“No,” she said.
“Then what?” he urged. He rounded her pinky finger then started all over, tracing her hand in the opposite direction. He was a snake charmer, she realized, but he used a pen instead of a flute.
Wake up, Cadence. Wake up!
“I’m not sure,” she breathed.
Michael dropped the pen and glided his fingertips over the top of her hand.
Pull back your motherfucking hand!
Cadence jerked her hand away. She looked at Michael’s face. He stared at her confused.
“What’s wrong?”
She shook her head.
“What did I do?”
She continued shaking her head.
“Are you mute now?”
“No!”
“Give me your hand again. I wasn’t finished.” He reached for her.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not right.”
“What are you talking about? I was just tracing your hand.” He snorted. “Don’t be so self-absorbed, Cadence. I wasn’t trying to flirt with you.”
Fucking. Jerk. She knew precisely what he was doing, but he made her feel foolish. He made her feel like she was imagining it. Why did she even hang out with this guy? She should have listened to those warnings in her heart—those tiny alarms that went off the day she met him. The day he said he’d steal a kiss from her.
“You really think you’re something, huh?” he asked, staring her down. He was trying to intimidate her.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You think I like you. You think I just can’t stay away from you.” He chuckled. “Girls. They’re something else. Hey, guess what? Tracing your hand meant nothing. It was something to do before class.”
All she could think about was how happy she felt that she didn’t reveal Mark’s secret. Who knows how Michael would have twisted it and used it to his advantage?
And just like that, his tone changed completely.
“You eating lunch here before you go to work?” he asked casually.
Who was this guy?
“Um, no.”
“Okay. I’m meeting Carrie if you change your mind,” he said.
Students filed into the room, and Cadence sighed with relief as Michael turned around in his seat. Class started shortly after, and she was happy for the distraction. She looked at the back of Michael’s head from time to time, though.
She imagined putting her fist through it.
***
Only one positive outcome to her weird conversation with Michael earlier that day: She wanted to make things right with Avery. She texted her on the way to her car.
Cadence: I’m sorry.
Avery: Seriously?
Cadence: What?
Avery: You’re seriously texting your apology?
Cadence: lol
Avery: No, you little bitch. No “lol.” You owe me a phone call.
Cadence: I’m walking to my car.
Avery: ? You can’t walk and talk?
Cadence: I don’t know.
Avery: OMG. I hope you run into a tree.
Cadence: There’s no emoticon for eye rolling.
Avery: @@ (Will that work?)
Cadence: LOL!
Avery: Oh wow. Now it’s an all-caps “LOL.”
Cadence: I’m going to give you a proper apology when I get in the car.
Avery: What does that mean?
Cadence: I’ll call you.
Avery: You better. You were a straight-up bitch.
Cadence: I have an excuse!
Avery: Go be a bitch to Mr. Connelly, not me.
Cadence: I’m already doing that.
Avery: Poor Mr. Connelly…
Cadence: Are you for real?
Avery: His wife died.
Cadence stared at her phone screen. Yes. Poor Mr. Connelly. She should run home and tell him how sorry she was for treating him like crap for the past two weeks. But she couldn’t. And it wasn’t because she didn’t feel pain for him over the loss of his wife. It had everything to do with those words. She couldn’t shake them. They drilled down deep into the marrow of her bones, used the marrow for nourishment to grow her resentment, feed her bitterness. Warp her image of him.
He wasn’t a mean person. He was a person who said mean things, and he apologized. But his apology sounded shallow, and she knew it was because the resentment had already set in. Everything he said was shallow. The only words with any weight were spoken during their argument: “I fell in love with your non-history. You’re a blank slate. Easy.” Those were the ones that dragged her under and drowned her in despair.
Her cell phone rang.
Avery.
Cadence smirked. The girl couldn’t wait thirty seconds for her to call.
“Avery, I said I’d call you.”
“Well, I didn’t want you to forget,” Avery replied.
“Understood.”
“So let’s have it. And I want groveling,” Avery said.
Cadence sighed pleasantly. “You got it.”
***
“Things better?” Drew asked, casually strolling into Mark’s classroom.
He kept forgetting to close and lock the door after his last class. It became a daily routine for her—visiting him at the end of the day. Chatting and chuckling when all he wanted was to go home. Didn’t matter that his home life sucked. He’d choose a moody, petulant Cadence over an aggressive Drew any day.