“Wait, isn’t setting off a stink bomb illegal?” I realize.
“Sure is. Jesus, what are they, dense? This could cost them the rest of the season.” Theo tsks.
I haul my attention back to the boys. Finn seems to realize just how horribly he messed up when he catches sight of the six hundred kids standing in the rain. Meanwhile, Xavier doesn’t give a semblance of a fuck.
Not one.
It’s the droop of his shoulders, the way his eyes glaze over the crowd with boredom. Even his walk feels like a statement. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Xavier and Finn switched bodies in the world’s worst remake of Freaky Friday.
A police officer pulls Principal Emery aside—yep, Xavier’s mom is the principal. Might come in handy right about now, but the cherry on top? Xavier’s dad is also employed at Easton High. He’s our PE teacher. The one we love to hate.
I get Silver Springs is a small town and all, but they could’ve at least tried to branch out.
The cop tells Principal Emery something we can’t hear, to which she replies with a “Do what you have to do” nod. That’s the universe’s cue to drop the entire Pacific Ocean on our heads.
The rain picks up again, harder than it was moments prior, and I can’t help watching Dumb and Dumber get dragged toward the cop car out front.
Remember when I said Xavier Emery was so beautiful it’s almost painful? The way he looks right now… that’s what I’m talking about.
Even soaked, about to get his ass thrown in the back of a cop car, with his shirt sticking to his hard, sculpted body and his light brown hair dripping down his forehead, he’s every girl’s wet dream—pun intended.
Granted, the guy was an asswipe when he disappeared from my life at age eight, but I can appreciate the blue-eyed Adonis just as much as the next girl.
“Never a dull moment in Silver Springs, huh?” Theo remarks as Xavier and Finn are shoved into the back seat and the police car takes off at full speed. “Man, I hope this means we have the day off tomorrow. I haven’t evenstarted Ms. Callahan’s paper yet.”
Memories slam into me.
I landed a job at the school library this year—which, fun fact, also operates as Silver Springs’ public library—and I had a shift yesterday before I went to pick up my sister from her singing lesson.
Ended up writing some stupid letter to my English teacher to vent. I couldn’t find the poetry book in my bag this morning.
I left it there, didn’t I?
I left the book at the library.
With the letter inside.
For crying out loud, Vee, how dumb can you possibly be?
It’s one thing to be having a really bad day and take it out on your ball-busting teacher in a hate letter. It’s another to be so stupid you forget the letter at the library for anyone to find.
I can already see it. The school ringing up my mom to let her know her least favorite daughter got suspended for, quote, “accusing her teacher of bathing in hellfire.”
My dad’s voice pops into my head before panic wins me over.
Slow down, take a breath, and find the bright side.
Well, it doesn’t hurt that I left the letter inside an old, dusty book that hasn’t been checked out in over ten years. Odds are I’ll be off to college with a bun in the oven by the time someone finds it. And even if someone did happen upon it, what’s to say they’d trace it back to me?
Shit, I think I mentioned my musical genius of a sister.
And my potential scholarship.
Fine, maybe they could trace it back to me if they put in the research. But that’s not going to happen. I’m not going to let it. Mr. Lowen tells us we have the rest of the day off, and all thoughts of Xavier Emery vanish from my mind.
There’s only one thought left in there.
One mission.
One plan.
I have to get my hands on that letter before someone else does.