13. Haley
13
HALEY
W hen Eli suggested that we could be civil, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
He couldn’t change that drastically. After years of tormenting me, he wouldn’t magically switch to some other version of himself just because we’d had a moment at the library.
That night, he was vulnerable. I could tell the second he walked into the library, looking so lost and wounded, that something bad had gone down. While experiencing something hard was enough to make anyone feel humbled, even for a short moment, that didn’t mean the feeling would linger.
The following day, I fully expected Eli to go right back to his usual.
The smug looks. The cocky smirks. The teasing. Making fun of me and sticking with his MO from the last several years.
So it was only with surprise that I stared at him when he said hello in passing each time we were in the same area.
I could only watch him cautiously when he opened doors for me, almost like he was trying to be nearby as much as he could.
I waited for the other shoe to drop when he commented on something I said or did in class, all words of praise and not jokes at my expense.
I didn’t know what could’ve happened that night he walked into the library, but whatever it was, it had morphed him into a completely different person.
A civil one. And maybe even a nice one.
Eli was being nice to me, and I spent every second of the experience doubting it. I had been the target of his meanness for too long to just blindly accept that he no longer wanted to make me miserable.
The more he changed his behavior around me, the more I tried to consider why he’d want to be friendly.
“Here.” He handed me the soy sauce at the table at the food court, somehow remembering from way back when that I liked it on my ramen noodles.
I stared at him handing me the bottle, wondering again, why?
Why he was sitting with me, the fifth time since last Wednesday. Why he was eating with me, talking to me.
This was more than being civil.
He was acting like a friend .
“What?” He glanced at me, then around himself as though he thought I was studying something or someone else.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
He was tolerable like this. I couldn’t turn off my curiosity about why he was turning off his Mr. Popular, all-star jock, too-hot-to-resist act around me.
Yesterday, in sociology class, Davina said he was down-to-earth. So it wasn’t just me witnessing this change in him. And I couldn’t get past that.
Why?
Why is he acting like this all of a sudden?
“Doing what?” He resumed eating, acting like this was normal. Like he was comfortable being near me and refraining from bullying me.
“I don’t know.” I furrowed my brow, refusing to believe he honestly wanted to be friends now.
“Just like you didn’t know where your glasses went?” He smirked. “You haven’t worn them for four days now.”
I arched my brow. “You’re counting?”
He shrugged, sitting so close to me at this high counter in the food court that his shoulder brushed against me. “I don’t see how you can’t know what happened to your glasses. They’re a part of you.”
I sighed, breaking eye contact.
“Haley?”
I stuffed food in my mouth, not trusting his “friendship”, as tenuous as it was. I didn’t trust what his reaction would be if I told him the truth, either.
The jerk that he was, he asked me again once I’d swallowed my food. He wasn’t letting me off the hook. “Haley, what happened to your glasses?”
“It’s none of your business.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’ll make it my business.”
“Ha.”
“Why won’t you tell me?” He nudged me with his elbow.
I nudged him back. “Because I don’t want to.”
“Why not?” Pushing his empty plate away, he rested his elbow on the table, tucked his chin in his hand, and stared at me.
“Because it won’t matter if you know what happened to my glasses.”
“Maybe it could.”
I pinned him with a stare. “Because I somehow matter to you now?”
“Yeah.”
“Just because I helped you clean up a few cuts last week?” I shook my head. “Don’t insult me by insinuating I could be gullible enough to think you care about me.”
“I could say the same to you.”
“How so?”
“You would never admit you care about me,” he said, pivoting to face me fully, knocking his knees against my thigh, “but you proved that you kinda do when you tolerated my presence at the library.”
So what? I didn’t want him to think I was weak and would cave to whatever game he was playing just because I was nice. “The key word there is tolerated . I might be capable of tolerating you, but I don’t trust you.”
“You mean you don’t trust what I’d do if I knew what happened to your glasses?”
