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“Okay. I’ll be right outside.”
I give myself a minute to catch my breath, continuing to spit into the toilet, trying to clear the awful taste of half-digested food from my mouth.
From the stall next to me, I hear humming. It’s the piece of music that Theo just played in the auditorium. The humming trails off, and a female voice full of humor says,‘Wellthatwas a bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?’
I groan, letting my head thump back down onto my forearms. “Fuck off, Rachel.”
8
SORRELL
I figuredI was going to have to convince Principal Ford that I wasn’t throwing up because I was hungover, but she just waved a hand at me when I tried to explain myself to her on the way up to my room. “I know you weren’t at the party, Sorrell. It’s okay. Don’t worry. You’re not in any trouble. I just hope it’s not food poisoning. The last thing I need is the entire senior year bed-bound because they can’t stop purging their stomachs.”
She knows I wasn’t at the party. How does sheknowthat? She says it like it’s a straight fact. I was at the party. Under duress, fair enough, but I did go. I was there for at least an hour. It was a miracle I made it back up to the school before security went down there and broke it all up.
I’m too tired to worry much about Ford’s statement at this point, though. I’ve pulled every muscle I have in my stomach from retching so hard and I feel disgusting.
“You’re sure you don’t want to see the nurse? I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t make sure you got checked out.” Principal Ford hovers in the doorway of my room, glancing back down the hallway every couple of seconds.
I know why she’s so twitchy. Theo stopped playing when I bolted out of the auditorium, and since she left with me, god knows how many students ignored her warning and got the hell out of there while they could. I’m betting Sebastian’s stolen Jeremy’s Super Cub and is halfway to Seattle by now.
“I’m okay, I promise. I just get really bad cramps with my period sometimes. They can make me throw up if I don’t take something quick enough.”
She assesses me sympathetically, nodding. “Then get into bed and rest up. If you’re still in pain tomorrow, go to the nurse’s office first thing. I’m sure the nurse will have something to ease the cramps.”
“I’m going to have a quick shower first. I think I have puke in my hair,” I say sheepishly.
“Sounds like a good idea. All right, Sorrell. I’m going to have to leave you to it. If I don’t get back to the rabble I left in the auditorium, the place will descend into pure chaos.”
She goes.
While I’m in the shower, the sounds of the other girls from my floor returning reach me: doors opening and closing; muted conversations; laughter. I take my time, forcing myself to stand under the stream of punishingly hot water, waiting to feel like I am finally clean, but that feeling doesn’t come. I scrub off one layer of skin after another until I’m raw and beet red, but the cloying, gross sense that I am dirty just will not go away.
Eventually, the water runs cold, and I get out.
I brush my teeth four times, determined to get rid of the disgusting taste in my mouth at least. There are no sounds out in the hallway anymore—the girls must all be in their beds by now. Opening my bathroom door, I let out a startled yelp when I see that I have a visitor.
Theo Merchant, sitting up on my bed, back resting against the headboard, comfortable as you like. At least he took his shoes off. His legs are crossed at the ankles, hands stacked on top of his stomach. When he sees me, he grabs something sitting on the bed next to him and holds it out to me: a hot water bottle.
“You’ve gotta be fuckingkiddingme.”
He shrugs. “I’ve heard hot water bottles aregoodfor period cramps.” He says this argumentatively, like he thinks I’m objecting to the dumb hot water bottle and not the fact thathe is in my fucking bedroom.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I growl.
Unfazed, he sets the hot water bottle down and begins to pick at his fingernails. “Careful. Better put those clothes down. You look like you’re about to lose that towel.”
I let out a frustrated snarl as I dump my clothes onto the chair behind the door. Once I’ve made sure my towel isn’t about to fall down, I stalk across the room and slap at his feet, baring my teeth at him. “You have no right to be in here. You need to leave. Now.”
He looks up at me, expression blank, and I see everything that his hair hid while he was up there, playing on that stage: the complex golden-amber-chocolate hue of his eyes; his high cheek bones; the regal line of his nose; the sharp curve of his cupid’s bow, and the fullness of his mouth. Unlike yesterday, he’s not quite clean-shaven. His jaw is darkened with the beginnings of stubble.
“You sure you want me to go?” he asks flatly. “Haven’t you got me exactly where you want me?”
Heat climbs up the back of my throat. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“We both know why you were sent here. So, isn’t me being here, alone, in your room, the perfect opportunity to do me in?”
So. Fucking. Casual. He doesn’t seem fazed by the fact that I was sent here to do him harm. “Y’know. It’s actuallyinsultingthat you’d come here, given the fact that you know I want you dead. If you don’t consider me a threat, then you should really reconsider that tack, because—”
