Page 21 of You Said I Was Your Favorite

Kind of hot, I cannot lie. The girl definitely has spirit inside her. She had no qualms slapping me yesterday morning. No hesitation either. One second, she’s staring at me in disbelief and the next, her hand is cracking across my cheek, making it throb.

The moment Matthews enters the admin building and sees me standing outside his closed office door, he comes to a stop, his shoulders sagging as he tilts his head back for a moment before he zeros that gaze of his directly on me.

“What are you doing here?”

He knows what I’m doing here. I don’t know why I have to bother explaining.

“Daisy Albright,” I answer, shoving my hands in my pockets.

I went full blown Lancaster Prep today, wearing every piece of my uniform. Even the goddamn jacket. I wanted to look like the perfect little student in the hopes it would convince Matthews I mean business.

“You can’t change what happened.” He strides toward me, walking past me to unlock his office door. “Only a few days into the school year and look at the chaos you’ve already caused.”

“I want to make it right,” I tell him as I follow Matthews into his cramped office.

He completely ignores me, turning on the lights and dropping his battered leather book bag on top of a pile of file folders. Hasn’t the man heard of digital filing? Storage? iClouds?

“There’s nothing you can do to change the situation,” Matthews says once he’s settled into his creaky old chair. “She has one more day of suspension and then she’ll be back at school tomorrow. It’s fine. She’s going to be fine.”

I feel responsible for her getting in trouble. I should’ve never said she had mommy issues. I pushed and pushed until she broke and after seeing her yesterday, I realized she’s not just broke, she’s broken.

Maybe she’s always been broken. I don’t know. Deep down, I feel like shit for it. I’ve done her wrong and I need to fix this.

And I never want to fix shit.

When I remain in front of his desk deathly quiet, Matthews finally sighs, leaning back in his chair as he watches me. “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

I shake my head. “No.”

“Why do you want to help her anyway?”

“It wasn’t her fault, what happened.”

“She’s the one who slapped you.”

“I said something shitty to her to make her react like that,” I say.

Matthews’ brows shoot up. “What exactly did you say?”

I shake my head, my lips pressed together. I’m not telling him because hearing me admit it out loud will make me feel even shittier.

A sigh leaves Matthews. “Are you willing to take on her punishment?”

Icy tendrils of shock slide down my spine, but I remain as stiff as a board as I murmur, “Maybe.”

Or maybe not. Fuck, what will that do to me? I’m already in detention. Newsflash—it sucks. Taking a mandatory day off of school because I got “suspended”? My parents, specifically my father, might want to kill me, but what’s really going to happen in the long run?

Absolutely nothing. If I want to go to college, my dad will just buy my entry anyway. Via paying for a new dorm building or whatever. It’ll be no problem.

While Daisy is over here toiling away, trying to earn good grades so she can get into a good school and become a good little tax-contributing citizen for the rest of her life. She’ll work a boring job and marry a boring man and have a couple of boring kids.

Sounds real fucking great.

So why the hell do I care? Why do I want to help her?

The look on her face when I said she had mommy issues haunts me. The shock in her gaze, the pain. I hurt her with two carelessly said words and I can’t take them back.

I may be reckless and impulsive, but I never want to intentionally hurt someone. And that’s what I did to Daisy.

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