This Girl (Slammed #3)(26)
“I thought a lot last night . . . about what you said yesterday. It’s not fair of me to ask you to transfer just because it makes me uneasy. We live a hundred yards apart; our brothers are becoming best friends. If anything, this class will be good for us, help us figure out how to navigate when we’re around each other.” I reach into my satchel and pull out the test she somehow made a perfect score on. “Besides, you’ll obviously breeze through.”
She takes the test from my hands and looks down at it. “I don’t mind switching,” she says quietly. “I understand where you’re coming from.”
I put the lid back on the pen and scoot my chair back. “Thanks, but it can only get easier from here, right?”
She nods her head unconvincingly. “Right,” she says.
I know I’m completely wrong. She could move back to Texas today and I would still feel too close to her. But once again, it’s not my feelings that should matter at this point. It’s hers. I’ve screwed her life up enough in the past week; the last thing I want to do is shove Russian Lit on top of that. I crumple up her transfer form and chuck it toward the trash can. When it misses, she walks over and picks it up, then throws it in.
“I guess I’ll see you third period, Mr. Cooper,” she says as she exits the room.
The way she refers to me as “Mr. Cooper” makes me scowl. I hate the fact that I’m her teacher.
I’d so much rather be her Will.
7.
the honeymoon
LAKE HASN’T MOVED a muscle in the last fifteen minutes. She’s been soaking in every word I’ve said. Recalling the day we met and our first date was actually fun. Recalling the things that tore us apart is grueling.
“I don’t like talking about this anymore,” I say. “It looks like it’s making you sad.”
Her eyes widen and she turns her body toward me. “Will, no. I love hearing your thoughts on everything that happened. I actually feel like it helps me understand a lot of your actions better. I don’t know why I felt like you sort of blamed me.”
I kiss her softly on the lips. “How could I blame you, Lake? All I wanted was you.”
She smiles and rests her head on my forearm. “I can’t believe my mom told you to leave me that note,” she says.
“God, Lake. That was so embarrassing. You have no idea.”
She laughs. “She really liked you, you know. At first, I mean. She loved you in the end. It was the in-between where her feelings about you sort of waned.”
I think about the day Julia found out, and how worried she must have been for Lake. To have everything going on in her life like she did, then have to watch your daughter deal with heartache? Unimaginable.
“Remember when she found out you were my teacher?” Lake says. “The look on your face when she was walking up the driveway toward you, it was awful. I was so afraid you would think I told her because I was mad at you.”
“I was so scared of her that day, Lake. She could be really intimidating when she wanted to be. Of course after we talked again later that night, I saw a more vulnerable side to her, but still. I was scared to death of her.”
Lake jerks up on the bed and looks at me. “What do you mean when y’all talked again?”
“Later that night when she came back to my house. Did I never tell you that?”
“No,” she says abruptly, almost like I’ve deceived her. “Why did she come back? What did she say?”
“Wait, let me start from the beginning. I want to tell you about the night before she found out,” I say. “I slammed a poem about you.”
She perks up. “No way! How come you never told me?”
I shrug. “I was hurt. It wasn’t a positive piece.”
“I want to hear about it, anyway,” she says.
this girl
I’M HOPING THIS situation is like dieting, where they say day three is when the cravings start to subside. I really hope that’s the case. The fact that she sits two feet from me in class makes my mind feel like a damn hurricane. It takes everything in me not to look at her during third period. In fact, I spend the entire time in my class trying not to look at her. I’ve been fairly successful, which is good considering Gavin still watches me like a hawk. At least it felt like he was today, anyway. I’ve never so looked forward to a weekend off in my life.
One. More. Day.
“I might be a little late tonight, Maya. I’m performing so I may stay until it’s over.”
She plops down on the sofa with a carton of ice cream. “Whatever,” she says.
I grab my keys and head out the front door. No matter how hard I try not to, I glance across the street during my short walk to the car. I could swear I see her living room curtain snap shut. I stop and stare for a minute, but it doesn’t move again.
I’M ONE OF the first to arrive, so I take one of the seats toward the front of the room. I’m hoping the energy from the crowd will distract me long enough to get out of this funk. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I feel more heartbroken over this entire situation with Lake than I did when Vaughn dumped me. I’m sure a lot of that heartache was lost in the heartache from losing my parents, so maybe it just seems different for that reason. How could ending things with a girl who wasn’t even my girlfriend to begin with possibly cause this much distress?