Elusion(25)

“Actually, I do.”

“She’s going back to work tonight; this . . . this is only going to worry her. She’s been through enough.”

But my attempt to reason with him is unsuccessful. “Please wait outside my office,” he says. “I’ll call you back after I’ve had a chance to speak with your mother privately.”

I hear the sound of the automatic door sliding open. I see a message pop up on the InstaComm:



Meredith Welch awaiting connection. Accept or deny?



I reluctantly pick my bag up off the floor and slink out into the administrative office, which is filled with faculty members drinking shots of instant-brewed pod coffees and waiting for their meetings to start. My legs feel like rubber cement and I’m a little bit dizzy, so I stumble over to an acrylic bench and sit down.

I am so, so stupid. Fighting the principal? How could I not see where that would lead? I bow my head and cover my face with my hands, imagining what Caldwell is saying to my mom right now and wondering how she’s going to react.

Then I see a pair of polished brown boots march toward me.

And now I’m locking eyes with Josh Heywood, who looks just as great in civilian clothes as he does in his military uniform. My lips immediately twitch up into a smile, despite the cyclone of emotions swirling inside me.

“Mind if I sit with you?” He gestures to the empty spot on the bench.

I scoot over to make room for him, pulling my bag in between my knees. I glance at my mom’s ugly clogs, once again embarrassed. Why couldn’t I have worn my own shoes today?

“What are you doing here?” I ask, tucking my feet under the bench.

“Admissions stuff.” He leans forward, pulling his tab out of his back pocket and showing me the application form that’s on the screen.

“You’re transferring? To HSH?” My voice hits a squeaky pitch, a cross between excited and scared.

He smirks a little bit. Damn, he is so good at noticing my every move, no matter how slight it is. I wonder if that comes with all the military training, or if he’s just paying special attention to me.

“Yeah, Caldwell told me I could reenroll here after I served my time at the academy.”

Reenroll. Which means he has gone to school here before.

“Served your time? Does that mean you didn’t go there voluntarily?” I ask.

He simply nods and starts keying in letters and numbers on his tab.

“So what were you in for? Anything serious?”

“Depends,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “How serious is shoving someone in the cafeteria?”

Great. Josh has already heard about my run-in with Avery, which means it’s already all over the school intraweb. “I don’t know,” I say. “Depends how much they deserved it.”

He laughs, and that jittery fluttering I felt at Patrick’s party is back.

Josh whispers, “I heard some of the staff talking about you while you were in with the principal. Sounds like they think Avery had it coming.”

“Well, she did.”

I glance at Josh’s leg as it bobs up and down, and I grin. This small flash of nervousness chips away at his composed exterior, and I see a part of him that’s like me—a bit frightened about letting someone new and unfamiliar get close.

“So what happened?” he asks.

“Avery made all these false allegations against Elusion on her crappy, lame vlog, and she accused Patrick of being part of some kind of cover-up. Then she started to drag my dad’s name through the mud. The girl is just—”

“Speaking her mind,” Josh interrupts.

“What?” I must have misheard him. Why does he keep defending her?

“Look, all I meant is . . . words are words. They don’t matter as much as you think they do. What’s important are the emotions behind them.”

“Words are words?” My fingers curl around the strap of my bag, wringing it back and forth. “If that’s the case, then why did Patrick force her to shut down her entire site?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t watch the clip. What did she say exactly?”

Just as I’m about to respond, I realize that I have no idea what Avery actually said. I never saw the video. All of my anger is based solely on what Zoe told me and what Avery admitted, which wasn’t much.

“You never answered my question,” I say, changing the subject. “Why did you have to go to military school?”

“I hit a guy.” Josh swallows hard, and I watch his cheeks flush a dark shade of pink. “I beat him up as he was coming out of the locker room, and got expelled. That’s why I was shipped off to the academy.”

His chin dips down, his features strained. He seems too even-tempered to lose his cool like that, and I can’t help but wonder what provoked him.

“Why?” I ask.

“This kid, he . . . he was harassing my sister. It’s a long story.” Josh tugs at his collar and clears his throat; then, after a short pause, he continues. “It felt good at first, taking him down like that. But later . . .”

When his voice trails off, my hand drifts over and settles on his shoulder. Josh inhales deeply and lets out a long, drawn-out breath, but then he shifts away from me so my fingers slip off his arm one by one.

“All I’m saying is, sometimes it’s better to walk away than to act tough. When you cross the line and do something violent, there’s no going back,” he says. “It stays with you. Forever.”