Chapter Eighteen
OfficialEndeavourHigh: JacobsHR: Please tell me none of you are the reason I have to give a speech about library study rooms.
We walk to class together. I don’t think we’ve ever done that before. He’s usually sitting slumped over our table when I get there. (It happens often enough that I’ve started debating whether or not he actually sleeps at school.)
But today, he ambles along next to me. Why?
When we reach the lecture building, Hayes holds the door open for me with his entire body.
As I pass him, he grins at me. I’ve come to prefer this real smile to his sly smirk.
It still takes up his whole face, and it’s still devastatingly effective, but that smirk will probably always spike my blood pressure …
and this grin makes my stomach flip. Makes my brain feel fizzy.
All that, plus the heat of him warming up the cold morning, is dizzying.
Almost in slow motion, my hand reaches out as I brush past him, skimming the front of his Endeavour hoodie. My fingertips feel the raised letters over his chest.
But you have to be careful. Imagine what he could do if he knew you felt something soft for him.
And then I’m inside the building, and they must’ve turned the heat on. There’s a rush of fire, and it’s either a cranked furnace or all my blood rushing to my face.
At my side, my right hand stretches out, flexing like my nerves are trying to let go of the electric charge still tingling there. Which nerves control sensation in your fingertips? Hayes probably knows.
Oh, no. I just realized what I did. That was so Pride and Prejudice 2005-coded. Peak Elizabeth and Darcy. Oh my God. What’s wrong with me?
I look back at Hayes. He’s holding the door open for someone else, nodding in that casual-chin-raise thing guys do. He moved back out of the doorway to let them through. No chest brushing this time.
He turns. I’m watching him; he’s watching me. There’s nothing overt, no particular expression on his face to let me know what he’s thinking about the … touch. No smile, cocky smirk, warm grin, or anything. He blinks twice. Takes a step toward me.
Then he winks.
Oh. Okay.
Well, that can hardly be misinterpreted, even by someone as socially clueless as me. I was looking for a sign, some tiny hand-flex of a moment that would let me know something might actually be happening between us … and there it was. Big. Bold. Unmissable.
“Hey!” Someone nudges at my shoulder with their own.
It’s one of the college girls who sits behind me in Lowry’s class—Kelsey.
I can tell her approach was supposed to be a casual gesture, even if it feels like she put enough force in it to knock me over.
I know what this is, though, what’s happening here.
This is a thing people do sometimes to start a conversation. To engage with each other.
I hate being randomly touched, though, and I feel a bubble of discomfort growing in my stomach. I know she’s being friendly, but I’m on edge. All my brain carbonation flattens into something bitter. Sour. It ferments into emotional vinegar.
What is she saying? I try to focus. You’re supposed to ground yourself when unexpected things happen. Most people have to do it after something huge, like a car accident or something. For me, all it takes is the slightest unexpected touch.
Okay. Grounding. One thing I can feel: How cold my toes are in the sandals I thought were still seasonably appropriate.
One thing I can see: The poster on the wall about the taco truck that’ll be on campus tomorrow.
One thing I can hear: This is the hard part.
I can’t hear anything but my heartbeat blaring in my ears.
“Yeah, it’s really no problem. Thanks. Can you give us a minute?” All my brain will process is Hayes’s voice. This is a tone he uses in public. Speaking to big groups of people or strangers.
It’s not the voice he uses with me, and it seems like I just realized that now.
Kelsey walks away, and some of the weight melts off my chest.
“Hey,” Hayes mutters. It’s so low it’s almost a whisper. “You okay?”
“I, um … yeah.” I nod, my vision clearing and those vinegary thoughts dissipating. “I think so. I’m sorry, I get kind of weird when I’m not expecting—”
“It’s okay.” He cuts me off, still whispering. And then he smiles. “You don’t have to apologize to me.”
My chest turns into warm, melty goo. Feelings are so gross sometimes, I just can’t take it.
People are starting to fill the halls, and the collective noise is loud enough that I can’t hear myself think.
We start to walk down the crowded path to our classroom.
“What was she saying?” I ask Hayes. Hopefully, he’ll ignore the reality of my having an entire meltdown just because a stranger touched me.
And he’ll ignore the meltdown I didn’t have because he touched me.
We arrive at the classroom door. It’s five minutes past the hour, later than I’ve ever been for a class in my life.
Everyone else is already there, and their eyes all meet mine as we walk in.
Strangely, most faces light up. Relax. That’s strange.
I’ve never had the power to do that before.
I’m still not sure how I’m doing it now.
Ten minutes until everyone gets to leave scot-free again.
Hayes and I take our seats, and he whispers in my ear. “She was saying thank you.”
I turn around in a way that I hope is discrete. Make eye contact with the girl who managed to make my entire nervous system overreact to a friendly, fleeting touch. She smiles. Seems harmless, really.
“For what?” I whisper.
“For offering to help them pass this class.” He’s grinning again, and for a second, I think he’s making fun of me, but then he continues. “For being the one person who cares.”
I stare up at the ancient chalkboard that still has green writing all over it from the last class. (They’re talking about the War of 1812, apparently.)
“I think you’re kind of a hero,” Hayes murmurs.