A girl that I think I recognize as one of Zoey’s bully friends gives her reply without hesitation and gets praise from the teacher.
I glance again at Jason. He’s fiddling with his pen, capping and uncapping it. His foot taps a jerky rhythm on the floor and he’s looking at the door as if deciding how to make his escape.
Who told me that Jason has problems at school? Problems concentrating. Was it Vanessa?
“And now,” the teacher says, “I want you to form working groups to practice the dialogues we saw in the book.Allez! Vite.”
Instantly, groups form in the classroom, chairs and desks scraping on the floor as students gather together. Groups that of course don’t include me. Nobody invites me to join them. Everyone gathers up in small circles, pulling their desks with them.
Everyone but me and Jason.
I mean, one of his friends keeps calling his name, and a girl even goes as far as to pull on his desk, but he’s looking at me.
“Okay, Jason and Mia, you’re partners,” the teacher says, coming to stand over us. “Let’s get to it. And Jason…”
Jason glances up at the teacher. “What?”
“Try and concentrate, yeah? And remember to write carefully so that you can read your notes afterward.”
“Why is French important anyway?” Jason grumbles. “Only the vampires speak it these days. I fucking hate it.”
“Language. Don’t make me send you to the Headmaster again.” She turns to me. “Mia, right? The witch?”
I wince. “Yes.”
“I know you’re new here and this may be asking a lot, but try to keep him in his seat. He tends to get up and wander.”
I lift a brow and Jason. “Wander?”
He shrugs those broad shoulders of his. “What’s the big deal? I’m a wolf. I don’t like sitting for long.”
“You mean you don’t like to be indoors,” the teacher says and turns to go. “Well, classes take place indoors, so tough. Get to work.”
She really doesn’t like him, I realize. How odd.
Not.
He’s a bully, Mia. And a nuisance, no matter how pretty.
“You wander around the classroom?” I ask. “During class?”
He rolls his eyes. “I get bored. And I don’t like closed spaces.”
“You’re claustrophobic?”
“Does it matter? Shall we do this stupid exercise or not?”
Mostly not, as it turns out. Jason can’t focus on the dialogues, keeps looking elsewhere, and keeps dropping that frigging pen until I bent and scoop it up before he manages, returning it to him.
“Jason.Jax.”
“What?”
“Look, I get it, okay? You have trouble focusing. But try.”
“I am fucking trying!”
“It doesn’t look like it. It’s just a short dialogue and it’s written in the book. All you have to do—”