“So Bennett, you do think—?”
Dr. Langford stopped his lecture. “Orion, Harper, you seem very chatty. Do you have something to add?”
I jumped. “No, sorry.” I’d forgotten there was anyone else on the damn planet but Orion and me.
This boy…
This boywas going to ruin my focus, my plans, my everything if I didn’t get my shit together.
Enough with the fawning and blushing and melting like a fucking moron.
Langford peered closer at Orion’s phone. “Mr. Mercer, is this how you take notes?”
Orion shifted in his seat, his smile dimming to a second-rate knockoff. “Yep. I’d be bloody heartbroken if I missed a single word of your fascinating lecture.”
Langford burst out laughing. “Clever, Mr. Mercer, but not surprising. I expect great things from your NoSci contest entry.”
Orion had the decency to look sheepish at such a blatant nod to his family’s legacy, but if the Mercers were Big Five, then they wereall but signatories on Langford’s paychecks. I might be competing for second place, and I hadn’t even come up with an idea yet.
What did you expect? Fairness? At a school like this?
The thought helped me build up the defenses Orion had a knack for bulldozing right over.
The bell rang. Over the bustle of twenty-four students packing up, Langford announced our homework.
“I expect both you and your partner to have a full grasp of oxidation and ionization, as we’ll be putting those to the test in the lab tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
I inspected my notes to ensure I’d taken down Langford’s definition of the terms accurately. My hand had cramped trying to get it word for word.
Orion turned to me and flashed me that beautiful smile of his, instantly disarming me, setting my insides fluttering and turning my thoughts to mush.
Fucking stop it. This can’t happen. Nothing can happen, nothingwillhappen…
“I was going to say before we were so rudely interrupted,” he said. “I feel like we got off on the wrong foot this week. We are, after all, stuck with each other all semester.”
“I’m stuck with you, you mean,” I snapped, the words flying out like a slap. An automatic defense cultivated by a lifetime of good things in my life that never lasted and that taught me to never get my hopes up because they always came crashing down in the end.
I instantly regretted it—instantlyhatedthat I’d said it—but it was too late.
Orion’s beautiful smile vanished. A cold sliver of silence slipped between us. Then he put on his jacket, shouldered his bag and nodded at my notes.
“Oxidation is the loss of electrons, while ionization is the removal of electrons from a neutral atom to form an ion, which is a type ofoxidation that requires an input of energy.” He shot me a cold look. “I do things theeasyway.”
Then he walked away.
Dr. Langford’s definition. Word for word.
***
My shame chased me into history class and all the way to Advanced Piano, where Professor Wolfe decided to show up for a change. At least, we assumed class was happening; the door to the auditorium was unlocked and there was no cancellation note, so we all filed inside.
Anticipation buzzed in the small auditorium where the twelve of us sat in curved wooden rows, waiting for Ezra Wolfe’s grand entrance. A child prodigy like Mozart, he’d toured Europe, then spent his teens and twenties drifting between major symphonies, never staying long. Scandals and rumors hounded him; he’d vanish for years, only to reemerge to perform legendary performances and sold-out tours. He had an elusive and almost mythical aura, and yet, Castle Hill Academy had somehow locked him down for one year.
Orion sat on the other side of the auditorium, me on the other, not looking at each other as the class waited for this legend to walk in the door, all of us holding our breath…
And then the back door to the auditorium door banged open, and Ezra Wolfe strode down the aisle like a giant in black. A cloud of strong liquor trailed after him, and a lot of cologne to cover it up.
The class stared.
