“Hate what?”
“Wearing glasses.” I lick my lips. “They’re always clashing with my bangs.”
He looks at my bangs. A thick hunk of them is tangled up the side of my glasses like they always are. Glancing away and into my eyes, he nods. “They are.”
“Sometimes I think I should just get rid of them,” I add, hugging my backpack even tighter to my chest. “My bangs, I mean. Can’t get rid of my glasses. I won’t be able to see.”
“No.”
His answer is immediate and also confusing. “No what?”
“No to both.” When I still frown, he explains, “Getting rid of your glasses or your bangs.”
“Oh.”
This is strange. This conversation.
It’s even stranger that we’re having it in lowered tones, just a touch above a whisper.
“Is that what you wanted to ask me?” I ask then.
“No.”
“So then what?”
He chooses to hold his silence again.
And my own impatience gets the better of me so I ask a question of my own. “Tell me who Cynthia March is.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m asking. Was she the one who called before? When I first came in.”
“Yes.”
“Great. You shut the door in my face for her. So who’s she?”
“And I should tell you because we’re on a break.”
I swallow. “Yes.”
He leans in a little. “Because you had this great epiphany over the weekend, yeah?”
“I did.”
His lips tip up slightly, not in a smile but maybe in a flicker of it, as he takes in my messy bangs and glasses, my flushed cheeks. “Hell of an epiphany though, isn’t it? Makes you wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“How much easier my life could’ve been, how calm and undisturbed, how structured and peaceful. Like it always was before you came into it with your little plots and plans and pranks. With your peanut butter sandwiches and your poison ivy shampoos. How none of those things would have existed, if only you’d had this epiphany sooner.”
I can’t believe he’s bringing that up.
I can’t believe he’s bringing up my peanut butter sandwich fiasco right now. And my poison ivy shampoo.
“I wrote you an apology letter for the peanut butter sandwich,” I say. “And I left you the ointment for the poison ivy shampoo.”
I did. Both of those things.
Look, I admit that both of those things were bad, especially the peanut butter sandwich. Because I knew that he was allergic. In the heat of the moment, I smeared a little peanut butter in the sandwich that Mo had made for him — she’d used almond butter — when no one was looking. But as soon as I did that, I regretted it. I went back to the kitchen to admit my mistake but by then he’d already eaten it.
And so the next time when I did something similar — switched out his shampoo with one that had a little poison ivy in it — I did leave him an ointment. Under his pillow even, with a cute little note that said, ‘let the girl go or I won’t be here next time.’
In all the pranks that I’ve played on him, those two have been relatively serious, and I completely regret them.
But I cannot believe that he’d bring that up right now.
“You did, yeah,” he says, his lips twitching with amusement. “As a courtesy.”
“Yes. So I cannot believe that we’re talking about this right now.”
His amusement grows. “Well, allow me to do the same then.”
“Same what?”
I think he’ll answer me.
With words I mean.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he leans down further. He bends toward me and if I could, I’d press myself harder to the door.
As it is, I can’t since I’m already stuck to it.
So all I can do is crane my neck up and watch him come closer.
So much so that I can see his thick eyelashes tangled up with each other. I can see the dark fine bristles of the stubble on his sculpted jaw. I can feel the epic heat of his body turning into sweat on my skin.
When his face is right above mine, I ask, “W-what are you doing?”
“Giving you the same courtesy.”
“What?”
“By getting the door for you.”
I glance down then. Only now realizing that he’s got his arm reached out and his fingers wrapped around the knob. Jerking my eyes back to him, I continue, “Uh, I’m…”
“Since that’s the thing we’re doing now, aren’t we? Because you’re stuck here for the next eight weeks and since no matter what you do, I won’t let you go. So we’re taking a break, yeah?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“Good.” He turns the knob. “I’m glad we’re on the same page then.”
“Okay. I —”
“Because I’d hate it if we’re not,” he continues, his voice soft but somehow threatening, making me swallow again. “I’d hate to think that somehow this wonderful epiphany that’s going to change our lives is another one of your little plans. Or one of your plots to get out of detention or to sneak out or maybe to get out of summer school altogether. I’d hate that, Poe. For you. Because then I’d have to make good on my promise. The one I made at my cottage last week. About breaking your heart and counting pieces of it. Personally. Before I lock you in a cage and throw the key away. So yeah, very glad that we’re on the same page.” With that, he opens the door. “See you tomorrow.”