Beautiful Broken Rules (Broken, Series #1)(7)

Exasperated, Tobias let out an annoyed sigh before he spoke. “Sorry, Emerson, I shouldn’t have said that.” Then he turned to face Jaxon and shrugged off his now white knuckled grip on his bony shoulder. “Chill out, dude, you don’t even know who she is,” he said under his breath as he walked away quickly. I don’t know if he meant for me not to hear that, but I did.

Jaxon turned back toward me in his chair and looked me in the eyes for a couple of seconds. I’m not sure what he was looking for, maybe to see if I was upset over what Tob said. “Thanks for defending me, but it really wasn’t necessary,” I stressed, while he was still staring at me.

“It’s not okay for any guy to talk to a girl like that. I don’t care if what he said was true or false.”

“What he said was true. I’m sure since you’re talking to me, half of these girls will crowd you after class just to let you know my reputation,” I said to him.

“I don’t care what your reputation is; most of us don’t have good ones anyways. That’s what makes them reputations,” he said looking at his notebook instead of to me. Then he shook his head slightly as if he were clearing it and turned to look at me again. “So, Emerson, huh?”

“Yeah, but no one calls me that though. Tobias only uses it occasionally and the only reason he knows my name is because we studied for finals last year together and saw it on my papers. Quinn only calls me that when she’s really pissed at me.” I leaned forward onto my desk, rolling my pen between my fingers, and laughing at the image in my head of Quinn being mad.

“Be silly, be honest, and be kind,” he quoted in a raspy voice.

I gasped. My heart sunk to the floor and I started to feel the ambush of tears to my eyes. Emerson, please don’t do this here, you will look like a fool. I quietly calmed myself with a deep breath. I could tell that Jaxon was watching my reaction carefully. “You know Ralph Waldo Emerson?” I asked.

“Yeah, he’s a great poet. We had to study one last year in American lit and I chose his name out of the bag. Sorry if that made you upset or anything. I’ve just always enjoyed that quote. Your name made me think of it,” he added.

“It’s totally fine. I guess it has just been a really long time since I’ve heard that. My mom would say it all the time to me when I was a kid. Just nostalgia.” I tried to sound light and laugh it off. I wanted to appear like that one little quote didn’t just turn my world upside down.

“You know some people say that he may not have even actually quoted that. That maybe it was just something that was attached to his name along the way,” he broke in.

“My mom told me that once; I don’t think she cared though. It’s still a nice quote to live by, whoever created it.”

My mom majored in literature, fell in love with Ralph Waldo Emerson’s simple quote, and always told me to live my life silly, honestly, and kindly. This is obviously my namesake. I’m just thankful she didn’t name me Ralph or Waldo instead. She would say his quote to me nightly at bed, even up until I was fifteen. I used to roll my eyes that she was being so cheesy, but now I would kill to hear her say those words. I promise if I could, I wouldn’t roll my eyes; I would ask to hear them again.

“So, do you plan on trying out for the football team to play with Cole?” I asked him, hoping that he would understand I didn’t like where our conversation was heading.

“Well, since I’m here on a full scholarship for football, something tells me I won’t actually have to try out,” he said with a sexy half smile.