“You can’t complain about any of it, then.”
“I won’t.”
“And I’m not giving you any character breakdowns. We’re not plotting this thing out.”
“Perfect. I don’t work that way, anyway.”
Urgh. She’s being so agreeable. She’s also acting like she’s written fifteen novels already and has any fucking clue what this process is going to be like. Grumbling, I open up my laptop. “Fine. I'll write the first chapter right now then. At least that way I won’t have to actually speak to you for the rest of class.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Two days each per chapter. I don't give a shit what Jarvis says. If you don't keep up, I'll write it myself and that'll be that. You got it?”
“Loud and clear.”
“And let me be completely transparent. If you try and twist my work into some kind of garbage, bullshit romance, I will rewrite every single word and erase you from the project.”
“Don't worry, Davis. I don't do romance.” She's as serious as the grave.
I immediately begin hammering away on my laptop. For the next forty minutes, I write like the wind. Occasionally, I shoot Chase a sidelong glance; she just sits there at first, reading a book that she pulled out of her bag, but after a while she rummages around and pulls something else out of her bag—a small Ziplock, filled with…what the hell is that? I have to turn my head properly to look at what she’s got in her hands. Takes me a moment to realize that the Ziplock is full of strands of colorful thread. She takes out red first, then, orange, then yellow. My fingers slow, the rhythmic tapping against my keyboard betraying the fact that I’m watching her. She notices and smiles. Fucking smiles.
I’m not having her sit there, smug as hell, knowing that she’s distracting me. Not. Fucking. Happening. I renew my focus, lasering in on the words spilling out of me and appearing on the screen, determined not to give her the satisfaction.
Five minutes before the bell, Chase starts to pack up her stuff. She shoves the book she was reading, her textbooks, her Ziplock of colored thread, all of it, back into her bag—which, upon further, very brief inspection, turns out to be a battered military bag. Not an army surplus kind of deal, either. This bag has been used excessively. I see the name patch sewn onto the top of it: WITTON, ROBERT, K. It belonged to her father. Must have done. So she’s a military brat, then, just like Stillwater.
Given that the bell hasn’t actually gone, I keep typing, feigning disinterest in this small, new detail I’m learning about Chase. However, I have no choice but to stop when she reaches out and curls her hand around my wrist.
She curls her hand around my wrist.
I stop dead, frozen, rooted to my chair, so taken aback that I all I can do is turn my head to the right and stare at her, open-mouthed.
She’s touching me.
Why is she touching me?
And why am I so fucking shivery?
“Stay still,” she whispers.
“The fuck are you doing?” I don’t move. I can’t. I’m so shocked by the brass balls of her that my entire nervous system has shorted out.
“Just relax.” She arches an eyebrow at me in a very Jacobi-esque kind of way, and that, too, takes me by surprise. There are very few people who can pull off an arched brow like Wren.
Looking down, her hands work quickly around my wrist. I put two and two together, but it’s already too late by then. The colorful knotted bracelet has already been tied firmly before I can wrench my hand away. I glower at her, running her through with an incredulous stare. “You are out of your fucking mind.”
“You don’t like it? I was going to use blues and greens, but fiery colors seemed more appropriate.”
“What are we, fourteen-year-old girls? Are you at your first fucking slumber party? Do I look like I just got my first fucking period?” The questions volley out of my mouth a little louder than they should. The students sitting at the other tables all cease their inane chatter and look over at us. Worse, Jarvis looks up from the stack of papers she’s grading and frowns.
“If you’re planning on kicking off again, Pax, think again. There are three minutes left of this period and I’ll be damned if I have to march you to see the principal on my time. Settle down.”
I shoot daggers at the witch, tugging furiously on the bracelet underneath the desk, dead set on ripping it off my body. Only it won’t fucking come off. “What, did you weld it on?”
Next to me, Presley chuckles softly. “I knotted it. You’re making it tighter by pulling on it.”
“What the hell is it?”
“Come on, Pax. You know exactly what it is. It’s a friendship bracelet.”
Friendship bracelet. How does she come out with those words without bursting into flames? It makes no sense. She shouldn’t be able to utter such blasphemy in front of me without combusting on the spot. Horrified, I pull even harder on the woven braid around my wrist, but it just ain’t budging.
“Give me your scissors,” I command.
She laughs. “I don’t have scissors. Why would I? We’re not ten. We don’t cut pictures out of magazines anymore.”
My cheeks feel really hot. “You know I’m cutting this thing off my body the moment I lay my hands on something sharp, right?”
Chase makes a show of pouting. She’s acting, but there’s something serious in her eyes. I see pain there, which doesn’t make sense. I also see a flicker of something else, too, and that something else looks suspiciously like fear. She should be fucking afraid. I mean, what the hell was she thinking, tying something as dumb and childish as a friendship bracelet around my wrist? I’ve ruined lives for lesser crimes. But there’s something weird about that flash of fear I just saw. Something off. It’s gone too quickly for me to analyze properly—Chase plasters a very fake looking smile on her face—but I can still see a hint of it lingering…
“Go ahead, then. Be my guest. I can always make you another one,” she says.
“Why the fuck would you bother?”
Annoying, irritating, asshole of a girl that she is, she shrugs. “I’m a glutton for punishment.”
The bell shrieks out in the hall, and a wall of sounds erupts around us. Chair legs scrape against the floor. Someone drops their books, and a rowdy group of nerds cheer. Jarvis Reid claps her hands like the softball coach she was born to be, trying fruitlessly to get our attention.
“Remember what I said, guys. Four extra hours of writing between now and our next class. I want at least three complete chapters by this time next week. Work together in the library as and when you need to. And feel free to email me, but don’t expect a response outside of school hours. Despite the rumors, I do have a life, people!”
“Liar,” I snipe.
“Presley, can you actually stay behind for a second? I wanted to speak to you about something.”
She stiffens next to me, wild-eyed like a doe. “Uh…sure.” She has no idea what Jarvis could want to talk to her about. If she did, she wouldn’t look so perplexed. The English teacher probably just wants to give her a run-down of everything we’ve done in this class since the beginning of the academic year. It’s patently ridiculous to let a student join an AP program so close to graduation. Presley probably has a fuck ton of work to do now that she’s chained herself to this program, and not a lot of time to do it in. I don’t think this has crossed Chase’s mind, though. She’s staring at Jarvis, her eyes shining brightly, like she’s about to burst into tears.