The good old days. I had been so stressed out about that particular task I had almost lost it. Now I would have stolen a test every night if all this other crap would have just gone away.
Kiran led me down to the ground floor and pushed open the exit doors to the back of the building.
“Do you have to go back to class?” she asked me, slipping on her Gucci shades.
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“No, they said I could spend the rest of the day in the library,” I said, taking out my yellow pass.
“Good,” Kiran said with a nod.
She started off along the winding path that led to the library. I had about a dozen questions for her. Like how she had found out my name was up and how she had gotten out of class. What she meant when she'd said Naylor had been trying to snag her all year. But I didn't ask any of them.
“So, how did it go?” Kiran asked, looking straight ahead. She crossed her arms over her chest and held herself tightly as she walked. Her high-?heeled boots click-?clack
ed against the flagstone path.
“It was okay. Nerve-?wracking,” I said.
“Why?”
“I don't know. You did it already, right?” I said.
She nodded.
“Don't you hate the way they look at you? Like you're guilty of something?”
“They didn't look at me that way,” Kiran said.
Oh. That made me feel so much better.
“Besides, it's not like it was the first time I've ever been interviewed by police,” she said in a bored tone.
“Really?”
“I've had stalkers,” she told me matter-?of-?factly. "They're always asking me questions, as if I did something to provoke it.
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As if it's my fault these psychos spend hours in front of their computers violating themselves to my picture."
All right then.
“What did they ask you?” she said.
I took a deep breath and tried to erase the mental image of some fat, balding guy in a wife-?beater sitting in front of a glowing screen....
Ugh. Mental note: Never be famous.
“Probably the same stuff they asked you and everyone else,” I replied.
“I doubt it,” Kiran said with a laugh. Then, noticing my surprised glance, she added, “You're the girlfriend.”
“I guess. I don't know,” I said, trudging along, kicking at fallen leaves. “They asked me what my relationship status with Thomas was, when was the last time I saw him ...”
“And what did you say?”
“The truth,” I told her. “That I saw him on Friday morning.”