Felix Ever After(26)

“How, exactly, have I treated you like shit?” Declan demands again.

“Seriously?” I say. “You’ve treated me and Ezra like shit for the past two years for no fucking reason.”

He rolls his eyes. “I may treat Ezra like shit,” he says, “but I don’t treat you like shit. And it’s not for no fucking reason, either.”

“You’re kidding, right?” He takes in an impatient breath, turning away, but I keep going. “You’ve been a condescending asshole to me any chance you get. You talk shit about me and Ez, you’re always trying to get us into trouble—”

“You’re just pissed because we’re both applying to Brown, and you know you’re not going to get in.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, fuck off.”

“What?” he says, looking at me again. “It’s the truth, right? You know I’m going to get in. Might get the scholarship, too. And you can’t get your shit together. You’re never on time, never working on your portfolio, and you’re pissed about it, so you’re taking your shit out on me.”

I shake my head, staring at the closed dean’s door. “I have my shit together.”

He snorts. “Okay. Whatever you say.”

We’re quiet for a long time.

“You don’t even need the scholarship,” I tell him.

“It’s not exactly your place to say whether I need the scholarship or not.”

“From what I know of you, you don’t need the scholarship. Not in comparison to me.”

His voice is quiet. “You don’t know shit about me.”

Before I can say anything else, the dean’s office door opens, and Dean Fletcher, with her silver-streaked Afro, waves us into her office of wooden panels. We take our seats in front of the heavy desk.

She holds her hands together as she watches us. “What happened? Ms. Brody called me to say there’d been a fight.”

I stare at my marked-up sneakers, waiting for Declan to jump in, but he’s quiet also.

“Come on,” she says, “let’s hear it.”

“We had an argument,” Declan says slowly.

“And?” she prompts. “I heard you fell?”

Declan takes in a deep breath, not looking at me. “It was a freak accident, I guess. His foot slipped, I was leaning back . . .”

I glance up at him. The dean raises an eyebrow, looking between the two of us. “An accident?”

Declan doesn’t say anything else. I nod slowly. “Uh—yeah,” I say. “An accident.”

The dean looks from me to Declan and back to me again. “All right,” she finally says, clearly not believing either of us, but there’s nothing she can do unless there’s an official complaint. “I urge you both to work through your problems so that you won’t be disruptive to your future classes. In the meantime, can I see a handshake and a truce?”

She’s taken things too far. Declan’s roll of eyes shows he agrees with me.

“Let’s go,” she says. “A handshake and an apology, from both of you.”

Jesus Christ, let’s just get it over with. I swivel in my seat to Declan, hand stuck out. His arms are crossed, but he uncrosses one and plants his hand in mine. It’s larger, an artist’s hands with dried paint in the creases of his skin. Declan meets my eye.

“I’m sorry,” he says, squeezing my hand a little as he shakes.

“I’m sorry, too,” I tell him.

We let go immediately.

The dean stands, scratching her chair back. “That’s a start.”

Declan is out the door first, several paces ahead of me, not bothering to look over his shoulder. I don’t know why I do it, why I even bother, but I struggle to keep up, striding down the hall beside him.

“Why’d you say that?”

He doesn’t look at me. “Say what?”

“That it was an accident.”

“So it wasn’t an accident?” he says. “Shocker.”

I don’t speak—just keep walking down the wood-paneled hall, until he throws open the door at the end, letting us out into the lobby. My heart tightens and my stomach twists. Declan finally stops walking. He turns to look at me.

“Listen,” he says, “I didn’t mean anything by bringing up the gallery. I was just making a point—”

“You don’t get to use my pain to make your point.”

He lets out a sharp breath. He stands there for a second, moving his jaw back and forth, and I stare at him, waiting, all too aware of the fact that I’m facing Declan right here, right now, in the very space he used to hurt me.

“I said it was an accident because it wouldn’t be worth going through four months of disciplinary hearings just to get you expelled.”

“Okay,” I say slowly.

He takes a step forward. “And I also want you to know that, when I get into Brown over you, it isn’t because I got you kicked out of school,” he tells me. “It’ll be because I deserve it more than you.”

I stare at him blankly. “I’m always amazed by the depths of your bullshit.”

A smile twitches on his face, and for a flash, he looks as surprised as I am. Declan Keane, laughing at something I said?