Chapter Three
Tyler is trying to kill me. I’m genuinely convinced.
‘No,’ I bark down at my phone screen. ‘Tyler, no. Don’t – don’t you dare.’
Through the grainy night-vision live feed video on my phone, I watch as wolf-Tyler locks his jaws around a corner of his sleeping bag and pulls, tearing the fabric in half.
‘Damn it, Tyler,’ I say, tossing my phone down on the table in front of me. ‘I literally just bought that.’
The sleeping bag now torn open, Tyler uses his teeth to begin extracting its fluffy white innards and spews them out across the cave in a drool-filled snowstorm.
‘I get it, okay?’ I say to my phone. ‘You’re bored. I’ll buy you a ball or something, just – ugh,’ I groan, ‘not the sleeping bag.’
Tyler, unable to hear me, continues ripping.
The cheap nanny cam I installed in Tyler’s cave doesn’t have audio, but for the most part, I don’t need it.
It’s motion-activated, so I get notifications on my phone any time movement is triggered after a period of stillness.
This means I get to watch a lot of squirrels and rabbits sniff the cave walls, but also know immediately when I’ve accidentally dropped the ball on staying out of Tyler’s path and he’s turned again.
Like yesterday.
I click my phone screen off and slide my cell into my backpack.
Mount Luther High School’s library is always next-to-dead, which makes it the perfect place for my free fifth period.
Even our librarian spends most of her time in the back office watching YouTube tutorials on contouring.
The library is just one big room, the left half of which is made up of five round tables and a few listless book displays that look like they haven’t been updated since Barack Obama was president.
In the right half are four narrow aisles divided by floor-to-ceiling shelves, crammed mostly with textbooks, biographies and the entire works of Ernest Hemingway.
From across the room, the automatic double doors to the library whoosh open.
I glance up in time to catch Avery as she manoeuvres around the long, L-shaped desk, textbooks pressed to her chest. When she passes my table, one corner of her mouth tilts up in a smirk.
She’s obviously still feeling smug about her jab in American lit.
I push myself to my feet, hands swiping down the front of the oversized white button-up I got from Seconds.
With my customary black loafers and skinny jeans, Sam says I dress like someone’s older brother in an eighties movie.
Avery disappears behind a row of books at the very back of the room, where the Greek tragedies are kept, their spines buried underneath a coating of frosting-thick dust. When I reach her, she’s staring intently at a line of books, her fingertips tracing the ornate A of Agamemnon.
‘Excuse me,’ I say to the back of her head. ‘This library is reserved for community college trash only. No prom queens allowed.’
The sweet smell of her rose perfume is suddenly so strong, my sinuses prickle. Avery turns, that same smug smile playing at her lips. ‘I haven’t won anything yet.’
Crossing my arms over my chest, I say, ‘I didn’t even think you knew how to read.’
Avery chuckles darkly. A sliver of stomach is visible where the bottom of her tiny grey T-shirt doesn’t quite meet the waist of her pants.
She shakes her head and says, ‘You know you’re not as smart as you think you are, right?’
Believe me, I almost say as she steps towards me. I’m aware.
Then she cups her hands around either side of my face and kisses me.
After Tyler first changed, I spent hours and hours trawling through Wikipedia and Reddit, and re-watching every movie Sam and I had ever picked for Flirty Friday, looking for anything that would tell me how to know I was in love. What made it different from some lame, embarrassing crush?
Nothing in the Flirty Friday archive was helpful; Tyler and I were clearly no Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, mostly because she actually talked to him.
Even though I obviously liked Tyler, there wasn’t any outward passion on my end, like in Red, White it isn’t even a crush.
It’s lust. A distraction. And after Tyler, that’s exactly what I need.
‘I bet you voted for Grace for prom nominations.’ Avery gives a low, breathy laugh. ‘No, Mia.’
From the way she says it, she makes it sound like a vote for Mia is a vote for nuclear warfare and not the girl who voluntarily spends her Thursday afternoons turning Mount Luther’s compost heap. When I don’t answer, my hands drifting across the smooth small of her back, Avery continues.
‘Was it her snaggletooth?’ she says. ‘The way it’s almost always covered in lip tint? I feel like you’d be into that.’
Guiding my hand back up to her face, I tilt her mouth towards me again, but this time Avery edges back, frowning.
‘Are you even listening to me?’ she says.
I huff a laugh. ‘Oh my God, yes, please keep tearing other women down to me. It’s so hot.’ But when I lean in again, it’s like we’re opposing magnets. I move two inches forward, she moves two inches back.
‘Is this your way of telling me you voted for Mia?’
She’s smiling, but her eyes, so ice blue it hurts, search my face, her forehead scrunched. That’s when it clicks.
A laugh explodes out of me, too loud for the otherwise quiet space.
‘Holy sh … are you trying to get me to admit I voted for you for prom queen nominations?’
Her hands curl over my shoulders. ‘Yes, because the entire varsity cheer and football teams weren’t enough for me.’ Avery rolls her eyes. ‘I just think I have a right to know how low I’m stooping here.’
This time when I lean in and nip the curve of her earlobe with my teeth, she doesn’t pull away. She kisses my neck instead, just one soft, lingering movement that sends fire blistering across my skin.
From her front pocket, Avery’s phone chimes with the alarm we usually set for five minutes every time we meet, to make sure neither of us are out of class too long.
Hands twining in my hair, Avery presses one last kiss to my mouth before manoeuvring around me and heading back towards the main library floor.
I wait until she’s almost disappeared around the edge of the bookshelf before clearing my throat.
‘Well, joke’s on you,’ I say to her back, ‘because I didn’t vote for anyone.’
Between Tyler and sneaking around with Avery and not lying, exactly, to Sam – more like withholding mostly irrelevant information, when you think about it – casting a prom queen nomination didn’t seem particularly important.
Avery looks at me over her shoulder, a little smudge of lip gloss shining on her chin.
‘Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more predictable,’ she says, her mouth pulling up in a smirk that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
She slips out of the library as quietly as she came in, my lips feeling stung and the smell of her perfume still filling the air. I yank down the bottom of my shirt, smooth my hair. The urge to laugh bubbles up in my throat. Predictable. Predictable?
Tongue slicking across my top teeth, I re-emerge into the empty library and retrieve my backpack.
I would kill to be predictable.