Burn Before Reading(54)

"Well it was nice knowing you, but I have to go now, because gelled spikes were awful and you're awful for liking them."

I laughed. We talked like that for all of lunch, reminiscing about stupid old bands we used to like. The only time we ever broke our flow of conversation as when the Blackthorn brothers came in. Keri watched their tall figures stride across the cafeteria. Wolf stared straight ahead, looking more pissed than usual. He passed our table and his face didn’t so much as twitch in my direction. Fitz waved to Keri with a winsome smile, and she waved back. Burn’s eyes darted to mine briefly before he nodded at me and followed Fitz and Wolf.

Keri leaned in when they’d passed. “You got a red-card from Wolf, right?”

I scoffed. “Yeah.”

“Red-cards are for really awful stuff. Did you – did you like murder someone, or something?”

“If only it was that simple.” I sighed.

“So what did you do, then?”

“You saw the whole thing where Wolf dumped coffee on that freshman and I interfered, right?”

She nodded.

“Well, I defended Eric one day, too.”

Keri winced. “Oh god.”

“Exactly. I felt like an idiot when Fitz got around to telling me what the deal with those two was.”

Keri munched on salad. “So Wolf gave you a red-card to get you to stop interfering?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re definitely the first. No one’s ever tried to stop him before. I mean, he’s Wolf Blackthorn for shit’s sake. We were all shocked as hell when you stood up to him. I can’t even imagine how he must’ve felt about it.”

I watched Wolf’s back as he disappeared around the corner.

“He’s a stuck up, privileged idiot, who needs to be taken down a peg,” I muttered. “That’s all.”

“Oh yeah? And you’re gonna be the one to take him down?”

No, I said in my head. His dad would be the one to do that. By throwing him in a mental hospital. With my help.

Suddenly my food didn’t seem appetizing anymore. Mercifully, the bell rang.

"Well, back to the old grindstone," I stood up and packed my books away. "It was nice talking to you, but I understand if you never want to speak to me after this. We've shared too many terrible musical secrets to ever look at each other the same way again."

"Oh, stop." She smiled. "We only covered the American boy bands. We still have all of the British boy bands to get through."

She waved and I waved, and for once, walking to history class didn't feel like a mindless trudge. We got our tests back that day, and I tried hard not to look at Mr. Brant’s grim face as he passed mine back.

“You need to try harder, Beatrix. I’m disappointed.”

“I will,” I muttered, trying not to look at the C that was written in red marker at the top of my paper. It was a bald-faced lie. I couldn’t try hard, not while I needed Fitz to keep tutoring me. I caught Fitz’s eyes, though they seemed flat, dull. I couldn’t read his expression. It wasn’t until the end of class that I’d figure out how he felt. By him accosting me, of course.

“You seriously don’t expect me to believe you got a C,” Fitz said. “Not after everything we’ve covered.”

“I’m sorry,” I hung my head. “I guess I just don’t get it as well as I thought. It’s not you – you’re a great teacher –“

“And you’re a smartass,” He interrupted, green eyes narrow and not a single wisp of a smile on his face. “So why the hell are you tanking?”

“I’m – Dad is –“

“Your Dad isn’t an excuse, Bee,” He said, a little sharper than usual. “You were doing just fine before I stepped into the picture.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I argued. “Sometimes I have off days –“

“Only in history class.” Fitz interrupted. “Only ever in history class. The one you have with me.”

The way he said it was so confident. Too confident. He knew something was up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tried to play it off cool. He rolled his eyes.

“I took the liberty of hacking the school’s grade system. You’re getting a perfect, golden string of A’s in everything except this. That’s kinda weird, huh?”

I could see the doubt festering in his face. I was teetering on the edge, like Burn teetered on the cliff, like Kristin never got to teeter because Fitz was so suspicious of her in the first place. And now he was turning that suspicion on me. I had to do something, quick. An excuse – a good, solid excuse that seemed reasonable and wasn’t related to Dad. A lesser secret to cover up my other awful secret; something that he’d be willing to believe.

“Okay, fine.” I threw my hands up. “I was failing on purpose, okay?”

“So I’d tutor you,” He said quickly. “Why?”

I forced myself to look at my feet, to conjure a deep, dark blush. How did girls blush again? My brain instantly jumped to that sunlight afternoon in Seamus’s, me in a dress, Wolf’s eyes on me. My face lit up like a bonfire in August.

“It’s – God, I feel so stupid saying it out loud.”