“We'll be watching a film on the English Civil War, or you may have heard of it referred to as the English Revolution. I would advise you to take extensive notes since I will be handing out a thirty question quiz at th
e conclusion of the film,” he said sternly, eyeing Lacey and her cronies as they continued to whisper in the back row.
“Ms. Harris, do I need to switch your seat?” he asked Lacey.
“Um, no, sir. Mindy was just asking me for a pencil since she didn’t come to class prepared,” Lacey said sweetly, ignoring Mindy’s gasp of dismay at being thrown under the bus.
“Whatever the reason, please refrain from talking,” he said as he lowered the screen from the ceiling and turned on the overhead projector.
Ignoring the trio in back, I spent the class period scribbling notes from the film and then taking the quiz which proved to be relatively easy.
I managed to keep any thoughts of detention at bay throughout the majority of the day, but as seventh hour drew to a close, my apprehension from this morning began to creep in. Now that we had hashed things out, would Maddon ignore me, moving on with his life, or would he still want to talk? I tried to reason with myself that it shouldn’t matter either way. Why should I care what he did? Our lives were completely different, yet for some undefined reason, I did care.
Once again, I was the first person to reach the auditorium. I sat in the back row again, waiting anxiously as a few students straggled in. Maddon arrived a few minutes later. I watched from my vantage point as he scanned the dim space, obviously searching for something. After a moment, his eyes finally found mine. He shot me a tentative smile before heading down the row directly in front of me.
“Hey,” he said, turning sideways in his seat so he could see me.
“Hey,” I said, feeling a sudden shyness around him that I normally didn’t feel with guys.
“So, how many more days of jail do you have left?” he asked.
“Until Friday,” I said grimacing “How about you?”
“My sentence is done after tomorrow,” he said, shooting me a crooked grin.
“Lucky,” I said.
“Hey, at least your sentence was for something worthwhile,” he said.
“Oh God, you heard about that?” I asked, embarrassed that so many people knew I had lost it in class.
“The whole school knows,” he said laughing. “You’re like everyone’s hero. Badass to the core.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” I said, flushing at his admiring tone.
“Are you kidding me? We’ve all dreamed of putting Matthews in his place. You made history. It was so epic.”
I giggled at his words. “Epic?”
“Hey, trust me. If anything ever was epic, that was it.”
“Well, I'm glad I could inspire everyone,” I teased.
He laughed out loud at my words, making the other students turn to look at us curiously. I couldn’t help wondering if they thought it was tactless for me to be fraternizing with the person whose father had changed my life so drastically.
I sobered up at the thought. What was I doing? Sure, I no longer blamed Maddon for the accident, but it still didn’t erase the fact that his father had committed a heinous crime.
“Does it matter what they think?” he asked quietly, somehow reading what I was thinking.
“How'd you know that’s what I was thinking?” I asked intrigued.
“Your face is like an open book. I can tell every emotion you’re feeling by the way your eyes look,” he said intensely, making me wonder if he really could see through the mask I had erected.
I shifted back in my seat. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of him knowing me in a way that seemed so intimate. The silence between us stretched uncomfortably, and eventually he turned back around in his seat while I fiddled around on my phone.
I let out a huge sigh of relief when the hour ended and we could escape the oppressively thick silence between us. Scooping up my stuff in one movement, I fled the auditorium after throwing a halfhearted goodbye at him.
I sank heavily in my car seat, shaking slightly from being around him. Unlike the week before where I shook uncontrollably from anger, this was something entirely different. He somehow managed to work his way under my protective shield which was ironic since he was a big part of why the shield was there in the first place.