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“Whatever, Seb.” Scarr gives me the evil eye. “She totally just—”
“She wasn’t spying on us, okay?” I turn to Caroline. “What are you doing here? I thought you said you were going to the library.”
Caroline’s eyes dart from mine to Scarlett, then back again. “I was. I mean, I did.” Her cheeks flush red. “I just came from the library. I was going to read here for ten minutes before class.” She wipes her hands up and down her thighs. “I come here sometimes to read. When it’s nice. No one else ever comes past the picnic tables usually. There’s never been anyone here. I didn’t—”
“Well, clearly some peopledocome here,” Scarlett snaps. “Becausewe’rehere.”
“Fuck, Scarr.” I squeeze her hand. “Relax, okay? She was just coming here to read.”
“It’s fine. I’m leaving anyway,” Caroline says, averting her eyes now. “Sorry I interrupted.”
She takes a couple steps backwards, then turns and practically jogs back through the trees to the path by the picnic tables. And I feel terrible that Scarlett was so mean to her. I mean, Scarr is mean to everyone. But still, I hope Caroline will know not to take it personally.
“Did you have to be such a bitch to her?” I ask Scarr once I’m sure Caroline is out of earshot.
“Yeah, because she was lying. She said she came here toread.Who the hell reads, Seb? Duringlunch?”
I shrug. “People like Caroline, I guess?”
Scarlett gives me one of her death glares. “So, what—now you’re besties with Fish Girl or something?”
“Don’t do that. You hate it when people call you Ice Queen. Her name’s Caroline.” I straighten her flimsy top. The neck opening is so wide it fell halfway down her shoulder during our hug. “And she’s super shy. You probably just made her feel like shit about herself.”
Scarr looks away. She sinks her teeth into her glossed-out lower lip. She’s always slathering on that watermelon-scented lip crap. I’m surprised she can even stand to eat real honest-to-God watermelon. Her jaw tics. “Sorry. That was shitty.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to Caroline.”
She turns and gives me a look like you’d give your annoying kid brother. “My God… Fine.”
“Fine.”
“Cool.”
We’re quiet for a few seconds, and then Scarr knocks her hip against me. Only, because she’s so much shorter than me, it bumps my lower thigh.
“You better not start ditching me now that you’re hanging out with the smart girls.”
I laugh out loud at that.
“Also,” Scarr adds. “Your fly is wide open, dork.”
Chapter Sixteen
Caroline
Iamstillsomad at myself. I evenknewSebastian was going to be meeting up with Scarlett by the picnic tables yesterday during lunch. But like the loser I am, I totally forgot. I was so frazzled from Sebastian acknowledging me in civics class—turning around and talking to me—in front of everyone. And then pulling me aside in the hallway, like hanging out with me after class was totally normal. And no matter how many times I’ve told myself over the years that I wouldn’t want to be friends with any of the SH Prep kids, even if they suddenly started treating me differently—or care what they thought or want to be accepted by them—I know now that is a total lie.
I liked how it felt. To have someone turn around and search me out in class, and share a meaningless, friendly moment with a guy about something we’d done the day before—even if it was just tutoring. It still felt so… normal. And I didn’t realize how much I wanted that.
So maybe I should be glad about what happened in the woods afterwards, when I went to the spot by the picnic tables to read like I’ve done a hundred times before. Because it was exactly the reminder I needed not to be so naïve and desperate and deluded. For thinking, even for a second, that my world could ever overlap with Sebastian Murdoch’s. Or pretty much anyone else’s at that stupid school. I was so desperate for someone to not treat me like dirt that I misconstrued him talking to me, and him asking me to come to the football game, with him wanting to actually be friends with me.
That awkward run-in in the woods jolted me into remembering the kind of guy he really is. A stupid jock fuckboy. I mean, just because he doesn’t eat every mollusc in sight, doesn’t mean he isn’t still a shark. And that his friends aren’t sharks, too. Because if the rest of them are great whites, then Scarlett Thiels is a bull shark.
There have been at least sixty-nine unprovoked attacks on humans by bull sharks recorded. And I have no doubt that Scarlett’s kill count is at least ten times that. In fact, I’m pretty sure if a great white shark got in her way, she’d probably attack it, too.
I would give anything to be born with the same mettle as Scarlett Thiels. Not that I would want to be mean like her. I’m just saying I could handle being gifted with even a fraction of her fearlessness and the confidence not to care about what anyone else thinks. Maybe then I’d have had the confidence to stand up for myself when she accused me of being some kind of creepy sex stalker. And I know they were having sex, because they were all tangled in each other’s arms when I came crashing onto the scene like an escaped rhino suddenly freed from the zoo. And Sebastian’s fly was still open. So yeah, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what they’d been doing moments before I broke up their mid-day romp in the woods.
Whatever. Like I said, even though it was mortifying, I’m glad it happened. It was just what I needed to make me remember why I took on the tutoring gig in the first place, and what my goal is here.
