Not your honey (Leila Series #1) {IN PROGRESS}

8. Don't make it harder

    I wake up from my alarm with Cameron’s arm around my waist, what the hell happened yesterday anyway? My brain is way too tired to work this early in the morning without caffeine in my body. I get dressed and try to think back to yesterday’s events. Okay, Cameron came into my room, and we had a ’deep’ conversation, which brought us closer together, neither it was meant or not. I sneak out of the room, close the door carefully, and pour a coffee cup when I get to the kitchen. The silence makes me uncomfortable, but I can't wake everyone up simply because I feel like it.

    Even though it was nice talking to Cameron, I can’t help my miserable conscience gnawing inside me. No matter how much I deny it, I keep comparing the two men, and it’s wrong for me to do that. It’s not fair to any of them, least of all myself. I like Cameron, Yeah, but I wish he was Jason. No matter how wrong it is, it’s the truth. I comfort my missing after Jason by trying to find him in another man, it’s so damn wrong on so extremely many different levels that I don’t know where to go. Why Can nothing ever be easy for me?

    Do I have a stamp in my forehead that says ‘screw me over as best as you can’, or what? I’m tired of never being able to rest properly, tired of feeling insecure, tired of not being able to trust other people, but most of all, I’m tired of being tired. The longer I allow Cameron to get further into my life, the worse it will become. Despite that knowledge, I can’t let him go, because unfortunately, he means something to me now, and I’m not fond of that at all. How can I even like him? We barely know each other, and all the times we’ve met, we are bickering. How in the hell is that irresistible?

    Although I wish Cameron didn't remind me of the man I once loved, he does. It's nothing I can ignore even if I want to. He may live a dangerous life similar to mine, but I can see a prudence and a soft side within him. His smile always makes me warm inside, and somehow I've come to like that very same smile. He can make my heart flutter from just looking at me. Wait... Why do I even think about things like this?! I've done just fine without a man in my life, and I don't need one for that matter either! So, Why does Cameron stay in my head all the time?

"Hello? Leila?" someone says beside me and I jump from the sudden voice.

    Tyler stands next to me and looks at me as if he is trying to solve a mystery. I know he wonders, but I don't want to explain because he will still create his own picture of what has happened during the night; it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. I give him an irritated look, take my coffee cup, and sit down at one of the tables in the corner. He gives me a cigarette that I light and inhales the poison with my eyes closed. Yes, I'm addicted, and although I'm well aware that it's not healthy to smoke, I have neither the will nor the motivation to quit. I need it.

"How are you, really?" Tyler anxiously asks.

"I'm fine," I respond casually without looking at him and keep inhaling deeply of the smoke.

"It doesn't seem that way."

"Everything is fine; there is no need to worry."

"Then how come you slept here last night with Cameron in your room?" he asks with a raised eyebrow and a grin on his thin lips.

    f**k; I knew this was coming. For some reason, Tyler thinks it's hilarious to make me irritable and uncomfortable; it's his favorite hobby. Usually, I wouldn't have cared much, considering I'm used to it. But today, I don't feel like playing his games, but instead get annoyed at a level that isn't funny. He immediately notices that I react negatively to his "playtime" and continues to grin at me. I put out my cigarette annoyingly and get up from the spot. Cameron comes out of my bedroom with a loud yawn, which makes Tyler laugh.

"Damn, I didn't ever think that out of all people, you'd manage to get inside the doors of the ice queen's bedroom," Tyler laughs.

    That's it! I pick up a beer glass from the bar and throw it in Tyler's direction. He just got time to duck to avoid it hitting him in the head. My nostrils flutter from my anger, and my hands are tightly clenched into fists with a white tint over my knuckles from the pressure. Tyler doesn't look particularly amused anymore but somewhat scared; he knows no one should walk over that line between annoying me comradely and piss me off. Unfortunately, he's stepped over that limit, and I'm picking up an aluminum baseball bat that I know is under the bar counter. I chase him around the venue, and the other members come out of their bedrooms with wide eyes, confused about what's going on. Hale looks over the situation and sighs noisily.

"Tyler pissed her off again, didn't he?" I hear him ask, and as I run past him, he grabs me while Tyler runs to safety behind Cameron.

"You f*****g coward, you can't even manage your own fighters," I growl at Tyler, and Hale turns toward Tyler with me still in a steady grip.

