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A tiny frown creases his beautiful, strong brown.
Say anything.
I long to smooth it away but I think I’ve turned to actual stone.
Just say any words right now, Malia.
I stare at him, staring at me.
Anything at all.
I bite my lip.
Oh my god this is so awkward.
My foot starts to bounce and I press my thumb and forefinger together in time to the beat.
Why has no one spoken in a week? Surely it’s been a year. A decade.
Bhodi’s frown deepens.
Fucking eternity is looming.
He opens his mouth to speak—
“Sorry!” I blurt out, breaking the through the terror that has me frozen. “The eggs are threatening to repeat on me!”
I feel my face flame at my lie. My eyes widen.I can’t believe I saidthatof all things!It’s so embarrassing. I probably should have saidanythingelse. Now he’ll always think of me as the girl with eggy breath.
“We should get to class,” Bhodi says carefully, his face unreadable.
Yep. He’s definitely going to dump me. Not that we were going out for him to be able todump medump me, but you know what I mean.I’m going to get ghosted.
Which, when you think about it, is a terrible metaphor. Ghosts haunt people. They don’t leave you alone. They stick around and annoy the shit out of you, at best. Terrorise you into an early grave to join themfor all eternityat worst. Summer explained to me that ghosting someone kind of means the opposite. You leave them for dust like a tumbleweed.
I’m getting tumbleweeded.
For sure.
“You’re hilarious,” Bhodi snorts. “But, we both have the prof first thing, so we probably shouldn’t be late. Come on my little tumbleweed, I promise I’ll still haunt you, eggy breath and all.”
If I thought I could out pace him, I’d fucking Roadrunner him right now. As in, speed out of here like my life depended on it, not drop an anvil on his head.
Geez, with the death jokes again, Malia. You really are sick.
Bhodi chuckles, loops my arm through his and pulls me along. I swear he mutters “beep, beep,” under his breath, but hey, I’m crazy, so I’m probably imagining things.
* * *
We make it to class with about a minute to spare, but we needn’t have worried because the professor turns up twenty-seven minutes late.
Which takes the piss, given the price of tuition fees and the fact that the lecture is only an hour long. University already feels like a part time course with the lack of hours we do. I’m sure if they actually gave us classes as long as a school day, we could matriculate in half the time. At least. With hard work and no partying, I could be done by Christmas.
Apparently, according to Summer anyway, that’s not what university is about. How silly, I thought I came here to get a degree and escape my parents. Summer came here to appease hers and to party hard.
Bhodi seems like he’s more in Summer’s camp of thought, but I’ll admit he does seem to be trying with his work a little more. He came with his own notebook and pen today. Didn’t use them, but it’s still progress. Sort of.
“Miss Van der Zee?” My heart sinks as the lesson ends and the prof’s voice calls out over the din of students scrambling to get out of here. No one seems to care that he was late but finished on time. And now I’m regretting my own annoyance, because I’d much rather be out of here than getting called upon. “Can you stay behind please?”
