He sits beside me on the floor and leans against the locker. I hate that I notice how close he is, and how good he smells.
“I got him to take it down and delete it. It’s gone.”
I drop the innocent act. “It’s gone?”
The corner of his lips twitches into a smirk. “If you would’ve listened to me earlier when I was trying to talk to you, you wouldn’t be sitting here right now with a stolen phone and laptop.”
“I was going to return them—”
“Where is Ethan anyway? How did you get his stuff?”
“I locked him in the janitor’s closet,” I say casually, like we’re discussing the weather.
Aiden laughs, and I have to force myself not to stare. It’s the first time Aiden’s genuinely laughed out loud around me. It’s nice. He should do it more often.
“Wow,” he says. “I can honestly say I didn’t see that coming.”
Just then, the extent of his words registers with me. “Wait, you got him to delete the video?”
He runs his hands through his hair, looking as close to embarrassed as Aiden—with his stoic face—could be. “You freaked out about it, so I figured it was important to you.”
He knew how much it really meant to me before everyone else, and helped me without me even having to ask. He wasn’t even there at lunch when everyone else realized I was still bothered by the video. I guess he isn’t as hard or cold or has a heart made of ice like he wants everyone to think. He actually cares about his friends. Wait, he considers me his friend!
“How’d you get him to take it down? He was a total ass when I asked him.”
“I told him that I didn’t appreciate my face being on the internet.”
My eyes widen. “That’s all you said to him?”
“Sometimes, the reputation does all the talking for you,” he says darkly.
Wow. I literally twisted Ethan’s wrist and he didn’t even budge. Aiden gives him a subtle hint and he scrambles to oblige. The curiosity is killing me. I have to ask. “Aren’t you going to ask me why I freaked out like that?”
“No. I’ll find out eventually. You can count on that.” He stands up, brushing off his pants. “You should probably let Ethan out of the janitor’s closet now.”
With that, he walks down the hall without a good-bye, leaving me to stare at his retreating back. He’s guarded and doesn’t let a lot of people see who he actually is. He scares people away with his tough, uncaring act. Or maybe it’s not an act and that’s who he really is. But if he really doesn’t care about anyone, like he wants us to think, why go through the effort to get that video deleted for me? I think that his permanent scowl and frosty attitude are defense mechanisms—a way of keeping people at arm’s length. For some reason, he doesn’t want anyone around him, and doesn’t want them to get too close either. Only the Boys, who have practically grown up with him, actually know him, the true Aiden—the man behind the impassive, unimpressed mask.
Or I’m just completely overthinking everything and Aiden’s just a huge asshole. But one thing I know that’s true about Aiden is that he’s very perceptive. You think I’m hiding something, Aiden? What are you hiding? I stand up and put the laptop back in the locker. I guess it’s time I let Ethan out of the closet.
I needed the video down, and I did what I had to do. I always do what needs to be done, but I do it on my own terms. Ethan screamed bloody murder when I let him out of the janitor’s closet, but when I said that I’d tell Aiden if he ever talked to me or bothered me again, he shut up pretty quickly. Dodged another bullet, and again with Aiden’s help—it was becoming a bit of a habit, and I wasn’t sure at all how I felt about it.
11
It’s been a week since I locked Ethan in the janitor’s closet and I’m sitting cross-legged on Charlotte’s bed, our chemistry and calculus books and notes scattered
all around us.
She looks up from her spot on the bed. “Remind me why I want to get into science when I’m older?”
I look at the clock: it’s almost midnight. I sigh. “Because you want to better the human race with your knowledge of science and medicine?”
“I’m seriously regretting that decision,” she mumbles and flips through her notebook. “It’s a Friday night and we’re sitting here studying.”
“You say that like it’s unusual for science students to study on a Friday night.”
I received another failed calculus test earlier this week, and we just had a quiz today. I was prepared this time, but I’m positive I flunked it too. Charlotte’s in a different calculus class, but it’s all the same material, so she’s been trying to help me.
So far, we’ve been studying chemistry and calculus together every day after school until late, and I’m not any closer to understanding this gibberish than I was before. I don’t think Charlotte really knows what she’s doing either.