The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #1)(14)

“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, in order to discern, at once, the little deadly demon among the wholesome children,” he said, his British accent melting around the words, his voice smooth and low. “She stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.”

I stood there staring, openmouthed and speechless. I would have laughed—the whole thing was sort of ridiculous. But the way he said it, the way he was looking at me, was shockingly intimate. Like he knew my secrets. Like I had no secrets. But before I could think of a reply, Noah crouched and picked up my book.

“Lolita,” he said, turning my book over in his hands. His eyes wandered over the pink-lipped mouth on the cover, then handed it to me. Our fingers brushed, and a warm current coursed through them. My heart thundered so loud he could probably hear it.

“So,” he said, his eyes meeting mine again. “You’re a smuthound with daddy issues?” The corner of his mouth turned up in a slow, condescending smile.

I wanted to smack it off of his face. “Well, you’re quoting it. And incorrectly, by the way. So what does that make you?”

His half-smile morphed into a whole grin. “Oh, I’m definitely a smuthound with daddy issues.”

“I guess you nailed me, then.”

“Not yet.”

“Asscrown,” I muttered under my breath as I headed to my next class. I wasn’t proud of swearing at a complete stranger, no. But he started it.

Noah matched my pace. “Don’t you mean ‘assclown’?” He looked amused.

“No,” I said, louder this time. “I mean asscrown. The crown on top of the asshat that covers the asshole of the assclown. The very zenith in the hierarchy of asses,” I said, as though reading from a dictionary of modern profanity.

“I guess you nailed me, then.”

Not yet.

The words popped into my mind without permission, and I ducked into my Algebra classroom and away from him the second I saw the door.

I sat in the back, hoping to hide from yesterday’s stares and lose myself in the incomprehensibility of the lecture. I cracked Lolita’s spine and hid it under my bag. I took out my graph paper, then took out my pencil. Then exchanged that pencil for another pencil. Noah was getting under my skin. Not healthy.

But then Anna primly entered the classroom, accompanied by her not-so-little friend, and cut off my thoughts. The pair walked in like a matched set of evil. She caught me staring and I quickly looked away, but not without blushing. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her watching me as she sat in the third row of desks.

I was flooded with relief when Jamie slipped into the seat next to me. My only friend at Croyden thus far.

“How goes it?” he asked, grinning.

I smiled back. “No nosebleeds.”

“Yet,” Jamie said, and winked. “So who else have you met? Anyone interesting? Besides me, obviously.”

I lowered my voice and scratched at my graph paper. “Interesting? No. Assholish, yes.”

The dimple in Jamie’s cheek deepened. “Let me guess. A certain unkempt bastard with a panty-dropping smile?”

Maybe.

Jamie nodded. “That blush of yours tells me it is decidedly so.”

“Maybe,” I said casually.

“So you’ve met Shaw. What did he say?”

I wondered why Jamie was so interested. “He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that. Now that I think about it,” Jamie started, “that’s what they all say. And yet that boy is drowning in pu—”

“All right class, take out your problems and pass them to the front, please.” Mr. Walsh rose, and wrote out an equation on the blackboard.

“Nice visual,” I whispered to Jamie. He winked, just as Anna turned to glare at me.

My second day passed in a sea of dreary mundanity. Lectures, homework, bad teacher jokes, homework, in-class assignments, homework. When it ended, Daniel was waiting for me at the campus perimeter and I was glad to see him.

“Hey, you,” he said. “Walk faster so we can have a prayer of getting out of here before the cars clog up the only exit.” When I complied, he asked, “Second day any better than the first?”

I thought about yesterday. “Mildly,” I said. “But can we not talk about me? How was your day?”

He shrugged. “The usual. People are the same everywhere. Not many stand out.”

“Not many? So some people actually stood out?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “A few.”

“Come on, Daniel. Where’s that Croyden enthusiasm? Let’s hear it.”

Daniel dutifully gave me the rundown of his senior class, and was in the middle of telling me about a brilliant female violinist in his music study when we arrived back home. The news blared from the living room, but my parents weren’t home yet. Must be the little brother.

“Joseph?” Daniel shouted over the din.

“Daniel?” he shouted back.

“Where’s Mom?”

“She went out to get dinner; Dad’s coming home early tonight.”

“Did you do your homework?” Daniel rifled through the mail on the kitchen table.

“Did you?” Joseph asked, without looking up.