When he lifted his hand to brush my hair out of my face, I held my breath and went still. It wasn’t necessarily an intimate gesture.
“You used to hate wearing contacts when we were younger.”
“Because they irritate my eyes.”
“Which is why I’m curious that you’re wearing them now.”
I shrugged.
“Haley. Tell me.”
I frowned at him. “Why? So you can gloat with the person who—” Dammit.
He leaned in, gripping my chin so I’d face him. “The person who…?”
I licked my lips and jerked out of his touch. “Forget it, Eli.”
“No. What happened to them?”
“Why do you want to know? To avenge them? To right some wrong? Yeah, right.”
“Yeah, that is right.”
I spun to face him, refusing to cower or hide. Sitting sideways and squeezing my legs between his, I ignored how close we were. How the heat of his body radiated to mine. How the clean spice of his cologne assaulted my nose. How the bright blue of his eyes tantalized me more directly.
“Let me get this straight. I do a good deed to help you, and all of a sudden, that makes you want to be some kind of friend. A knight in shining armor. I’m not that stupid. Go play mind games with someone else.”
He slanted closer, setting his hands on the top of the high-back stool that twisted when I faced him. Those lean, muscled arms were locked tight, bracketing me as he towered over me.
Contradicting his tough, almost predatory position of caging me in, he kept his tone gentle. Tender. “Why don’t you want to tell me what happened to your glasses?”
“Because I don’t want you looking at me like I’m some pathetic victim. Even if you’re taking a break from bullying me, I’m not fond of discussing how others will still try to.”
“It’s not a break, Haley.” He shook his head, dropping his gaze to my lips for a second. “I’m not that guy anymore.”
“Sure.” I rolled my eyes.
“And you’re not a pathetic victim.” He huffed a laugh. “And trust me. I know what that feels like.”
Studying him closely, I tried to interpret that riddle. “You? A victim?” I laughed once.
He dipped his chin, frowning. “Yeah.”
“And what sob story is the sexy jock going to give me now, huh? Mr. Popular, a victim of anything?” I taunted.
He lifted his ocean-blue gaze to me, giving me such an intense look that it robbed my breath.
Wait, he’s serious. He actually thinks he’s some kind of a victim or…
I caught on quickly. Looking at the healing cut on his lip, the spot that was split when he came into the library, I sobered up fast.
“Fuck,” I whispered as I turned away, twisting my seat. “Sorry. I’m sorry to make fun and?—”
He gripped my thighs and spun me back to face him.
I sighed heavily, hating that he’d been hurt. He’d made a hobby of hurting me with his teases and taunts, but?—
“Your dad beat you that night. Didn’t he?”
He nodded.
I swallowed hard, hating that I wanted to hug him and deceive him into thinking there still was some good in the world. “I… I used to wonder if he did.”
“Now you don’t have to.”
“He’s just so strict and?—”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“I…” I frowned, not brave enough to face him with this intense conversation. It made me feel too raw. Too concerned. Too vulnerable and wishing I could comfort him. “I’m sorry. You’re more of a victim than I ever have been. It sucks to be the butt of every joke and teased and bullied, but hell, no one’s ever hurt me. Aunt Cindy never…” I shook my head again. “Sorry, Eli. I’m sorry he hit you.”
“But someone is hurting you.” He didn’t back up. “If it irritates your eyes to wear contacts because something happened to your glasses, that is hurting you.” Standing up in the tight space between our stools, he forced me to look up at him.
“Yeah, but?—”
He covered my mouth with his hand, but I jerked out of his touch.
“Tell me.” He narrowed his eyes some more, looking harder. “Because I’ll do more than just tell you I’m sorry to hear that someone messed with you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I smirked. “What would you do?”
“I’d make them sorry.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I laughed until I felt like I could look at him with a straight face again. “Why?”
“Because.” He stepped into my space, stealing my breath. Within my reach like this, he was larger than life, more tempting than any vice I could dream of. “Because when we graduate, I would rather hear you tell me goodbye than good riddance .”