"What have I told you about teasing her up to this level of anger!?" Hale's voice thunders.

"I was just teasing her about Cameron sleeping in her room last night," Tyler replies quietly.

"Who Leila chooses to spend her nights with, whether it's solely through sleep or other activities, is neither yours nor anyone else's business," Hale points out, turning his gaze to me while Tyler hangs his head in shame. "Can I let go of you now, Lei, or will you keep putting my entire club on fire?"

    I breathe in a couple of times before nodding at Hale, and he lets me go. With my head held high, I walk past the members and shoulder into Tyler as I pass him in sheer frustration; it's childish, but right now, I don't care. I walk into my bedroom and slam the door with such force that the windows rattle. My mood is ruined for the day, and it's not going to get any better, considering I also have to be tortured at school. I sigh and walk into my bathroom to take a well-deserved shower. Unfortunately, I don't have time for a long shower, even though I would need it.

    Someone is knocking on my door, but I completely ignore it. I have neither the energy nor the mood to be able to discuss with anyone now. If it's Hale, then he says it through the door like he always does. But given that the knocking continues without anyone saying anything, it's hardly him. I put on a pair of tight jeans, a belly shirt, and my black hoodie before I open the door without bothering about who's on the other side. Tyler and Cameron are standing outside, but I just push them out of the way before I walk out the front doors. They follow me out, but I keep ignoring them to climb on my motorcycle and take me to hell that others call school.

~*~*~

    The first few hours of the morning are slow, and I'm up to a dozen people I most of all want to strangle with my bare hands when the lunch hour strikes. As usual, I put myself in a corner with my tray to avoid having to talk to a bunch of people that I neither care about nor are interested in knowing. During my first few weeks here, all sorts of people tried to be my friend, and I've lost count of how many people wanted to f**k me. Gratefully, they all understood very quickly that I wasn't interested, which led to me being left alone.

    I look at my phone and eat my sandwich when two other trays slams down on the same table as mine. At first, I ignore whoever has not understood that I hate everything and everyone, but in the end, my curiosity takes over, and I look up at the intruders. Cameron and Tyler sit across from me with big grins over their facial features; I groan out of irritation. Seriously? I can't even get some peace in this hellhole without having to see these idiots. With the tray in my hands, I get up to walk away, but Cameron stops me by putting a hand over my arm.

"Come on. Don't go. You haven't even eaten up," Cameron points out, smiling gently. "Please."

"What do you want?" I ask with a sigh and sit down again.

"I'm sorry if I went too far this morning," Tyler quietly says, giving me a sad look.

"Let me give you a black eye, and we're fine," I answer without looking at him and take a sip of my water.

"Why is it such a big deal for you that we slept in the same bed last night?" Cameron asks annoyingly, looking me in the eyes. "What have I done that's so terrible that you don't even want to be around me?"

"I keep no one close," I respond casually and shrug my shoulders.

"You always hold Tyler around his back," Cameron points out.

"That's actually not true," Tyler says, looking at Cameron. "Lei doesn't trust anyone one hundred percent, not even Hale. None of us are near her in private life."

    Cameron looks astonished at Tyler before his gaze returns to me, all of this while I give Tyler an annoyed look. I can't stay here and get numerous questions about why I'm a "cold-blooded b***h" that I've been called many times during the years. There's no need to try to explain, because, in the end, no one has the strength to make an effort to understand. I believe that people don't ask questions to understand, but rather to have an opportunity to hear their own voice. Cameron isn't interested in getting to know me and my cold behavior; he simply wants to get inside my pants.

    I get up and throw the food that remains on my tray in a trashcan near the cafeteria doors. Cameron's and Tyler's eyes burn holes in my back, but I really can't take it. With quick steps, I hurry through the hallways to my locker, pick out the books I'm going to have with me to my lesson, and begin my stroll towards the lesson hall. A girl I know is in the student council walks up to me and starts asking questions that the school management expects the representatives to ask the students. I'm about to tell her to go to hell when I see Cameron and Tyler approach, which is why I'm doing a turn-around.

"Of course, Clarice!" I exclaim, faking excitement. "I'm happy to answer your questions, but maybe we should do this privately somewhere else."

