AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Einstein, blinked, looking confused. “No one. I did it to myself.”
She furrowed her brow. “But—” Why wasn’t he hiding them in shame the way Logan had?
Einstein sniffed. “Yeah, I doubt you know what it’s like to be made fun of at all. You don’t know true pain. You’re too pretty.” He spat the word as if it were a curse.
Paige took another step back and slipped in the carrots on the floor. W
aving her arms and making a dull throb arch up her arm from her cut thumb to her elbow, she caught herself and hopped over the pile until it lay between her and the eerie little genius.
People didn’t call her pretty. Not as a compliment, and certainly not a curse. To hear such a word applied to her felt strange all by itself, but to be labeled the kind of person he seemed to think she was piqued her to no end.
Anthony “Einstein” Morris filled her with all kinds of confusion. She wanted to protect him, to mother him, to yell at him, and run from him all in the space two minutes. It had to be some kind of record.
Stiffening her back, she straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Actually I do know what true pain is like.”
He studied her a moment before saying, “Oh, right. Your mom.” When she gasped, he shrugged. “Your record said your dad is the only contact you have, so I figured she was already—” He shrugged again. “My mom ran off with a rock star when I was five. They died in a car crash together.”
Paige squinted at him, wondering if this kid was for real. A rock star? That was something a seven-year-old would concoct.
His brain might challenge that of a college student, but he was sadly lacking in the social skills department. She wondered if he was even sixteen yet. Immediately, her emotions reverted back to pity. She was going to have to take this poor child under her wing.
“So why did you hurt yourself?” she asked, motioning to his wrists.
For some reason, she knew she could ask him that question. Unlike Logan, Einstein showed off his scars as if he were proud of them. He probably had a big, crazy reason for cutting himself, like—
“I wanted to see what it felt like.” He grinned and showed her the marks again. “The vertical slashes here that run the length of your arm are actually more painful than the traditional horizontal cuts. They must hit more nerve endings. But these others bleed more.”
Slightly ill from even the mention of blood, Paige cuddled her own injury to her chest and winced. It pulsed with more pain, reminding her how fresh and deep it was.
“Did you have to go to the hospital?” she asked.
Einstein rolled his eyes. “Yes. You should’ve seen my mom when she came across the mess. Totally freaked out. Would’ve thought I was dying or something.”
Probably because he had been dying. So many things about his story rang false. For one, his reason for cutting himself. She doubted Logan Xander had sliced his own skin open purely because of academic curiosity. She doubted anyone would, even Einstein.
Tilting her face to the side, she blinked. “So you did this before your mom ran off with the rock star?”
His cheeks flushed as if he’d been caught in a lie. But he smoothly revised his story. “I meant my stepmom. My stepmom freaked.”
That was totally plausible, but she still didn’t believe him for a second. She nodded as if she did, however. “Oh. I see.”
She wondered if anything that came out of his mouth was true. Again, sympathy struck her deep in the chest. She was probably the first person he’d talked to all year that hadn’t thrown something at his head. He no doubt wanted to impress her with some grand story just to keep the conversation flowing.
Bending to clean up the broken jar between them, she pulled out another wet wipe and listened to him brag about his trip to the hospital, where they’d sewn up his wrists with an unprecedented amount of stitches. It made her glad she’d talked Logan out of rushing her to the hospital earlier. Even the idea of one stitch made her woozy.
But Einstein’s ramblings successfully drew her away from such thoughts. She actually appreciated his non-stop chatter. It gave her something almost frivolous to focus on. After the night she’d had—first night of work and so many new revelations about Logan Xander—frivolous was good.
Self-consciously tugging his long sleeves down until they nearly reached his knuckles, Logan glanced both ways at the crosswalk before stepping into the street. Though he wasn’t scheduled to work that evening, he headed toward The Squeeze as soon as he finished his last class on Monday.
Passing the front of the juice bar, he snuck a discreet sideways peek inside to make sure she wasn’t working and hurried around to the back. As soon as he slipped inside, he headed straight to his boss’s small, square office.
The office didn’t have a window or even much circulation, and the smell of body odor struck his nose as soon as he tapped on the doorframe.
“Gus?”
The voluptuous man wedged behind the desk glanced up from a laptop he was typing in. “Logan. What’s up?”
Logan slipped off his ball cap and fingered the brim nervously. “Do you have a minute?”
