Untouchable (Untouchables, 1)

I don’t care what my classmates think about me, but thinking of the disappointment on Mr. Hassenfeld’s face if I showed up to class pregnant makes me feel wretched.

Such a shame. She had such a bright future ahead of her.

I pull my phone out of my pocket with unsteady hands. I need to make an appointment to get birth control. I need to never sleep with Carter again. I need to—

“Zoey.”

Carter.

I look up and see him walking in this direction from the cafeteria.

Frowning with mild concern, he asks, “What was that all about?”

“Oh, nothin’ major. Mr. Hassenfeld just wanted to remind me not to be a dumbass and ruin my own life.”

Carter cocks an eyebrow, clearly not sure if I’m serious. “Did he offer specific instructions on how to avoid that dour fate?”

I hold up the crinkled paper so he can see the test, a lump in my throat. “It’s the test we took right after…” I shake my head, swallowing the words down. “I couldn’t concentrate. I thought I did okay, but I bombed it.”

“It’s just a C,” Carter offers, his gaze drifting from the test back to my face. “I mean, it’s not great, but it’s not the end of the world, either. He pulled you aside for that?”

“This is my first C. Ever. In the entire history of my education, I have never…”

His dark eyes widen. “Seriously? Not once?”

“You didn’t use a condom,” I toss out, a little wildly. “You can’t have sex with me if you’re not gonna use a condom. It doesn’t matter to you, you won’t be stuck with the consequences, but I will. You’ll ruin my life and then go off to Columbia and never think of me again; you’ll graduate and get a wife, have a family who will never know about me, and I’ll be stuck here all by myself, working two jobs and too exhausted to study for my community college courses with my stingy little Carter clone undoubtedly demanding all my time and attention.”

“Whoa,” Carter says, glancing around the halls, then settling an arm around my shoulders and hauling me toward the doors out of the school. “I was going to say you should sit with us today, but after that speech, I think you need to get some air. These are isolated incidents, Zoey. One shitty grade, one fuck without a condom. I’m not going to ruin your life. You’re overreacting a little, don’t you think?”

“Has telling someone ‘you’re overreacting’ ever stopped someone from overreacting?” I ask him. “In my experience, it only makes it worse.”

Nodding casually as he pushes open the door and ushers me through it, he says, “You’re right, this is a perfectly adequate response to one mediocre grade. I don’t know what I was thinking before.”

“It’s not just the grade,” I tell him, as we stop on the cement pad in front of the school. “You and I are completely different people. You have all these privileges so maybe it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to you, but there’s no one there to catch me if I fall. There’s no cushion; I’ll just hit the ground. I don’t have the luxury of fucking up, because it could cost me the only chance I have to get out of here. I have a 4.5 GPA, Carter. Do you think it’s because I derive pleasure from studyin’ my ass off? It’s not. It’s because scholarships are the only chance I have of getting the hell out of this godforsaken town. I don’t have a golden ticket to one of the best schools in the country, I don’t have rich parents to pay for it even if I did—the world is not my fuckin’ oyster. I cannot afford to blow everything I’ve worked so hard for over a guy.”

Given the blistering unkindness of my rant and Carter’s penchant for turning defensive when he feels attacked, I do not expect this to end well. In fact, I expect him to break up with me, making this less-than-12-hour-long relationship possibly the shortest in the history of relationships. I dread that I gave away my virginity to something so disposable, but that’s nothing compared to what I’ll feel a year from now if I give up even more for him.

It’s time to cut my losses, not sink more energy into this just because I’ve already invested more than I intended.

Calmly, he asks, “Are you done?”

A bit deflated, I nod and look at the ground. “Yeah. I’m done.”

“Okay.” Carter misses a beat, then says, “Why don’t we go get some lunch?”

I look back up at him blankly. “Lunch?”

“You’re hangry. You need food. Come on,” he says, nodding toward his car, then taking off in that direction, confident I’ll follow.

My feet remain planted to the cement pad. “I’m not gonna ditch classes.”