Chapter 29 Now
Now
Bright light filtered through the window. A dread settled onto my shoulders, getting heavier and heavier the brighter the bathroom became. No more rule number two. We had to start worrying again. And I was worrying. My brain was trying to think of a way out of here. It was coming up blank.
We’d both gotten a little more sleep, but between the hard floor and the chilly air, I’d become increasingly uncomfortable.
At one point, I’d gotten up to peer out the window above the toilet.
Nobody was in the corridors. There was condensation on the glass, and a brisk wind flowed through the screen.
I shut it, then settled back in beside Beau.
Kissing him in the darkness had been unexpected but magical. Now, with the past hanging over us and the future unsure, I knew this tentative truce we’d created might evaporate.
My stomach let out a large growl and I covered it with my hands.
“We should eat,” he said in a deep morning voice.
I tightened my hold on his waist, not wanting to face the day. He chuckled and placed his cheek against my head.
“I’m going to be so sore from this floor,” I said.
“Same,” he agreed, and yet we kept lying there.
My toes were cold and I moved one foot down his leg, then up the bottom of his pants, placing my freezing toes on his bare skin.
He yelped, laughed, and then wrapped me in a tight hold, turning onto his side and depositing me onto my back.
He freed his leg from my toes but didn’t move.
He hovered over me, his arms under my back, his mouth inches from mine.
He stared into my eyes for several long breaths.
My eyes stung with emotion. I wondered if he could see it there.
His gaze traveled to my lips. The distance between us was slowly closing.
I wanted to kiss him, in the light of day, with no disclaimers or rules, but I couldn’t.
I turned my head to the side with a chuckle. “I have morning breath,” I said as my excuse. But that was the least of our problems.
He released me and we sat up.
“Do you think you can reach that tree outside the window?” I asked.
“There’s a tree outside the window?” He stood and went to the back stall. He climbed onto the toilet, opened the window, and peered outside. “I don’t know. It’s kind of far. Why?”
“Maybe you could break off a branch? And we can use it to get the pins out of the door hinges?”
“I don’t know that a branch will be stronger or work better than your pen did.
” He said it, but he was reaching his arm out all the way up to his shoulder, wedging it uncomfortably into the narrow opening.
“I…” He cringed and smashed himself farther into the wall.
“I can’t quite…Ugh. No.” He sighed and extracted his arm from the opening.
In his grip was a single pink blossom from the tree.
He gave me an apologetic shrug as he jumped down from the toilet and held the blossom out for me.
I released a breathy laugh but took it, tucking it behind my ear. Then I stared at the locked door for a moment. My mom hadn’t found me. Somehow I thought she would, even though my phone was off. I thought she’d search me out, worry. Maybe she’d expended all her worry on my dad.
“Should we split a protein bar?” I asked.
His eyes went to the door and then back to me, like he knew what I was thinking. “Yeah,” he said, then after a beat added, “someone will come for us. Soon. You’ll make it for the meeting.”
“Just because you say things with such surety doesn’t make them true.”
He shrugged. “I’m good at fooling myself.”
I nodded to the counter. “I’ll fill our water jar, you split the protein bar.”
I filled the jar to the very top and then grabbed us each a mint off the counter as well. I tossed one onto his lap where he sat, expertly splitting the bar.
“Good thing you’re such a teacher’s pet,” I said with a smile, holding up my mint.
“You don’t want to know what’s on the tray I left on the table out there.”
“You left a tray on the table?”
“Yes,” he said.
“I do want to know, actually. Maybe imagining it will help my hunger.”
“Packaged muffins and trail mix and chips. It wasn’t just me. It was leadership. You know I’m doing leadership this semester.”
I actually didn’t know that, and that made me sad.
What else didn’t I know? “And Caroline and Ava?” I asked.
“What are they doing? Anything new?” I missed them too.
I thought it sucked that I was the one who’d lost all my friendships in our falling-out, not him.
But I was the one who had become the bad friend, the delinquent, so it made sense.
“Ava is taking a clothing design course online.” He passed me half of the protein bar.
“She’d be good at that,” I said, taking it.
“It’s hit-or-miss. She’s designed some pretty wild things, and then some of her stuff is amazing.” He spent the next little while describing some of her most outrageous designs while I asked questions about them, and we finished off our minuscule breakfast.
“If I could draw, I would sketch some out for you,” he finally said.
I took a deep breath. “I bet they’re all really cool. I’m glad she’s found a way to show off her talent. And Caroline?”
“Caroline has been hanging out with Luca a lot.”
“What’s Luca like?” I asked. Caroline had been talking to him since that Thanksgiving week bonfire, but I’d only met him once. I’d seen them around campus a lot lately.
“Perfect for her,” Beau said, inspecting his hands.
“In what way?” I asked.
“He likes to run. They do miles after school on the beach. He gets her offbeat humor and shyness. He makes goofy jokes too. But he also balances her out. You know how she obsesses about certain things. He’s more relaxed. You’d like him.”
“Do you like him?”
“I do.” He stood up to wash the chocolate off his fingers.
I just licked the chocolate off of mine. “That’s good. You never liked Cody.”
“You never liked Harper.”
“I liked Harper a lot. I just didn’t think she was right for you. She didn’t get you.”
“Well, I feel the same about Cody.” He dried his hands on a paper towel.
“That’s not true. You never liked Cody. With or without me.”
He turned around and leaned back against the countertop.
My chest ached as I stared at him. He looked so beautiful standing there, a curl flopping over his forehead; his blue eyes weren’t looking at me in anger like they had for several months.
But that didn’t matter—I knew everything would change as soon as we said the things we needed to say.
The change in his demeanor was already starting.
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “That’s because Cody is not a nice person. He…”
“Fails tests, skips school, and breaks rules?” I finished for him.
“No, those things wouldn’t make him a bad person. He’s mean, Indy.”
“He wasn’t mean. He was fun.”
“He picks on the underclassmen. He runs over people’s things with his skateboard. Thinks it’s funny. He spray-painted the windows of Tyler’s parents’ business. That little sandwich shop by the bay.”
I hugged a knee to my chest, looking up at him. “How do you know it was him?”
“Because he wrote his name. Except instead of an o he used a u.”
I scrunched my nose. That was my inside joke. He didn’t even know what that meant. “I don’t think he’s intentionally mean. He’s laid-back. He made me happy for a little while. Got my mind off everything. Made me forget things.”
“He yelled at Brady in the parking lot.”
“He did?” I asked.
He nodded. “He’s intentionally mean, Indy. And he dragged you into his stupid antics.”
I looked down, thinking about the night we’d broken into the school.
“Did you know he stole the lab acid?”
“He didn’t,” I said, even though in the back of my mind I knew he probably had. On purpose. Right in front of me, without me even knowing. Put me at risk of getting into more serious trouble.
Beau just tilted his head, challenging me.
“Well, what do you want me to do? We’re broken up,” I said defensively. “You want me to get back with him so I can break up with him a second time?”
“I just want you to admit he’s not a good person. That he’s not right for you. He was never right for you. That you two aren’t similar. I’m not the only one who thought that. You should’ve heard the things people said.”
“You care more about optics than I do, Beau. You always have. Something your mother pounded into you, I think.”
“This isn’t about my mother,” he snapped. “Why won’t you admit that he brought you down?”
That familiar fire I’d been feeling for months scorched my chest. “You brought me down, Beau. You.”