Chapter Fourteen Julia #2
Because the fit felt too familiar. Oversized and masculine, comfortable, comforting—the sweater felt like when I used to wear Will’s sweatshirts.
Gah! I instantly hated it.
Not that I was in jeopardy of anything happening with Damion, but the sight of me in that extra-large sweater felt like some sort of warning.
I dabbed the coffee out of my hair, and when I came back out to the table with my wet flannel shirt rolled up in my hands, the mess was gone.
No drips, no cups, no napkins.
Damion was sitting there, back in his bored-duke pose like nothing had happened.
“Thank you,” I said, making him look up from his phone. “Um, for the shirt and for cleaning up my mess.”
His eyes went down to the sweater, and his jaw did a little flex-unflex thing, like he hated the sight of me in his clothing, before he said, “No problem.”
“Yeah, uh, I’ll bring it to school tomorrow,” I said, feeling awkward as hell. “After I wash it.”
“Whenever,” he said, nodding. “Are we finished here, by the way?”
“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, wondering how things with Damion just kept leveling up to even higher levels of awkwardness.
“Great,” he said, and two minutes later he was gone.
The boy very nearly ran out of the coffee shop.
I left the coffee shop a little unsettled, feeling like my head was spinning as I hitched my bag over my shoulder and walked home.
Because I didn’t like Damion. He was a jerk, and I strongly suspected his reputation for rebellion and flirtation was hard-earned.
He definitely seemed to fit the bill.
But I also kind of trusted that Damion could help me, as a tutor.
As in, he was good at teaching.
Really good.
Unfortunately, his tutorhood was actually making things worse for me, socially speaking, at school.
The rumors that we were something kept multiplying. And, according to Jasmine the next morning, word had spread that Damion and I were spotted together last night at the coffee shop. Me wearing his sweater.
Shit.
Dread settled in the pit of my stomach as I went to English lit, worsening as I walked past the two whispering mean girls in the front of the room.
I wanted to disappear as I took my seat and got out my notebook, as the bell rang and they continued to whisper, even after the teacher came in and took off on his lecture.
He started discussing Titus Andronicus, but I couldn’t stop watching them gossip because I just knew it was about me.
Being invisible sounded like a dream come true.
“Miss Lowell,” Mr. Longhaven said from his podium. “What are your thoughts on this?”
I felt the blood drain from my face when I heard my name, when I looked up from my thoughts to see that he was calling on me—ohGodohGodohGod—with every eye in the room turned in my direction.
Mr. Longhaven reminded me of the guy who took over for Keating at the end of Dead Poets Society. White-haired and strict, he was the kind of teacher who liked catching people not paying attention, who assigned heaps of homework just because he could. I hated him for calling on me.
“My, um, my thoughts?” I said, hating how breathless I sounded and loathing the snicker I heard from the back of the room.
“I think her thoughts are scrambled by too much Rutledge exposure,” I heard the girl behind me whisper.
My throat felt tight and my skin was hot as they talked about me like I was a ridiculous punch line. I felt seen in the very worst way, and I wished I could run and hide.
“Yeah, is that actually true?” someone whispered back, and I felt queasy.
“I mean, it can’t be, right? Has to be a rumor because ew.”
Ew.
I swallowed and blinked fast as my vision went all water-blurred. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
But God, I was an ew?
I knew I should be above their derision, confident in my own self-worth, but I was so embarrassed I wanted to evaporate into thin air. I was something they found ew.
Shit, I thought, biting the inside of my cheek because I was terrified I wasn’t going to be able to hold back the tears. I knew if I cried everything would be ten times worse.
“If it is true,” I heard, “I think the Corn Queen must’ve cast a spell on him or something, because that’s the only explanation.”
Why do they hate me so much?
“Maybe the Medusa hair turned his brain to stone.”
“Your thoughts on Tamora, Miss Lowell,” Mr. Longhaven said loudly, over the mocking and peering at me from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Do you think she’s just as evil as the men in Titus Andronicus?”
“Um, no, I don’t,” I said, swallowing hard, trying to keep my breathing steady and compose my thoughts on the Shakespearian play while everyone stared at me like they wanted me to fail.
My skin burned and my hands shook. “I—I think she’s also a sort of victim, though obviously not as innocent as Lavinia. ”
“How can you say that?”
I turned in my seat to see that the red-haired guy from the Toms—Corbin—was leaning back in his chair, looking at me like I was an idiot. His tone was mocking and aggressive as he said, “She’s a murderer who cheers on her sons when they attack Titus’s daughter. How can you call her a victim?”
He was smirking, like my thoughts were the funniest thing he’d ever heard, and I wanted to punch him right in his tattoo.
God, how does he have a tattoo already?
His white button-down was buttoned down to mid-chest, just enough to expose the Gothic cross tattoo that was inked on the center of his breastbone. His tie was loosened but tied just beneath the cross, and something about the intentionality of his style felt… grossly overthought.
Like he’d spent way too much grooming time in front of the mirror.
I hated him and I hated everything.
So much.
“Wait your turn, Mr. Archington,” Longhaven said, but he looked happy that Archington wanted to argue with me.
Wonderful.
“Explain, Miss Lowell,” Mr. Longhaven prodded.
Please leave me alone!
“She’s, um, a victim of the patriarchy, I guess you could say,” I answered, ignoring the tsk sound someone made on the other side of the classroom.
“She sees that the only role for her to play, after her husband is murdered and she’s taken captive, is that of a victim.
So when given the opportunity, she copes—she survives—by behaving as violently as the men.
I think she makes them forget her gender, temporarily, and forces them to see her as an equal because she’s as disgustingly fierce and powerful as them. ”
“Interesting,” Longhaven said, tilting his head and narrowing his eyes.
I wasn’t sure how he meant that, but in spite of everything I was a little bit proud of my answer.
I’d actually made my point, which was a miracle in and of itself with the way everyone was staring at me like they wished one of the overpriced light fixtures would fall from the sky and crush my freak body.
“And as soon as she stops behaving that way,” I added, “they go right back to seeing her as a woman, and they kill her.”
“After they feed her a pie made from her sons,” the snotty girl behind me said. “Don’t forget that part, New Money.”
Rage suddenly took over for the sadness when she said that, because who the hell were these awful people? And what kind of place was this, where the students felt completely comfortable being dicks in front of the teacher, and in front of the entire class?
I looked over my shoulder and hated the smug expression on her face because I could tell she thought she’d owned me.
Hated it so much that I replied, “I could never, Headband.”