“That must be it,” Bibi said, patting my hand.
“Thank you, Bibi.” I reached to hug her. “Thank you so much for this.”
“You’re welcome, honey. I know you’re going to make beautiful creations in it. Will we be seeing Ronan anymore now that it’s done?” she asked, light as a feather.
“No,” I said. “Why would we?”
“Oh, child.” She briefly laid her hand on my shoulder, then got up and went inside.
I hugged my elbows, feeling like she’d just passed judgement on me and found me guilty of a crime I didn’t commit. Ronan had made it clear—the other night and in class with his stony silence—that he didn’t want anything more to do with me. Even if that stung somewhere deep in a place I didn’t want to look at, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
I studied the shed, still disbelieving it was really mine. I was going to work so much better—so much harder—in that space. That was all that mattered.
“Might as well start now.”
I got busy organizing everything the way I wanted it. It didn’t take long—Ronan had set everything up as if he knew exactly how I’d need it for maximum efficiency. I worked fast in fresh, clean air and sunlight instead of a dark, grungy garage.
By the time I was finished for the day, there was no trace of Ronan left at all.
“Let’s have’em, folks,” Mr. Baskin said the next day in History. “Pass your papers to the front of the class.”
Violet and I exchanged glances. “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” she murmured. “This paper was written under extreme duress.”
I smiled gently back at her. The entire school was buzzing about how River Whitmore had stood Violet up at the Homecoming dance. To add bitter insult to injury, she’d then witnessed Miller in a very NC-17 hook-up with Amber Blake.
And I wasn’t there for her.
Instead, I’d been wasting my time with Ronan, getting barbecue, my absurd imagination pretending he’d almost kissed me.
“You got this,” I said to Violet. “You write this stuff in your sleep.”
Her smile slipped. “If only I could sleep.”
The guy behind me tapped my shoulder and handed over the stack from our row. I added my report in its neat folder to the others like it, noticing that one paper was only stapled pages, the edges torn, as if it had been ripped out of a spiral notebook.
Ronan…
I passed the stack forward and bit my lip. Baskin had specifically said the papers had to be typed. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice today. Maybe he’d only dock Ronan a few points. Maybe it wasn’t his at all…
Mr. Baskin shuffled through the stack, his brow furrowed behind his thick glasses. He held the handwritten report and squinted at it.
“Ronan Wentz.” He peered over the class until he found him in my row, last seat. “I specified more than once that this paper must be typed.”
My skin heated with anger that he’d call Ronan out like this. The rest of the class was turning to look. I kept my gaze forward, unwilling to add to his embarrassment.
“Mr. Wentz? Do you have a response?”
“I don’t have a computer,” Ronan said, his voice low, and in that moment, I hated Baskin.
“That’s what the school library is for,” Baskin said. “There is no excuse for not completing the paper as specified.” He walked down the aisle past me, to Ronan, and dropped his paper on his desk. “I’m going to give you a chance to remedy the situation. Get this typed up and returned to me. I’ll dock you one-half letter grade for every day it’s late.”
“Today’s Friday,” Ronan said.
“Then it had better start out as an A paper.”
Baskin resumed the day’s lesson, but I could hardly concentrate. When the bell rang, the class poured outside and dispersed. I lingered by the door.
“Heading home?” Violet asked.