Fortunately, my mother didn’t spend too much time grilling me last night about where I went. I told her that I just sat outside for a while looking at the stars and the exceptionally bright moon, omitting the parts where I wandered off on an unmarked path and basically broke into Romulus’ barn. I also leave out the pa
rt where I spent a good part of the night with the three incredibly attractive, if equally aggravating, heirs to the land we now live on.
The fact that she accepts my story without question leaves me feeling guilty. I really do need to start being careful of how easy the lies come these days. It’s starting to become a habit.
The classroom walls are littered with posters that show random historical and mythological figures. If I look closely, I can also spot the corners of colorful cartoons poking out from behind. They must take some of the more … gory … depictions down for some of the younger students who share this room on alternating days.
I scan the room just enough to find an empty seat and hurry over to it without realizing—until too late—who I’ll be sitting next to.
Not that I should be so choosy, not on my second day.
“Rory?” I say as I sit down, dropping my bookbag under my desk and trying not to look as intimidated by him as I feel. Intimidation is only one of the emotions running through me though, the other one isn’t something that I’m ready to put a name to yet.
Last night left me with a mixed bag of emotions. Despite what Marlowe insisted, I get the feeling that Rory doesn’t like me much. It shouldn’t bother me, but his tone last night … it was accusatorial. It’s like he was blaming me for doing something, and I still don’t know what.
“Hello Sabrina,” he says in a tone that seems much too formal, considering he was nearly yelling at me like a disobedient child only hours earlier.
He doesn’t make eye contact, doesn’t even look at me. But at least he doesn’t move away. He does me that courtesy, at least.
Since I don’t really have anything to say to him, I focus on taking such meticulous notes that I don’t actually hear anything the teacher is saying. I don’t realize this, of course, until the sound of my own name slowly pushes through the haze of my thoughts.
Even then, it takes a few swift kicks under the chair by Rory to make me snap my head up and gawk up at the teacher like the idiot I am.
“Sabrina!”
I bite my tongue to keep from incriminating myself further.
After a moment, the teacher just shakes her head and sighs. “As I was saying … Sabrina …” she eyes me warily, as if sizing me up to determine whether or not this is going to be a year-long problem, “everyone else has started on the semester project already.”
“That’s fine,” I say, a little too quickly. I feel eyes on me as color floods my cheeks. “I can catch up. I’m used to it.”
From the look on her face, however, she highly doubts that. “Well, you’re in luck. Rory here missed the assignment as well, so I’ll be pairing you together.”
I grimace at her in appreciation, but as soon as she turns her back I let out a little breath and mutter under my breath.
Perfect. This should be great.
Not quietly enough, it seems.
I think Rory must hear me, because he makes some sort of low and painful sounding groan. Geez, he must really hate me now.
This time, I keep the words in my head just to be safe.
I’m still slightly bent out of shape about Rory when lunch comes around. As much as I tried to focus so I wouldn’t get called out in class a second time, I couldn’t get my mind off him. I eventually got up the courage to ask him about an idea for our project, but the bell rang in the middle of me talking, and he took the opportunity to barrel out the door before the rest of us could even start packing our things.
Maybe he doesn’t like being paired with a junior, although I’m pretty sure his reasons are deeper than that if last night was any indicator. I just wish I knew what those reasons were.
The three Gray boys are sitting by themselves at the far table across the cafeteria again with their backs toward me. I guess my stare has been boring a hole into the back of Rory’s skull for a bit too long because Jess finally has to ask me if something’s wrong. And then when I don’t answer, she flicks a slice of ham at me and asks again.
“Nothing,” I say, but the way my eyes flick over to their table—to Rory, Marlowe, and Kaleb—betrays me.
Clearly unconvinced, Jess presses me into a half-truthful explanation.
It wouldn’t hurt to get her opinion on the matter considering she knows more about those boys than I do. But I also can’t tell the whole truth, so I’m careful not to mention the cabin, or anything about where I actually ran into them.
“It was his car, at least I think it’s his car?” I say, shaking my head. “I kind of stumbled into it, and you should have seen his face.”
At first, I’m worried they’re going to ask me more questions, the kind that I can’t answer without giving away too much. I feel my mind reeling, reaching for answers to questions that don’t actually come.