“It isn’t!” she insists. “I never said a word. Mr. Bennett took me aside a week after you told me about the contest, and he said he decided to go with my poem instead.”
I can’t believe she’s lying right to my face. I get up out of my seat, grabbing the tray still mostly filled with food. I don’t have any appetite even if this burger were edible. And the fries are weirdly uncooked and yet soggy. “Whatever,” I say.
“Addie!” She calls out my name, but she doesn’t follow me or try to convince me of her lies. I’m glad, because there’s no way I would ever believe her. Nathaniel told me exactly what happened.
Nathaniel. I’ve got to see him.
Nathaniel has a free period now, and in the past, I had suggested sneaking off together since I am free at the same time, but he insisted meeting during school hours was far too risky. But I am losing my mind, and I don’t think I can get through the day without seeing him. So I walk through the empty halls until I reach his classroom, hoping I’ll find him there instead of in the teachers’ lounge.
Sure enough, Nathaniel is sitting at his desk, looking over some papers while noshing on a sandwich. I watch him for a moment, the same way I did last night and every day in class. He’s so handsome. I love the curves of his face, his thick dark hair, the way his brown ties match his eyes. And when he smiles at me, it gives me this wonderful warm feeling.
This maiden has no other thought than to love and be loved by him.
But when he looks up now, he’s not smiling.
“Addie,” he hisses at me. “What are you doing here?”
I slip into the room, closing the door behind me. “I’m sorry. I just… I’m freaking out…”
“Well, coming here isn’t going to make that better.” He rises from his seat, a frown on his lips. “You should not have come to my house last night. That was a huge mistake.”
I chew on my lower lip. “I know…”
“Now you’ve put yourself on the radar. You’ve put us on the radar.” He shakes his head. “I can’t believe you would do something so stupid.”
The tears that have been pricking at my eyes since I went to the principal’s office now threaten to fall. One escapes my right eye, and I quickly brush it away. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I feel so stupid.”
Nathaniel notices my tears, and that takes some of the fight out of him. He glances out the small window on the door to his classroom to confirm that the hallway is still empty, then he comes around the desk. “Addie, don’t cry.”
“I just…” I wipe my nose with the back of my hand before I end up with a snot bubble. If he sees a snot bubble come out of me, it is definitely over. No, I shouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t be so superficial. “I don’t want you to hate me. I made a dumb mistake.”
“Addie…”
His eyes soften, and after one more look at the door, he reaches for my hands. I was stupid to worry. Nathaniel and I are soulmates. He’s not going to throw away what we have because of one stupid mistake I made. We’re too important to each other.
“I could never, ever hate you,” he says. “You’ve become my entire world. You’re my soulmate. But we have to be a little bit more careful now. Just for a little while. I don’t want Eve to get suspicious.”
“So…we can’t meet today?”
I’m hoping he says yes. It’s Friday, and my mother lets me stay out later on Friday because I don’t have school the next day.
He hesitates, then shakes his head. “Better not. Maybe next week.”
Oh God, I’ll die before then. “Next week?”
He flashes me a lopsided grin. “I know. I’m going to go out of my mind.”
The idea of not being able to touch him or kiss him for an entire week is enough to make me want to scream. Impulsively, I reach out and grab his brown tie. I tug him closer to me, and even though I can tell he’s nervous that we’re in his classroom, he lets me do it. If we’re not going to be able to go to the darkroom for an entire week, I need something to hold me over.
And he must feel the same way, because he leans the rest of the way over and kisses me more passionately than he ever has before. He laces his fingers into my hair, his lips mashing against mine. The kiss seems to last for an eternity, and it’s painful to pull away from him.
I could write a poem about that kiss. And I bet it would win that stupid contest.
“We can’t do this again,” Nathaniel says in a stern voice. “Not for a little while. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.”
“Can we still text?”
He considers this for a moment. “A little. Once or twice a day. And obviously, only on Snapflash.”
I nod, trying to swallow down a lump in my throat. What am I going to do for a week without him? Nathaniel isn’t just the best thing in my life—he’s the only thing.
This is all Eve Bennett’s fault.
“You better go,” he tells me.
He gives my hand one last squeeze, and that’s when the bell rings. I square my shoulders, turn around, and leave the classroom. I’m going to get through this. And someday, the two of us are going to be together. That’s what he promised me.
OceanofPDF.com
Chapter Forty-Seven
EVE
I FEEL UTTERLY unsatisfied after the meeting with Higgins.
Addie Severson was outside my house last night, in the bushes. I have never been so sure of anything in my life. I saw her, first of all. And she has plenty of reasons to hate me.
When we were in the supermarket that day, Art Tuttle warned me about her. He had a reason to warn me. She destroyed his life, whether she was trying to or not.
And today, that girl lied right to my face.
As soon as Addie left, I looked at Debra Higgins and said, “She’s lying.”
Debra shook her head. “I agree with you, Eve. But what can we do? It’s your word against hers. And she said she was home with her mother.”
What a load of crap. When I was a teenager, I did tons of things while my mother thought I was safely tucked away in my room. As far as I’m concerned, that was not an alibi, even if her mother did confirm the story, which she didn’t.
As soon as I got out of the principal’s office, I texted Nate:
She denied the whole thing.
We were between classes, so his text back to me came quickly:
Maybe it wasn’t her?
His response was so maddening, I wanted to throw the phone.
Soon it will be time for my sixth period math class, when I will come face-to-face with Addie once again, and I am not up for the task. Debra told me that for the second semester, she is planning to switch Addie to a different teacher, but we still have two months left before the term comes to an end. Two months of having to deal with that girl.
“It was definitely her,” I rant to Shelby in the teachers’ dining area. I brought salad for lunch in a piece of Tupperware, but I’ve barely touched it. “How could she lie like that?”
Shelby shrugs. “She’s a teenager. That’s what they do. It’s like breathing for them.”
“She hates me.” I shudder slightly, thinking of the dirty look she was giving me yesterday in class. “She really hates me. And now she’s stalking me.”
“But why?” Shelby takes a bite of one of her carrot sticks. “I mean, she was following Art around because he was nice to her.”
“Yes, so?”
“So you’re not nice to her. Why would she go to your house?” She sips from her Diet Coke. “I mean, she’s not dangerous. Do you really think she would stalk you because you wouldn’t let her eat a sandwich in class? That’s a little extreme, even for a teenager.”
“Maybe…”
“Now if she were stalking Nate—that I could buy.” She winks at me. “I mean, all the female students have huge crushes on him. And then you say she joined his little poetry magazine? I can totally see her getting a little too obsessed.”
I freeze, a piece of lettuce lying limply in my mouth. I don’t know how that thought didn’t occur to me before. Maybe because when I was at the curb, I felt like she was watching me specifically. Somehow it didn’t hit me that she could have been at the house to see somebody else.