He liked the food.
I want to smile but I bite the inside of my cheek to stop. Instead, my fingers become claws at his neck. “That’s incredibly mean and offensive.”
“I am incredibly mean and offensive. Always have been.”
“I don’t –”
He digs his fingertips into my flesh. “Start talking, Blue.”
“Do you, uh, remember the first time we met?”
My ankles are crossed at his back again, and I tighten them when he frowns. “What about it?”
My fingers begin to move and I curl the soft strands of his hair at his neck. His nostrils flare and my mouth dries out.
I clear my throat. “I don’t… expect you to remember the whole thing, of course. It was a long time ago but, uh, we met on my first day at St. Patrick’s. And we both were in detention. The teacher asked us to do lines, I think. I can’t remember what we were supposed to write, though. Anyway, we were sitting like, two seats over or something because I could see your –”
“One.”
“What?”
“One seat over.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. And we were supposed to write I’m sorry for being bad about a hundred times. Fucking Mrs. Pennyweather.”
Right.
It’s very old-fashioned and outdated. But now I remember that the teacher, Mrs. Pennyweather, assigned to us was older than dirt. And she’d make us do lines every time we ended up with her.
I move my body even closer, my thighs and my ankles cinching up around him.
“What else do you remember?” I whisper.
Zach practically lifts me up and forward, until my breasts are plastered to his chest. “Everything.”
I shudder against him. “You remember everything?”
“Why don’t you just get to the point?”
The point.
Um, okay.
Drawing up all my courage, I look into his eyes. “I didn’t remember it until last night and I…” I bite my lip before blurting out, “Zach, I’ve always wondered why you picked me of all the people at school. I thought that it was because I’m from the other side of town and I was new and because we didn’t have anything in common and I didn’t belong with you guys. And because people like you, you know, rich and rolling in money, think they can do whatever they want. But now I’m… I’m wondering something else.”
I can’t feel him breathing. His chest isn’t moving and his lack of air is making me dizzy. As if even his organs are connected to mine. His lungs don’t breathe so mine don’t either.
“Zach?”
“What happened last night?” he asks, his grip increasing on my waist.
“Huh?”
“You said you didn’t remember but now you do. What happened to make you remember?”
I can’t possibly entwine myself around him any further, but I try as I answer him, “You don’t remember, do you? About last night?”