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I nod.
Sliding down the rock, she dusts the back of her pressed shorts, now stained with green moss. “I guess I’ll see you around school then.”
“No more arguments about the rock then?” I tease.
She turns, walking backward, ignoring the way the twigs snap sharply under her toes. “You’re easy to read, Brooks Riley,” she ponders out loud. “It doesn’t matter how much I argue because you’ve already made your mind up. I don’t care to find a new spot, so I’ll have to learn a new normal, one with you on the outskirts.”
“You’ll learn to love me.” I wink, attempting to lighten the heaviness in her tone.
She smiles a sad smile. “I don’t love anything that can cause me pain.Especiallypeople. But I’ll learn to tolerate you.”
I watch her leave, shock holding me in place, unsure what else to say.
3
HENLEY
“Hey.”
I arch away from the breath touching my ear. “Personal space.” I stare at Brooks in irritation.
“Sorry.” He holds his hands up in surrender.
He looks like the typical misfit of Ivy Prep. His white dress shirt is half untucked and his gray pants hang lower on his hips than regulations allow. The maroon sleeves of his jacket are even pushed up his arms, and two thick leather straps are wrapped around his right wrist.
“You’re not wearing your tie.”
He glances down at his shirt as though that’s new to him. “I don’t know how to tie one. My last school didn’t have a lame-ass uniform.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes and lift my hand. “Where is it?”
Patting both his pockets, he pulls it from his left one.
“Give it here and hold these.”
He takes my books without argument, standing still as I dress his toddler ass.
“Do you put highlights in your hair?” I ask, needing to fill the silence with conversation while our bodies are a little too close for comfort. His eyes fixate on my face in intrigue.
He shakes his head. “No. Why?”
The lightened locks are styled longer on top of his head fall over his forehead, and I have to refrain from brushing them from his eyes.
“Stuffed under that stupid ball cap you wear, it looks dark,” I tell him, tying a perfect Windsor knot at his neck. “But it’s got blond through it.”
I pat the tie into place, smiling at my handiwork.
“All natural, Squirrel,” he tells me, loosening the tie almost immediately.
Frowning as he hands me back my books, I lift my head in slow motion. “Did you just nickname me after arodent?”
“Acuterodent.”
I shake my head, forcing my feet forward once again.
“How’s your first day?” I ask, walking to remove the insult from my skin.
A rodent. He may as well have nicknamed meRat.
