The Girl I Was Before (Falling #3)(6)

There’s no way I’m early. I was running late when I dipped the spoon in my mom’s chili, so unless time stopped—and rewound—this tutoring session wasn’t gonna happen. I need this tutoring session to happen.

Leaning forward, I pull my Spanish book from my bag and prop it on my lap, the pencil still wedged in the middle, where I got lost while studying last night. My brain isn’t made for conjugating verbs, or knowing when to use feminine and masculine articles.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,” I breathe, pulling the pencil out and tossing it on top of my bag on the ground.

I spend about ten minutes reading through the various words, saying them in my head. Then I close my eyes and try to quiz myself. I even fail this way—when all I have to do is crack an eyelid to cheat.

I’m tempted to quit, but I’ve blocked out two hours for studying. I need to study before I meet up with Casey. I’m pretty sure his hard drive is fried, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him over the phone. Either way, I have a feeling I’ll be at his house for the rest of the night trying to save a semester’s worth of my best friend’s economics assignments.

Shutting my eyes, I go in for one more try at the self-quiz, when I hear the sound of metal crashing onto tile.

“Mother-f*cking-piece-of-shit…” She thinks she’s talking quietly, gritting the swear words through her teeth. She kicks at the giant trash can snared in her purse strap, dragging it around her in a circle near the library entrance. I should probably get up and help, but I’m so caught up in the scene she’s making—by trying not to make a scene—I somehow forget to stand. When her gaze lands right on mine, I feel like a dick. But then she sneers at me and kicks the can one more time, tearing it from her purse and dropping her backpack and other things in a pile on the floor. It makes me chuckle.

I toss my book to the side, because I’m not learning anything from it anyhow, and jog over to her at the entrance.

“Good thing it’s a Saturday and the library’s empty,” I say, reaching to help her set the can back in its place. She swats at me at first.

“Stop it! Just go back…over there. You know, to watch me for a while and do nothing.” There’s a well-deserved bite to her tone. Yeah, I feel like a dick.

“I’m sorry. You sort of stunned me—what with all the kicking and clanging and sailor-mouthing,” I say through a soft laugh. She’s different right now. It’s still the same girl who orders sandwiches and party trays from me at the deli, but there’s also something different. “I’m Houston, by the way,” I say, brushing my hand off along my pants and reaching it forward to her. She looks at it for a few seconds, like she’s making sure it isn’t dirty. I’m almost offended, but I’ve sort of learned that Paige is just offensive. It’s her thing. She finally shakes my hand, but doesn’t hide the fact that she wipes her palm along her jeans afterward, which makes me chuckle.

“I know your name,” she says. Bothered. Indignant. “You wear it on your shirt.”

I look down and realize she’s right; I do still have my nametag on.

“Oh, shit!” I say, pulling the pin off and stuffing it in my front pocket.

“Who’s the sailor now?” she asks, her lip twisting up, her eyes almost giving me a wink. She tugs her bag back over her shoulder and picks her keys up from the floor before waving goodbye with her fingers. I watch her for a few seconds, noting the way her ass sways in the opposite direction of her hair. She’s like this perfect blonde bombshell, but damn can she be mean.

I was going to apologize for what I said earlier—not the words so much as the way I said it. I could tell it offended her, and I could tell she was embarrassed that her boyfriend is such a prick. But I wasn’t judging her. She can do better; I meant it. I spoke up because I can’t stand watching *s bully women. My grandpa used to bully my grandmother, always putting her down and making her feel stupid and small in front of people. He never hit her, and I guess that’s why he thought it was okay.

She never looks back over her shoulder as she walks to the study lounge on the other side of the room. I give up and turn to get back to the miserable reason I came here in the first place.

For the next thirty minutes, I write down every word I need to know, with my own version of how I think it’s supposed to be pronounced. The help desk is closed—I mean who studies on a Saturday night? After a good five minutes of peering over the desk for scissors, I eventually give up and tear my small quarter-pieces of paper into flashcards.

Only three or four of the tears come out straight, the rest veering offline, leaving me with shreds of notebook-paper triangles with my scribble on both sides. I can’t even get this part of studying right. I’m pushing my sad little study cards together into a pile when I sense her legs step closer to my table.

“Have you ever been in a library before?” The way she asks the question, it sounds so sincere, almost…sweet. She must be looking for something, like the vending machines or computers.

“I’m here a lot. Whatcha need?” I ask, pressing my stack of words together between my thumb and forefinger, already overwhelmed by the thickness of the stack I have to memorize.

“I don’t need anything. I just figured you must not ever have been in a library before. I mean, why else would you come in here and think you could throw a noisy craft party that’s so loud I can hear it through the glass walls of the study lab?” Her hip juts out to the side as she points at me with her pen, clicking it open and closed while she waits for my response.