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“Sorrell Voss?” An irritated voice cuts through the fog that clouded my head, the sound of my name shocking me like I’ve just had a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I snap my gaze to the front of the room, where Mr. Garrett is frowning at me, one eyebrow crooked higher than the other, waiting for me to respond.
“Shit,”I hiss.
A ripple of laughter travels through the room.
I flush, hot and red.
Mr. Garrett raises both eyebrows now. “Daydreaming three seconds into your very first day on campus. Well, damn. I know this place isn’t exactly a theme park, but I figured I might be able to hold your attention long enough to get through roll call. YouareSorrell Voss, I take it?”
I nod. “Yeah. I am. And…I’m here.”
More laughter.
“Debatable, but I’ll mark you present to avoid sparking a heated debate on existentialism.” He marks the paper on his clipboard with a flourish, which entertains my new classmates even further.
“All right, all right. Settle. We’ve got a lot of information to get through and I have about five minutes to dump it all on you, so shut your yap holes. Justin, sit down, for fuck’s sake. Let’s keep this civilized. We’re not marauding animals. You’re gonna have to wait to kiss Hayley until you’re out of my classroom.” He takes a deep breath, dropping the clipboard down onto his desk with a clatter. “I can’t believe that I have to say this to some of you again, but the gym’s changing rooms arenotco-ed!”
I’m immediately forgotten about as a loud groan goes up around me. At least five of my new classmates look genuinely frustrated by this reminder.
“Mr. Deakin decided to retire over break and won’t be coming back. Some of you miserable bastards, yeah, you know who you are, forced him into early retirement. A substitute will be taking his English class, so…” He shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t have a name. Figure it out. That’ll be a nice surprise for you when you head to class.”
Mr. Garrett talks and talks, spewing out announcement after announcement, sounding increasingly irritated as he goes through each of them. The guys and girls sitting around me react, groaning or laughing or booing, depending on the news, but I remain still in my seat, eyes locked on the whiteboard at the front of the room, not even daring to breathe.
I feel the pressure of those golden-brown eyes on me like a hand grabbing hold of the back of my neck. The weight doesn’t shift; Theo Merchant does not look away.
4
SORRELL
“I’m telling you.He’s not with her. He’ssingle.”
A girl standing near to her friend, two lockers down, laughs bitterly. “And? What am I supposed to do with that information exactly? Crack him over the back of the head with his lacrosse stick and drag him back to my room? I’m not even on his radar.”
“Putyourself on his radar,” the other girl insists.
I peek out of the corner of my eye, performing a quick assessment of them: both tall, waif-like skinny blondes. They’re both wearing a fuck ton of makeup, and they’re both wearing skirts barely long enough to cover their underwear. I see the curve of one of the girls’ ass cheeks below the hem of the material as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. They look like carbon copies of each other. I’ve encountered plenty of girls like them in the past—drones who finish each other’s sentences, while impressively still failing to maintain a single logical thought in their collective hive minds.
“Panovich made it clear that Theo’s off-limits this semester anyway. You should have heard him this morning, waxing lyrical about the importance of the school’s varsity teams this year. How he’ll be personally making sure that none of his athletes are distracted byoutside influences.”
The other girl snorts. I swear to god, I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the two of them if you stuck them in a line-up next to one another. “What’s he gonna do?” she laughs. “Stand watch outside our bedrooms every night? He can’t watch all of us all of the time. And you’ve fuckingsavedyourself for him, June. Your pussy’s been gathering dust while the rest of us have been catching major dick all summer—”
If you leave children to listen in on adult conversations, they begin to think themselves very grown up. These girls sound like they’re exactly that: children, playing grown-up. I laugh darkly under my breath as I take out an empty folder from my locker, slipping a brand-new notebook inside it.
“Excuse me? What thefuckdo you think you’re doing?”
I look up, and my mouth fights to curl into a smirk as I come face-to-face with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb. Neither of them looks very happy. Both of them have their arms across their chests, their tits straining against the too-tight material of their white shirts. I think…yeah, the one on the left with the beauty mark on her chin was on my floor this morning.
“Sorry? Can I help you?” I feign ignorance.
“No, you can’t.” The girl on the right has a sharp nose, a little hooked on the end. When she sneers down at me, her nostrils flare, and her whole face becomes angular, sharp and unattractive. Which is irrelevant anyway. It doesn’t matter how expertly she tosses her hair over her shoulder, or how flawless her makeup is; one look at her and I can see just how ugly she is on the inside.
“You were eavesdropping,” she accuses.
“You werelaughing,” Beauty mark adds to the charges being brought against me.
“You’ve been here five seconds and you’ve already pissed me off, Voss. Not smart.” Hook nose shakes her head. “Not smart at all.”
I close my locker door, taking my time to slide the folder into my bag. I make a point of giving these idiots an open-mouthed smile as I swing the bag over my shoulder. “Apologies. Do I know you?”
