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He and I shared government and economics.
“I’ll be at practice,” I assured him.
And I spun around and headed toward the library.
Coach would make me run laps once he found out I’d skipped classes, but I’d run so many laps the past few years, I was kind of perfect at it.
I couldn’t sit in class right now. My head ached and heated up like a fuse, and I refused to look for her, because even though I told myself it would be just to make sure she was safe—make sure everything was okay—it was because I was pissed.
She really went to any length to avoid me, didn’t she?
Rushing into the library, I made my way through the tables of students working and jogged up the open stairwell all the way to the third floor. I tossed my binder and books onto a table and pulled the group phone out of my pocket, heading down the long aisle and turning right down the fifth row. I reached up to a line of books and pulled out a fat, navy blue text, titled Data Entry and Transcendental Curves of Non-Regular Polytopes, something we know no one on this planet would even be interested in touching.
Opening the cover, I punched in the combination to the lock box inside, stuck the phone in, and closed it, placing it back onto the shelf. The communal phone that recorded all of our pranks had to be hidden somewhere no one would look and all of us could have ready access to it. Not sure why, since I ended up being the one to fetch it and record most of the videos.
But then I heard someone’s voice. “That title makes no sense.”
I turned my head over my shoulder, seeing a glimpse of brown hair through the bookcases.
I clutched the disguised lock box in my hand, pausing. Had she’d seen what I put in here?
I let go, peering through the bookcase and seeing Emory lean against the back wall, her head down with her hair and glasses covering her face.
“You weren’t in class,” I said.
Her chest shook, and I thought I saw her lip tremble.
But then she cleared her throat. “Wasn’t I?” she snipped. “Wow, you’re outstanding. Maybe for your next trick you can make fire and draw stories in the dirt about those funny holes in the sky that let
the light in.”
Huh? Holes in the sky?
Oh, stars. Was she calling me a caveman?
Little shit. I mean, I did do her literature assignment for her. Did she have any idea how hard it was to try to sound like an angry teenage girl with zero sense of humor?
Then a tear fell down her cheek, and she quickly swiped it away.
I dropped my eyes down her body, taking in the worn and cracked gray Chucks, and the skirt two inches too short with the green and navy blue tartan pattern that was two years outdated. The glowing olive skin of her beautiful legs, interrupted with the occasional bruise or scrape, which I actually kind of loved because she probably got them from constructing that gazebo and being amazing at something most of us could never do.
Her shirt tail and cuffs hung out of her navy blue cardigan because it was too big, and her tie was missing, her blouse laying open an extra button. A lock of hair was caught inside her shirt, laying against her chest.
She was here and dressed for school, but she was hiding instead of going to class?
“What happened?” I asked.
But she just shook her head. “Just leave me alone,” she whispered. “Please.”
Please? God, she must be desperate if she was using manners.
“We started a new book in class,” I told her.
She remained quiet, chewing on her lip.
“We had a choice,” I said. “The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Grapes of Wrath, or Mrs. Dalloway.”
A little snarl peeked out, and I bit back my smile.
