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He passed her a Skittle. “So why’d your mom pull you out of school?”
She winced at the question, though she appreciated that he didn’t automatically assume it was because of her Tourette’s. “That is its own horrible, truly embarrassing story.”
He was silent for a beat. “Want to share or is that one too much?”
She worried the green Skittle between her fingertips. The storywastoo much. But maybe if she laid bare her worst childhood story, it’d be like ripping the Band-Aid off. Nothing else she shared going forward could be more humiliating. She wet her lips. “It’s not a funny one.”
“That’s okay.”
She looked down at her hands, holding the candy like a totem. “That year, sixth grade, I had a crush on this older boy—Maddox. My first real crush that wasn’t someone on TV or whatever. I had no intention of pursuing it. I mean, I was already on the outs of the social circles by then, so I didn’t think it could turn into anything. It was the write-his-name-in-your-notebook kind of crush—a fun secret,” she said. “But somehow he found out.”
“Maybe one of the girls I’d confided in told him or maybe he sensed it. I don’t know. But one day, he sent me a note to meet him under the big oak tree at recess for a kiss. I was a romantic kid—already into movies with happy endings—and it didn’t cross my mind to question it. It just seemed exciting.” The green of the Skittle was staining her fingertips, her hands starting to sweat. “But when I showed up, he’d brought a group of his friends and the pet mouse from science class. He called me ‘rodent’ and told me he had found my prince.”
Jasper made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “What an asshole.”
She swallowed hard. “Yeah, his friends grabbed me to hold me in place and he forced me to kiss the mouse.” Her stomach tightened, nausea trying to well up. “My mom pulled me out of school for good the next day.”Right after I announced I wanted to die.She tucked the candy in her mouth, chewing harshly, and wiped her hands on her dark jeans. “So now you know my most embarrassing moment. You can feel better about your boy bands.”
She could feel the air shift as Jasper turned toward her, but she wasn’t ready to face him yet. Her facial muscles were ticcing, and her fingers were counting.
“That sucks, Hollyn. I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he said quietly. “Kids can be absolute dicks.”
“They can,” she agreed. “I also should’ve known better. My tics were terrible by then. Way worse than they are now. The notion that Mr. Popularity said he liked me should’ve tipped me off as a red flag.”
“Fuck that noise,” he said, grabbing her chair and turning her toward him. “You were a kid. Not one bit of that was your fault.”
She couldn’t look at him, so she focused on the hand he had braced on his knee. He was flexing it as if he was angry. “I thought this was supposed to be improv, not a therapy session. I know it wasn’t my fault. But it was a lesson in seeing the reality and not painting some delusional fantasy picture on top of that.”
“Thinking a boy could want to kiss you is not delusional.”
She glanced up at that.
He smiled and then reached out and took her hand, flipping it palm up. He poured the entire bag of Skittles into her hand and then started picking out the purple ones.
She frowned. “What are these for?”
“Because if you can survive that kind of sadistic bullying, you can survive anything onstage or in front of a camera,” he said, expression serious. “And it took guts to share that with me. You win all the candy.”
“Please don’t give me pity candy,” she said, her voice tight.
“Hollyn, this isn’t pity candy.” He leaned in, almost nose to nose with her, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “I’m a former foster kid with junkie birth parents who literally forgot to feed me when I was little. And I pour coffee for a living. Compared to a talented writer with a few tics and some social hang-ups, you’ve got nothing on me. I could out-pity-party you on any given day,amateur.”
The words shocked her into a laugh. “That’s messed up, Jasper.”
He shrugged and leaned back with an unapologetic look. “I’m kind of messed up.”
He put the handful of purple Skittles in his mouth and stood. Only when he walked back to his bag did she register that he hadn’t been making a joke. She’d caught the barely there shift in his demeanor, the closing off. He’d said more than he’d meant to.
He peeked back over his shoulder, easy expression back in place. “Ready to play a game that has nothing to do with painful childhood memories?”
“Well, with a sales pitch like that…” she said, standing up and setting her candies in the chair.
She wanted to ask him more questions, to see what was underneath that thick layer of charm, but she tucked away the urge. They weren’t on a date.I’m not interested in her like that.She wasn’t going to make this into something more than it was. She’d learned that lesson with Maddox. This was just a lesson. Games.
Nothing more.
