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I sigh and face the front of the classroom, resting my forehead in my hand as I lean forward on my desk. Something tickles my elbow, and I startle just in time to get smacked with a wave of black hair.
“Watch it!” Heather snaps, turning around and giving me a pointed look. “You just pulled the shit out of my hair.”
Heather’s creamy skin is flawless, as pretty as her perfect hair. It’s intimidating as hell. I lift an eyebrow and fake like her glare isn’t terrifying me. This isn’t TV after all, and she is not Regina George. “Your hair was on my desk.”
“That doesn’t mean you can pull it,” she hisses. She grabs all of her hair and pulls it over her shoulder and turns back around with an indignant huff and leaves me feeling like I’m a complete idiot.
“Don’t mind her,” Emory says only loud enough for us to hear. He sinks down into his desk chair, his legs spread out into the aisle. “She takes pride in being a bitch.”
Heather turns slowly toward him, and I can practically feel the tension in the air swell into a vortex around her amber eyes. She narrows her gaze as if she hasn’t spent the first three days of school flirting like crazy with him. “No one asked your opinion, so keep it to yourself.”
“Sure thing,” he says with a lazy smile.
Mr. Wang appears in front of us, his hands on the hips of the black skinny jeans. “Is this conversation more important than my lesson, Mr. Underwood?”
“No,” Heather says. “Definitely not.”
I open my book to page one and pretend to begin reading the words as they blur into nothingness on the page. Mr. Wang continues his class discussion, and I have to bite the inside of my cheeks to stop from smiling. It’s definitely none of my business, but I think Emory Underwood might be single again.
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Not that it matters.
Chapter Nine
I’m feeling about 30 percent better by the time the bell rings for second period. I make it all the way into the pre-cal classroom on the second floor and into my desk before I realize where I am. Mrs. Olsen’s class. She had seemed like such a nice person last week, but now I know she’s a traitor—Mom’s personal spy on my wellbeing. I throw my stuff in the wire tray under my chair and open my math textbook to the page that’s written on the board. Students shuffle into the classroom and fill the seats around me. No one has talked to me in this class, and there isn’t anyone from my old school here, either. But I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m just a girl trying to get over a heartbreak. I don’t need friends now. I need healing.
My next two classes, history and physics, are a little better because we work in groups and therefore I get to talk to people by default. My broken heart is at its least painful during lunch when I eat at the silent table with the girls who smile at me but leave me alone, and then it gets better during gym class, where I can take out my pain in the form of physical exercise. Last period is my Music Theory class and well, everything kind of tumbles back down during those fifty minutes of boring busy work. If I can manage to hold back my lustful desires to rip off Emory’s clothes in first period, and avoid looking sad for Mrs. Olsen in second period, then I can get through the rest of the day without a problem.
Mrs. Olsen walks over to me as I’m writing the date at the top of my notebook. Her graying blond hair is pulled into a low ponytail, and she wears a long black skirt that flows as she walks, making it look like she’s floating to my desk. “Good morning, Isla,” she says softly. Her metaphorical kid gloves are on extra snug today. “How are you feeling?”
I peer up at her through my eyelashes. “Feeling like learning some math?”
Her eyes soften and—oh God no—she bends and sits in the empty desk next to me and takes my arm in her wrinkly hand. She meets my gaze, her face only a foot away from mine. “Jane filled me in on what happened to you this weekend, and I want you to know that everything is going to be okay.” Her voice is low, directed toward me, but students are filtering in and out of the classroom, heading toward seats and looking over at us. Even in the commotion between bells, I am absolutely positive that her voice is somehow overheard by everyone in the room.
“I’m fine, really.” I nod eagerly and even try to throw on a smile. I don’t shove her hand off my arm, but I desperately want to. “You don’t need to worry about me.”
The two-minute bell rings and my anxiety heightens. Please get the hell out of this desk and leave me alone. Mrs. Olsen doesn’t even flinch. “I worry about all of my students, Isla. Not just my friend’s children.”
And it happens.
The guy with red hair and glasses who normally sits in the desk next to me stops short, realizing our teacher is taking his spot. He stands awkwardly, backpack over one shoulder, looking from her to me. Then the guy who sits in front of him stops as well, unable to get into his desk with someone else blocking it. A girl looks up from her cell phone to watch us, a curious look painted on her face.
“What’s going on?” red-haired guy says.
“We’ll just be a minute, Jeremy.” Mrs. Olsen makes a shooing motion with her hand but it doesn’t make him leave, or even stop looking at us. To me, she says, “You need to know that our school has staff members who would be happy to talk with you at any time. You’ll make it through this, okay?”
“Dude,” the guy says. “Are you addicted to drugs or something?”
“I’m not on drugs,” I say, annoyed that the first thing I’ve said in this class is a denial of drug use.
“Jeremy!” Mrs. Olsen snaps. Her sharp voice gets the attention of every single person in the room, to my chagrin. She points a knobby finger at him. “Do not joke about drug addictions. Isla, stay after class so we can finish this conversation.”
Now everyone is staring at me. And they think I’m on drugs. So much for keeping my head low and blending in. I rise to my feet and grab my purse. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m sure as hell not staying here.
A dozen faces are looking right at me, and I am confident that they can all hear my panicked heartbeat jumping around like an idiot in my chest. “I don’t have a drug problem,” I say no one in particular. “I am completely fine.”
But my voice cracks on the last word.
