"Torment? You read books and drink coffee in here - exactly what you'd be doing if you weren't here."
"Except that I'm miserable," I told her. "I hate every minute of this. I'm almost ready to stop coming and risk the academic fallout. This is all sick and twisted and - " The last bell of the day cut me off before I said something I'd regret. Almost immediately, Trey appeared in the doorway. Ms. Terwilliger began packing up and looked over at him with a smile, as though everything in here was perfectly normal.
"Why, Mr. Juarez. How nice of you to show up now, seeing as you couldn't make it to my class this morning."
Looking back, I realized she was right. Trey hadn't been in her history class or our chemistry class. "Sorry," he said. "I had some family stuff to take care of."
"Family stuff" was an excuse I used all the time, though I doubted Trey's had involved taking vampires on a blood feeding run.
"Can you, uh, tell me what I missed?" he asked.
Ms. Terwilliger slung her bag over her shoulder. "I have an appointment. Ask Miss Melbourne -
she'll probably explain it more thoroughly than I can. The door will lock behind you when you two leave."
Trey sat down in a nearby desk and pulled it up to face mine while I produced our history and chemistry assignments, since I assumed he'd need the latter as well. I nodded toward the duffle bag he had on the floor beside him.
"Off to practice?"
He leaned over to copy the assignments, his dark hair falling around the sides of his face.
"Wouldn't miss it," he said, not looking up as he wrote.
"Right. You only miss classes."
"Don't judge," he said. "I would've been there if I could." I let it go. I'd certainly had my fair share of weird personal complications come up before.
While he wrote, I turned on my cell phone and found I had a text message from Brayden. It was one word, a record for him: Dinner?
I hesitated. I was still worked up over last night, and although Brayden was fun, he wasn't the comfort I needed right now. I texted back: Not sure. I've got some work to do tonight. I wanted to look up some self-defense options. That was the reassurance I needed. Facts. Options.
Brayden's quick response followed: Late dinner? Stone Grill at 8? I considered it and then texted back that I'd be there.
I had just set down my phone when another text message buzzed. Unexpectedly, it was from Adrian. How r u feeling after last night? Been worried about u. Adrian was articulate in email but often resorted to abbreviations in texts - something I could never bring myself to do.
Even reading it was like listening to nails on a chalkboard for me, yet something touched me about his concern, that he was worried about my well-being. It was soothing.
I wrote back: Better. I'm going to find a self-defense class. His response time was nearly as fast as Brayden's: Let me know what u find. Maybe I'll take one 2. I blinked in surprise. I certainly hadn't seen that coming. There was only one thing I could send back: Why?
"Geez," said Trey, closing up his notebook. "Miss Popularity."
"Family stuff," I said.
He scoffed and shoved the notebook into his backpack. "Thanks for these. And speaking of family stuff... your cousin. Is it true she was expelled?"
"Suspended for two weeks."
"Really?" He stood up. "That's it? I thought it'd be a lot worse."
"Yeah. It nearly was. I persuaded them to go easy on her." Trey laughed outright at that. "I can only imagine. Well, I guess I can wait two weeks then."
I frowned. "For what?"
"To ask her out."
I was speechless for a few seconds. "Angeline?" I asked, just in case he thought I had another cousin. "You want to ask out... Angeline?"
"Sure," he said. "She's cute. And taking out three guys and a speaker? Well... I'm not going to lie. That was pretty hot."
"I can think of a lot of words to describe what she did. 'Hot' isn't one of them." He shrugged and moved toward the door. "Hey, you've got your turn-ons, I've got mine.
Windmills for you, brawling for me."
"Unbelievable," I said. Yet, I wondered if it really was. I supposed we did all have our own
"turn-ons." Trey's lifestyle was certainly different from mine. He was devoted to his sport and always had bruises on him from practice, even now. They were more severe than usual. I couldn't understand his passions any more than he could understand my love of knowledge.
My phone buzzed again.
"Better get back to your fan club," said Trey. He left, and a strange thought occurred to me. Were all of Trey's recent bruises really from sports? He kept making a lot of references to his family, and I suddenly wondered if something far more insidious than I'd suspected was keeping him away. It was a troubling idea, one I didn't have a lot of experience with. Another buzz from the phone pulled me out of my worries.
I checked the phone and found another text from Adrian - a long one that spanned two messages. It was a response to my question about him taking a self-defense class.