Thirty minutes later when I leave my therapist’s office, I get a text.
It’s my mom.
I’ve been trying to avoid this, avoid having an actual conversation with my mother about everything. I’ve been making excuses, staying away from the house and living in a motel, but I guess I can’t anymore.
Because she wants to have dinner Friday. And if I don’t go to her, she’ll come to me, and even though Friday is a couple of days away, my skin has already started to crawl.
My anger has already started to burn.
Because something that wasn’t supposed to happen, happened and almost destroyed everything that I’ve worked for.
My father’s dream.
I’m sorry, A. I didn’t mean for it to happen…
Someone trips me up and my books fall to the floor.
I don’t need to hear the snickering to know who it is. It’s a group of four girls who’ve taken a special dislike to me.
My roommate, Elanor, is one of them.
She doesn’t say anything to me, only glares with her big dark eyes when I enter our shared room. So I spend most of my time either with my girls in the common room, at the library or out on the grounds up until the last second before curfew.
“So riddle me this,” one of the girls says with a snicker and a wiggle of her blonde eyebrows. “How much of a reject do you have to be that your own guardian sends you to the reform school she’s the principal at?”
The second girl, who’s also a blonde, joins in. “Yeah. What’d you do, Salem?”
Right.
Very funny.
A fuck-ton of snickering happens at this.
I don’t want to cause any trouble. I’m not averse to making scenes – not me – but I don’t want to fight right now. God forbid Miller sees us in the hallway – her office is only a few doors down – and gives me more things to do. My back has been killing me all week from cleaning her stupid apartment. I don’t think it can take more abuse.
I’m not going to lie though. Scrubbing her toilet and bathtub is at least keeping me busy enough that I don’t think about all the crazy, wretched things I’ve done. Namely on the night when we snuck out to the bar, which was four days ago.
And him.
Yeah, it is keeping me busy enough that I don’t think about him either.
Well, who am I kidding? Of course I think about him.
I think about him all the time and maybe that’s why when I hear his voice coming up from behind me, I think it’s magic.
I think I conjured him up.
“Can I help you ladies with anything?” he says, and I freeze.
Ladies.
He said ladies.
All the girls have smiles on their faces because of that polite little word. Even I’m blushing and not slightly.
The first blonde girl who called me a reject begins, “No, we’re just –”
“Are you going to pick that up?” Arrow cuts her off.
I fist my hands at his tone. I don’t have to turn around and look at him to know that his jaw is ticking. Or that there must be a dark glint in his blue eyes.
I know all that. I can see it in my head. I can feel it all too.
He’s like a wave of heat at my spine.
The second girl goes, “Well, these aren’t our books, Coach.”
The third girl in the group, who’s a brunette like my roommate Elanor, says, “They’re hers. She dropped them.”
And I jump to say, still keeping my back to Coach Carlisle, “Yes. I’m just gonna –”
“No, you won’t.”
His curtly worded response directed at me makes all of us jump. The girls have their eyes wide and stuck on him and I’m fisting my skirt now, needing something to worry and crush between my fingers as his heat rolls down my spine in the form of sweat.
“You,” he says and the girl who called me a reject stiffens. “You’re the one who tripped her up, correct?”
No one says a word even though students all around us who were going about their business have come to a stop to witness what’s going on. They’re probably thinking that I’m at it again, the principal’s ward who made a scene at the soccer field.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll just get them,” I say, ducking my head and making for the books again.
“Salem.”
He says my name as a warning and I stop. Again, I don’t have to look at him to know the state of his features, all tightened and bunched up, sharp as a blade.
“I’m giving you the courtesy of doing the right thing of your own volition,” he says to the girls in a stern voice. “But if you can’t, I can very easily order you to bend down and pick up the books. I can very easily order you to stay down for the rest of the day too.” I feel him shifting on his feet. “Personally, I’d like to abuse my power a little bit. I’m stuck here anyway, right? Might as well have a little fun with it. So it’s really up to you.”