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Sebastian’s eyes meet mine for the briefest of seconds. He bites down lightly on his lower lip, like he’s holding back from laughing. “Told you,” he mouths.
“I hate you,” I mouth back. And turn on my heel and leave.
Chapter Eighteen
Seb
Annnnnnd…Ididityet again, ladies and gentleman. I let myself get carried away by yet another one of my boredom-busting ideas, and now I’m about to get my ass handed to me on a silver platter.
On a side-note, it was one of my best ideas yet, if I do say so myself. I just feel bad no one else got to enjoy the slip’n’slide after Caroline and I tried it out, since Tromely put a lid on the whole thing as soon as she hefted herself off the ground.
Correction: as soon as three staff members hefted her off the ground, because every time she got even one foot back on the grass, she slipped and fell right back down. Not gonna lie, it was like watching one of those campy slapstick reels.
Anyway, it turns out Caroline didn’t even enjoy the slide. So yeah, total waste on that one. And also, what the hell is even up with that? How can anyonenotenjoy a giant slip’n’slide? This thing was epic. Like, could be a contender for a side attraction at Disneyland scale of epic. But apparently not epic enough for Caroline Heinz. Who looked like she wanted to murder me as soon as we slid to a stop at the bottom of the hill.
All I wanted was to make her smile, because swear to God, that girl barely ever smiles. She barely says a word. At least, not when she’s at school. But now she’s majorly pissed at me, and I have no idea why. Did she not want to get her clothes wet or something? Or she’s self-conscious about her body for some reason? Hell if I know. And still, I feel like a jerk for upsetting her. I never would have pulled her on with me if I thought it would make hermorepissed off. My goal when I did it was to get her tostopbeing pissed at me.
I rake my fingers through my hair as I sit on one of the long benches in the locker room, where Mrs. T. told me to go get dried off and changed before Graham shows up. And yeah, I’m almost positive it’ll be Graham, not Dale. Because it’salwaysGraham when I get hauled in for something.
“A handful” is how he used to talk about me to their friends when I was a kid. But he always said it with a smile on his face. I think he figured it was just a phase I’d eventually outgrow. Only, turns out, instead, I grew from being “a handful” to being “out of hand”. He doesn’t believe me when I say I never have any intention of causing trouble or being a pain in the ass. I just like to have fun. I like stirring things up and pushing limits… I love dares and chaos and anything that makes the adrenaline pump through my veins and rush into my brain until every other thought gets clouded in the high of the moment.
When I’m out of hand is when I’m happiest.
Clearly, Caroline is not like this.
I shoot her a text.
All caps. Shit. Not good.
Great. Now she’s not even answering me. I don’t understand this girl. And hell knows why, but there’s a part of me that wants to. Not just because of the tutoring thing. And I mean, yeah, obviously I want her to stick with it. Okay, Ineedher to stick with it. But also, I feel bad for upsetting her by pulling her onto that water slide. Like, a total asshole. And even though I still don’t get why it pissed her off so much, I want to try to make it right.
Color me surprised: Graham and Dalebothshow up to meet with Mrs. T.
I’m supposed to meet them by the bandstand—or gazebo, or whatever it’s called, so we can all go in to meet with her together in ten minutes. She’s still getting dried off or changed or whatever.
I’m sitting on a bench by one of the pillars when my folks pull up in separate cars and walk across the grass to give me the pre-Tromely shake-down. They’re both tense as hell. Dale is worried something more is going on with me, and Graham is off his rocker livid. I can’t decide which is worse. Actually, that’s not true. What’s worse is watching the two of them fight. Going off on each other because of me. And my folks hardly ever fight. Honest to God, they have the most chill relationship most of the time. Except when I go and push the envelope too far, like I went and did today.
Again.
“We’ve been too lenient on him,” Graham’s saying as they step up onto the white decking. “He pulls stunts like this, and we give him a slap on the wrist and it’s all just a big joke to him.” He swings his arm wide. “Just like everything else. Everything is a goddamn joke to him.”
“I don’t think everything’s a joke,” I say, now that they’re both in front of me. “I just… I let things get a little out of control sometimes.”
“A little out of control?” Graham gawks at me. “You jumped across a five-storey building two weeks ago, Seb! This week you set up a forty-foot water slide on school property, for chrissakes! Things are more thana little out of controlhere!”
“It seemed like an awesome idea at the time. I get now it was stupid.”
“You’re not making this any better, kid. If you’re telling me it’s only occurring to you now, what an astronomically stupid idea it was. Did it not cross your mindat the timethat stealing school property to set up a water slide across two fields might land you in a whole pile of trouble?”
I drop my head back against the pillar and blow out a breath. “I didn’t think about it at the time. I just got kinda carried away.”
“You just got—” Graham scrubs a hand across his face, and turns away. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I can’t even—”
“Graham. Honey, have a seat,” Dale says calmly. He’s always the calm one in these situations. All Zen and laid back.
“I’m fine standing,” Graham snaps.
No one says anything for a few tense moments until, eventually, Dale breaks the silence.
