    “You know, Amber was a lot of work,” I tell Griff once we’re safely out of the cafeteria.
     
    “You’re just now figuring that out?” In a girly voice, he adds, “Toooh-beeee, you’re going to walk me home, aren’t you? Oh, Toooh-beeee, why didn’t you answer my text?”
     
    “No kidding.”
     
    How often did I do things with—or for—Amber because she expected me to, rather than because I really wanted to?
     
    Or worse—spending so much on the necklace I got her for our anniversary. I could’ve added that money to my car fund, but now the necklace is probably sitting in a drawer in her bedroom, never to be worn.
     
    “So how come you never said anything?” I ask Griff.
     
    “Maybe ‘cause you wouldn’t have listened? You were blinded, man.” Griff cracks up. “Probably by her