    She nods eagerly and pulls me with her to a nearby group room. I breathe out of relief when I realize I don't have to have awkward conversations with the two men I can't manage to be in the same room in at the moment. Cameron, I don't want to be around because he makes me uncomfortable with all these issues, and Tyler, well, it's pretty apparent why I don't want to be with him. It might seem like I'm unnecessarily hard on Tyler, but my temper isn't to play with, especially not after the whole situation I experienced with Adam a few days ago. Tyler is my best friend, he if anyone should know it.

    But in all the chaos, my best friend seems to have forgotten how I work... I can't blame him either, not with a clear conscience anyway. Clarice asks all sorts of things, and I answer from the best of my ability. When she's done with the questions, she gives me a paper explaining my absence to hand over to my teacher when I get to class. I haven't heard the warning bell or thought about the time while I was with her in all honesty. Even though I mostly want to be left in peace, it feels relaxing to be in Clarice's presence.

    Maybe it's because I sometimes need someone or something that reminds me that there's a normality out there in the world, and that I just happen to be one of those who isn't in it. My life is anything but ordinary, and it also does not belong to the commonality that a girl like me lives in such an experience as I do. For the untrained eye, I can be perceived as a harmless blonde without a family who has gone through life's hard school to get where she is. No one at school knows what power I have in our club and that with a simple snap with my fingers can make the whole school go up in flames while their screams echo in the city while the fire eats up their bodies until only ashes are left behind.

    I am a remarkably cynical person, and I always carry a dark aura, the same aura that I had to live with all my life. It's not really unusual that people with tough childhoods and mental abuse shapes into dark creatures who most of all want to take revenge on everyone they meet. Once upon a time, I hated everyone who had their parents still alive and who had an opportunity to grow up in a safe environment like a child should do. It took me time to overcome the hatred I felt, and today, as an adult, I can understand that all these dark thoughts to the innocent around me were due solely to an absence of the normality I never had.

"Miss Towler," says my teacher with an irritated grimace. "How come you're thirty minutes late?"

    I put the note on his desk before sitting down in my seat and opening up the book to the right page. Despite the life I live, I'm careful not to fall behind in school; on the contrary, I'm one of the top students. I want to be able to say with a clear conscience that I made it, and that anyone who said I would never make it would forever regret their harsh words for me. The shame my mother carried around with her wherever she went infected herself, and the hate from society was moved over to me the older I got. It never mattered that I was not responsible for what my mother chose to do.

    I was always the broken little child who was forced to grow up too fast and be betrayed repeatedly until the obstacle that weighed me down disappeared for good; my mother. Never again will I allow anyone to make me feel like I did in all the years I took care of mom; in the end, I became the empty shell that I am today. A cold and lonely individual who doesn't really want to be alone in the world, but who is unable to let anyone get too close. I'm f*****g alone, and I hate loneliness while despising that I feel the way I do.

    I've been fighting for my survival since I was a small child, and I'm tired of it. Life is not just about surviving, you must also have the ability to live, and that's what I can no longer do. Since I have nothing to live for really, my life revolves around the club. Beyond that, I have nothing that brings me joy, and that life doesn't really make life in the club a happy experience either. I'm needed there, and that's what makes me always drag my ass back in through those doors to protect my members with my life. They are the closest thing I can call my family because I honestly don't know how a typical family works.

    Given that my mom was a reckless drug addict, and my dad's been MIA since he f****d my mom in a dark basement room, I don't know anything about family life. Hence, I have also given up the idea that in the future, having a family of my own, I would be guaranteed to destroy it in one way or another; I am my mother's daughter, after all, I have it in my blood. My bloodline shouldn't reproduce, as simple as that. I'm doomed to forever fight my way through life and certainly in the next life as well. It's something I should have been at peace with a long time ago, which I have. But if I have, why does it hurt so much to think about my endless loneliness that eats me from within...?

A/N:

Hello everyone!

This story is progressing slowly, I'm aware. But I feel the need to finish one of my other projects before I can get this baby all the attention it deserves. I will still upload new chapters from time to time, but at the moment, I need to finish another book first. Hopefully, you'll still be there.

Also, I'm disappointed with the lack of comments. Come on people, you can do much better than this! I need those comments to develop in my writing, and if I give you all my stories for free, the least you can give me in return is a short comment about what you think of the book, right?

Lots of love!

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F/B: Dreame author Linnéa Heikka

I/G: author_linneaheikka