A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime(85)

“It’s not true,” I tell Maggie, hating how she frowns. “He wasn’t with Natalie that night. They ran into each other.”

“Oh, Wren. Is that what he told you?”

She feels sorry for me, I can tell. Which is kind of hilarious, considering she’s pregnant with our English teacher’s baby.

“I have my reasons for believing him,” I say, my tone a little snotty. I feel defensive, and I don’t like that. “Just like you have yours for your situation.”

That renders her silent for the rest of the time we wait in line. Once I order my coffee and muffin, I go stand beside her as we wait for our names to be called.

“You think I’m dumb, don’t you?” Maggie says, looking anywhere but at me.

“What do you mean?”

She turns toward me. “What you said, how I have my reasons for believing him. My situation is different from yours, Wren. I’m in love with him. Things are serious. Our whole lives are changing, while you’ve got the meanest boy in class chasing after you like he’s trying to corrupt you,” she explains, her nose wrinkling.

I’m offended. The last thing I want to do is fight with her, but I can’t believe she said that.

“I know that you’re going through a lot, but that doesn’t mean you can belittle my problems,” I say.

“Mine feel a little bigger than yours,” she retorts.

“And what, is it a competition? There is so much going on that you don’t even know,” I tell Maggie. “I can’t explain it all now, but later I will.”

“Whatever.” The barista calls her name and she marches over to the counter, grabbing her coffee. Decaf, I might add. She turns to look at me, a pitying expression on her face. “Hope you have fun getting your heart destroyed.”

I almost say, right back at you.

But I keep my mouth shut.

Crew didn’t show up to English, and when I tried texting him, he didn’t answer, which hurt.

Made me angry too.

I’m probably being too sensitive, but I’m worried. Scared. Where is he? What’s going on? Has anything changed?

I just hope he’s all right. It’s so foreign to me, caring about Crew. Of course I’ve worried about friends and family, but never someone I’ve become romantically involved with. It’s a different kind of feeling. All-consuming.

A little heartbreaking.

I go through the motions the rest of the day, hiding away in the library during lunch, finishing up my paper for English. Crew and I worked on our project presentation in psychology yesterday and I feel pretty good about it. We turned in our outline to Skov, and she’s returning them today with tips and suggestions. I’m so grouchy though. I can’t stop thinking about Crew and where he could be. Why didn’t he text me? How busy is he, that he can’t even manage to send me a quick response?

This is probably why I should avoid boys. They cause us nothing but trouble.

When I’m walking into my last class, I’m apprehensive, knowing I’ll have to deal with Natalie most likely alone, since Crew has been MIA all day.

But to my surprise, Crew is sitting at his desk, laughing with Malcolm and even Ezra, who was furious with him only yesterday.

Natalie isn’t there at all.

The moment Crew sees me, his eyes light up. I make my way to the back of the classroom, trying to keep my composure so I don’t throw myself at him and hug him tight. I’ve been worried about him all day, yet here he sits, smiling and joking.

“Birdy,” he greets me as I fall into my chair.

I stare at him, but don’t say anything in greeting.

Malcolm chortles. Ezra makes a low ooooooh sound.

Crew frowns. “You okay?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this in front of them.” I send a look in Ezra and Malcolm’s direction.

“Ah, come on, Wren. We’re his best mates. If you can’t talk about it in front of us, who can you talk about it with?” Malcolm lifts his brows.

“Shut up,” Crew snaps at him. “Leave her alone.”

Malcolm holds his hands up in front of him. “Sorry. Just trying to keep the mood light. Didn’t know there was already trouble between you two.”

“I didn’t either.” Crew’s gaze settles on mine.

I look away, vaguely annoyed with all three of them.

I don’t know how to act around him, and I’m uncomfortable talking about any of this in front of his friends. I wish we were alone, so he could hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay.

Skov enters the room seconds later, far ahead of the final bell for once. She appears flustered, settling her stack of binders and books on top of her desk before she comes to stand in front of the class, her hands on her hips as she studies all of us.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she says, loud enough to get all of our attention. “But I read over all the outlines last night and…you’re all on the right track. I don’t really have any major suggestions for any of you.”

We all start cheering. There’s clapping and yelling, and I can’t help but smile, relief flooding me.

“Okay, okay. Settle down. I’m going to pass back your outlines now, and there are a few suggestions on them, so please read and take what I said into consideration. My biggest concern is time. You’ve all seemed to learn so much about each other, I’m worried we won’t be able to get to all of the presentations next week during your scheduled exam time,” Skov explains.