“That is a really great way to put it,” Letty said. “How did you know how to put it so great?”
“I know because when I offered to help you move in you looked at me like you were just waiting for the punch line to a joke I wasn’t telling. And that’s what bullies do to people. They don’t just hurt you or make you feel bad for five minutes in high school. They create the backbone of every friendship you try to have from then on. They change your life forever.”
“Oh my god that’s an even better way to put it. They should just give you that psych degree right now. Freud should come back from beyond the grave to hand it to you,” she said, and now the laugh they shared was easier. Less fraught, and more relaxed.
It didn’t even change when Lydia said she was funny.
And her thoughts were suddenly all Tate, saying the same thing.
Chapter 6
She wasn’t looking for him specifically among the crowd flooding into the lecture hall. But something did happen inside her when she spotted him. A kind of lightness, or a lifting of some heavy part of herself. He had listened to her. Everything was settling into a nice, normal routine. They were going about their daily lives in an ordinary manner, and they were doing it completely separately.
He sat in the fourth row like the first time, and she sat at the back. Only now there was no rising sense of dread. She didn’t keep her hand to herself when Harrison asked a question. She answered, without the background sound of someone snickering. And even when it felt as though he was looking at her, when she snuck a glance at him she only ever saw the back of his head.
He bent low over his notes, and his head occasionally lifted a little as he really listened to whatever Harrison was saying. Once or twice she actually caught him nodding, or doing a little staggered-looking half laugh over some ridiculous concept.
As if he loved it all now.
He loved it so much he was sometimes at the lectures early. She would come in with Lydia, still giggling over something ridiculous, and get the faint prickle that told her he was already there. Only now when it happened it didn’t make her want to cover herself up, or run and hide. There was nothing to hide from.
Everything was going to be super cool and totally fine from here on in.
Or it would have been, if it were not for the group project. The one that she was so excited for that she didn’t process it when Harrison started reading out the names. She would be working with Lydia—that was a given. They were going to watch ridiculously filthy movies together and laugh about bobbing butts and ogle Ewan McGregor’s penis.
And then she heard his name.
Followed by hers.
Distantly, like in a dream of being in class.
In a second she would realize she was naked—or worse.
“Miss Carmichael, do you have a problem with that assignment?”
Everyone was looking at her now. No—not just looking. Examining, as though she had become a new and baffling species. The girl who was not excited about being carried by Tate Sullivan. The creature who seemed horrified at the prospect of working with him. It made it difficult to do anything at all, even with Lydia urging her to say yes, yes I do have a fucking problem.
Though she still didn’t expect the shake of her head to happen. Just one little accidental shake of her head and that was it. Harrison moved on to his next victim, leaving her in something she once had a nightmare about in ninth grade. Working with Tate. On a semester-long project.
About sex in cinema.
“Don’t worry, we can fix this. Just go to his office and talk to him privately about it. He would have to be Satan himself to not understand,” she heard Lydia whisper.
But the words seemed even further away than her name had when Harrison read it out.
“Right. Right. Yeah. You’re right.”
“I can come with you if you want.”
“No, that’s okay. That’s fine.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’ve been punched. In the face. With a small nuclear blast.”
“I’m sure,” she said, but soon came to regret that firmness in her voice. The steady nod that told Lydia it was okay for her to go in a different direction once they were outside. It only meant that she was on her own when she got to the tiny hallway outside Harrison’s door.
And saw that Tate was already waiting.
Of course he was—he probably had the same concerns as her. No matter how sorry he was or what he thought of being in the red and being wrong, he would never want to work in close quarters with her for the entire semester. In fact, him being sorry likely made the situation seem worse to him. Most likely he had calculated all the awkward conversations they would have to have and how far apart they would have to stand to keep her comfortable, and found it as unbearable as she did.
Even though his expression seemed to say something else.
Oh god. His expression was saying something else.
Then he held up his hands, as though to calm her.