“It’s a little late for you to get a conscience,” I teased wryly.
“And it’s a little late for you to think I’m letting you walk away without telling me what happened to your glasses.” He edged closer yet, nearly flush to me. I’d parted my legs when he stood, and with him right there, in my space, it felt naughty.
I exhaled a long breath, figuring it wouldn’t make a difference if I told him. He wouldn’t really care. He was only saying that for whatever stupid reason he had.
“Some guy took them during our organic chem lab and dropped them into the sink with acid from our experiment.” I lifted my gaze to him and shrugged. “I’ll be able to get replacements soon. It’s not a big deal.”
He stepped back, pursing his lips and nodding. “Nope. Not a big deal at all.”
Later that afternoon, when I waited for Aunt Cindy to pick me up, I saw the guy.
He approached me, clearly unhappy about his black eye. “Sorry,” he muttered.
I blinked, unsure what alternate reality I’d been transported to. “What?”
“Sorry about your glasses. I’ll bring money for them tomorrow.”
My jaw hung open as I watched him walk away.
The next morning, waiting for sociology to start, I sat in my chair to the side and wondered when Davina would be over that stomach bug that was making her miss class. She wasn’t behind, but she hated to miss out.
Eli slid into the seat next to me without a word.
“You realize that more wrongs don’t make a right, correct?” I quipped dryly.
He shrugged. “Maybe sometimes.” He bored me with an intense stare, making me fight a smile. “But not this time.”
I shook my head, uncertain how to handle this “new” Eli.
Instead of talking any further about it, I got my notebook out and showed him the revisions to the redo paper that Eli and I could still turn in. We had a few minutes before the teacher would show up, so it was as good a time as any to discuss it with him. I didn’t count on him bringing his chair so close. Or that he’d need to rest his arm around me, on the back of my chair, so he could angle nearer to read the paper.
Snug like this, it was hard not to shift a little to the right, to remove the gap between us and touch my thigh against his. And as intoxicating as it was to want to be near him, I damned my body for falling to the lure of wanting contact with him.
“Okay, that’s enough.” The teacher walked in, a couple of minutes late, but Eli didn’t back up with her arrival.
“I said that’s enough,” she repeated as she strode down the aisle between seats, rapping her knuckles on the desks she passed. “Enough…” she warned.
The couple in the front of the room didn’t realize she was scowling at them as they kissed. “Enough, love birds. Enough.”
Everyone cracked up as she reached her desk, setting her things down. And still, the couple who’d decided to pass their time by making out failed to break apart.
“I said enough ,” the instructor said. “If you want to do that, get a room. My apologies for being late, but this is not the room for that.”
Either deaf to her words or defiant enough not to care, the guy and girl continued to grope for each other and smash their mouths together.
“Excuse me!” the teacher said louder, finally getting their attention.
“Aw, come on,” a guy teased. “You can’t blame Jonas for making a move on a fine piece of ass like that.”
“I’m merely stating that they can get a room,” the teacher said coolly.
“It happens, Mrs. B. You know how it is.” Another guy laughed and nodded as others cracked up at his remark. “Everyone’s prone to getting a little loving in when they can.”
“Not in my classroom,” she replied.
As she got ready for class, getting her book out and moving to stand in front of the desk to lecture, I lowered my gaze to my materials. That was when I realized Eli wasn’t reading the paper I set down. It was also the moment I registered that he was staring at me.
At my lips. Then into my eyes. Almost as though he were measuring me up and wondering if he could?—
I reared back, alarmed by the insane and totally wild idea that he could’ve been close and cozy with me, staring at me like he wanted to kiss me.
Nope. Not going there.
My usual method of ignoring, avoiding, and enduring Eli Young wasn’t working anymore.
But there is no way in hell…
I couldn’t acknowledge the notion that I could be…
Forget it.
I wasn’t so stupid that I’d develop a crush on my bully.