“Why do I hang out with those two again?” Maggie asks me, just before she starts to laugh.
“I don’t know. I hang around them too sometimes, but they’re sort of awful.”
“They’re actually terrible.” Maggie shakes her head and sighs, pushing her tray away from her. “I can’t eat.”
“Why not?”
“So much going on.” Her smile is rueful. “I’d tell you all about it, but we’d need at least five hours.”
“I’ve got nothing but time,” I tell her, reaching out to pat her hand. “Are you and Franklin still broken up?”
“Yeah. He found out about Fig.” And with that one sentence she confirms my suspicions. “He wasn’t too happy about it. He even wanted to tell Headmaster Matthews about it.”
Oh wow. “Did he?”
Maggie shakes her head. “I convinced him not to, at least for now. I don’t know how much longer I can put him off.”
“Why don’t you let him tell? Then at least you have nothing to do with it.”
“Because I’m in love with him, Wren,” she admits.
“Franklin?”
“No. With Fig.” She sighs. “And there’s more.”
God, what more could there be?
“You’ll freak out though,” Maggie continues.
“Just tell me,” I say, needing to know.
Her gaze meets mine, and I can see a myriad of emotions swirling in her eyes. Fear and worry and just the tiniest bit of happiness too. “I’m pregnant,” she whispers.
My mouth falls open as I struggle to respond.
“With Fig’s baby.”
TWENTY-TWO
WREN
By the time I’m walking into psychology class, I’m an emotional wreck. Crew must sense it from the look on his face as he watches me head for the desk next to his. I don’t even bother sitting in the front anymore. What’s the point?
“You okay?” he asks when I sit down.
Nodding, I offer him a faint smile. “Fine.”
I can’t tell him about Maggie and Fig. That would be betraying my friend’s trust, and I can’t do that. Not after Maggie told me something so incredibly distressing and private. I had to drag her out of the dining hall after she told me, because she started to tear up. We hid away in a bathroom, and I comforted her, holding her close while she cried into my shoulder and told me everything.
How she doesn’t want to abort the baby, though that’s what Fig wants. She truly believes she can leave school, give birth, and once she’s eighteen, they can move in together and live as a happy little family.
That sounds farfetched, even to me.
“You sure?” Crew is perceptive, just like Fig.
No, wait. I shouldn’t put them in the same category. That’s not fair to Crew. He’s not preying upon me and trying to seduce me.
Or is he?
“I’m just tired,” I admit, which isn’t a lie. I toss and turn in bed every night, and when I do sleep, I have fitful dreams. About my parents. Or Crew. The ones with Crew always end up sexual and I startle awake every time, my body damp with sweat. My hand between my legs.
“Not sleeping well?”
I nod.
“Me either.”
“Why aren’t you sleeping?”
He shrugs. “Got a lot on my mind.”
That’s all he says.
And I don’t bother asking any more questions, because I might not want to know the answers.
Skov enters the classroom right before the bell rings, just like normal. Once she runs through attendance, she claps her hands together, getting our attention.
“Before you start working on your projects, I have a few things I wanted to go over with you.”
I sit up straighter, paying attention, though I can feel Crew’s gaze on me. I sort of hate it when he stares at me.
And I sort of like it too.
“Presentations are happening next week, and you’re giving them together, in front of the class. No exceptions. You can use any form of visuals you’d like, though don’t make it too complicated. I’d like an outline of your project turned in Friday.” The entire class erupts in groans and Skov rests her hands on her hips, waiting for the chorus to settle down. “Okay, calm down. You knew this was going to happen. I’m giving you two days. You can handle it.”
No, I really don’t feel like I can. I don’t think Crew and I even have a handle on this entire project. What are we supposed to talk about exactly? And what sort of visuals are we supposed to use? I knew we’d have to present in front of the class, and usually that sort of thing doesn’t bother me, but right now, I’m frazzled. Just thinking about getting up in front of the class with Crew by my side makes me nervous.
“You look scared,” Crew observes once Skov finishes.
“We have to write an outline in two days,” I stress.
“I’m not worried.” His tone is so dismissive, it’s annoying. “Why? Are you?”
“Do you think we have enough information for our presentation? I don’t even know exactly what we’re doing.”
“I’ve learned a lot about you over the last ten days, Wren.”
I really love it when he says my name, and I really need to stop focusing on that. “I haven’t learned much about you, Crew, so consider yourself lucky.”
“You actually believe that?”
“You say a lot without revealing much.”
His smile is small. “There’s something you learned.”
I roll my eyes and open my notebook to a fresh piece of paper. “What sort of outline should we sketch out?”
Crew leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out so his knee nudges against mine. My body reacts as usual. I’m always ultra-aware of his presence, especially when we’re sitting so close. “I was thinking we should do a compare and contrast.”
“Of what?”
“Of each other. Remember how Skov mentioned we’re similar? I know you do. You brought it up once.”
I see it, and then again, I don’t. Maybe it’s more I don’t want to be like him. “That could work.”
“We could break it down like this.” He leans over my desk and pulls my notebook closer to him, then starts to write—with pen. “You’ll introduce yourself, and then I’ll do the same. You’ll talk about our similarities. I’ll talk about our differences. Conclude that people who seem like polar opposites on the surface might share some commonalities after all. The end.”
He taps his pen on top of my hand. “What do you think?”
“It’s a good idea,” I admit, reluctantly. “What should we use as visuals?”
“We’ll come up with that later. Let’s focus on the information first. Then we can come up with the visuals.”
I grudgingly agree, not sure why I have such a bad attitude. Crew is actually pretty smart. I guess I never gave him enough credit before, though he’s been in my honors classes all four years.
Sometimes I see only what I want to see, not what’s actually happening.
I’ve walked through life with tunnel vision, especially at Lancaster Prep. I had all of these ideas of how I should act, and who I should be. And for most of my high school life, I’ve been perfectly content with the person I am here.
Until now. Until I started working on this project with Crew and his observations about me. They’ve been a complete eye-opener.
And of course, then there’s Crew. My feelings for him. He makes me curious. He makes me want things I shouldn’t.
I’m starting not to care so much about the repercussions anymore either.
“You want to take the similarities or the differences list?” Crew asks me.
“The similarities,” I answer.
“Really? I’m thinking that might be the harder one.”
“I can handle it.”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t, I just know you’ve been going through—a lot lately,” he says, his gaze dropping to my lips.
My skin grows warm the longer he stares at me, as if he’s thinking about kissing me. Which now I’m thinking about too.
“I’m all right,” I admit. “This will be a good distraction.”
He glances around the room, making sure no one is paying attention to us before he asks, “Still upset about your parents?”
“Yeah. I can’t help but think I was blind to what was going on. How did I not see that they weren’t happy with each other anymore?”