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“Bye, Dad,” I called back over my shoulder, trudging down the front path and into Brianna’s waiting car.
“Good morning,” she said, looking up from the sketch pad on her knees. Her eyes narrowed.
She was going to ask about last night.
I sighed. “I’m really sorry, I wasn’t feeling well. I just got overheated.”
“It’s March,” she observed, staring at me in that way that made me want to spill all my secrets.
“I know, but it’s hot in your house and Aidan was really sweaty, and I just-” I broke off helplessly. She couldn’t find out.
Luckily, she seemed to buy it.
She dropped her gaze back down to her sketch, smudging some of the charcoal across the page with a flourish. That was the great thing about Bree. She tended to take your words at face value.
Several minutes later, we arrived at the school gates, and we both hopped out of the car. My eyes darted through the crowd milling outside, praying that Aidan wasn’t among them. To my relief, he was nowhere to be seen.
We had different classes since Bree was a couple of grades below me, so when we met up for lunch later, there were several strings of gossip we had to catch each other up on, and it was a welcome distraction. I’d done nothing but fret about seeing Aidan all morning, and I was sure I hadn’t absorbed a word of my lectures. Even Mrs. Fredrick, my English teacher, who was notorious for getting so lost in her lectures she didn’t even notice her class had cleared out after the bell, had called me on it.
What would he say when I saw him again? I couldn’t avoid him forever. Would he just ignore it? Or had I been right this morning when I’d thought there might be a larger plan to humiliate me at play here.
If there was, it was already working.
I sighed, tuning back into Bree’s gossip about Lee Graves and Annie Star getting caught in the football team’s changing rooms. It was good that we were in different grades, because between us, we managed to know about most everything going on at our school.
Too soon, the bell rang and everyone filed out of the lunchroom. In the hallway, I weaved between big groups of kids, doing my best to keep my eyes on the ground so I wouldn’t trip… and then ran smack into someone.
No… no, no.
I instantly knew who it was without even looking.
It was like God himself wanted to embarrass me to the point I was no longer able to show my face.
Two annoyed sets of eyes turned on me.
He had a girl, (a different one from the day before, by the way!), pressed against a locker, his knee between her thighs as she ground on him. His mouth was smeared in her lipstick, so I knew he’d just had his tongue down her throat.
I barely even saw the girl, my gaze was so focused on him. His eyes seared into me, and for the first time, I saw a sliver of real hate in them.
That’s new.
He’d always looked at me with a mix of disdain, mild annoyance, and amusement… like a bug had just landed on his shoulder… he’d flick me away and go about his day.
He’d never looked at me with hate before.
And it made my stomach roll like a dingy on a stormy sea.
For the first time since… well, as long as I could remember, I had nothing to say. I had no sharp-witted comment I could jab at him to protect myself.
I needed to get out of here before the force of his stare actually made me combust. I wasn’t great at science, but I was beginning to think it was in the realms of possibility.
“Sorry,” I squeaked, ducking around them. I felt his eyes on my back as I dashed down the hallway. Even when I made it to History and collapsed in my seat, I could still feel them.
How could someone have so much power in their eyes?
Mr. Liu started his lecture, his voice a pleasant buzz in the background that let me sink deeper into contemplation.
I had to figure out exactly what Aidan’s plan was. Maybe I’d been wrong about him wanting to charm me so he could embarrass me. His behavior last night was completely different from what I’d just witnessed.
