“Oh my GOD!” Nicole's hands went up into her hair. “I cannot believe you did that. How could you, Thomas? How could you go through all my stuff like that? Without even asking? Seriously?”
My body went cold, and I started getting that creepy, tingling feeling I sometimes got when Dad was in one of his moods. A shiver ran through me. I feared whatever I said now wouldn't make any difference.
I couldn't seem to pull in a breath. I could still see Nicole, and I knew she was yelling, but her words were lost to me. She threw her hands up in the air and then backed up against the locker next to hers. With her hands over her face, she slowly sank to the floor where she sat with her knees bent.
Shakespeare's words from A Midsummer Night's Dream came to me—“So quick bright things come to confusion.” Somehow, I'd really, really screwed this up.
Now would she let me fix it?
CHAPTER 15
SHUTOUT
Most of the hallway had cleared out as students headed to the lunchroom. I stood there like a complete moron while Nicole sat on the floor with her head in her hands. I was afraid to say or do anything because I wasn’t sure if she was so angry she couldn’t look at me or if it was because she was crying.
I wasn’t even sure which one would be worse.
Since no little voices whispered words of guidance in my head, I just sat down in the hallway in front of her and tried to figure out what the fuck had happened. I only wanted to help her, and I thought she would have liked it, but obviously, she didn’t feel that way.
“Rumple?” I finally said when the silence was just too much to take anymore.
She tipped her head back up, unshielding it from her hands and her hair at the same time. She didn’t really look mad exactly, but her eyes still glared at me. I realized what I had called her and quickly corrected myself.
“Um…Nicole?” I tried again. “I just wanted…I mean, I didn’t mean to…”
“I know,” she said in a voice that was completely dead. Her eyes dropped to the ground, and she looked so…so…unNicole. I didn’t know what to make of it. “It’s okay.”
Greg’s voice echoed in my mind.
“She was timid and scared, and she always waited for someone else to tell her what to do…”
Oh fuck.
Oh fuckity fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck, fuck, fuck.
I got up on my knees to kind of crawl the couple of feet between us until I reached her, and when I went to touch her, she flinched.
“Oh no…no…Nicole…”
I pulled my hand back and watched her wrap her arms around her legs.
“I didn’t mean it…not like that…shit.”
I had to get out of here. I had to get her out of here.
I stood up and crouched beside her, slid my arms behind her back and legs and lifted her up into my arms. I rather expected her to take a swing at me, but she didn’t. She didn’t protest at all.
Fuck.
Without making eye contact with anyone we passed, I carried her swiftly down the hall, out the door, and to my car. I didn’t know what I had in mind and just went purely on instinct—instinct I didn’t know I had. I opened up the back door, placed her in the seat, and then went around to the other side. Once I was in, I reached over and pulled her against my chest, wrapping her up in my arms and just whispering into her hair.
“I didn’t mean it,” I told her. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Please, please…Nicole. Don’t be like this.”
At least I figured out where I went wrong. Somehow, I was going to have to convince her I wasn’t like that guy in Minneapolis—the one that hurt her. I wasn’t like him at all.
Was I?
I kept my arms wrapped around her for the longest time, just holding her against my chest and telling over and over again her how sorry I was. At first, she just slouched against me, not moving, but after a few minutes, I felt her arms snake around my waist.