“If I ask you something, will you be honest?”
He tilts his head toward me. “That’s all I’ll ever be.”
The way he lowers his voice when he speaks makes my head spin and for a second, I’m afraid if he keeps talking like that, I’ll pass out again. Luckily, he takes a step back and waits on my response. I want to ask him about his past. I want to know why he was sent away and why he did what he did and why Six doesn’t trust him. But again, I’m not sure I want to know the truth yet.
“Why did you drop out of school?”
He sighs like that’s one of the questions he was hoping to be able to dodge. He begins walking forward again and I’m the one following him this time.
“Technically, I haven’t dropped out yet.”
“Well you obviously haven’t been in over a year. I’d say that’s dropping out.”
He turns back to me and looks torn, like he wants to tell me something. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again after hesitating. I hate that I can’t read him. Most people are easy to read. They’re simple. Holder is all kinds of confusing and complicated.
“I just moved back home a few days ago,” he says. “My mother and I had a pretty shitty year last year, so I moved in with my Dad in Austin for a while. I’ve been going to school there, but felt like it was time to come back home. So here I am.”
The fact that he failed to mention his stint in juvi makes me question his ability to be forthcoming. I understand it’s probably not something he wants to talk about, but he shouldn’t claim that he’ll only ever be honest when he’s being anything but.
“None of that explains why you decided to drop out, rather than just transfer back.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know. To be honest, I’m still trying to decide what I want to do. It’s been a pretty fucked up year. Not to mention I hate this school. I’m tired of the bullshit and sometimes I think it would be easier to just test out.”
I stop walking and turn to face him. “That’s a crap excuse.”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “It’s crap that I hate high school?”
“No. It’s crap that you’re letting one bad year determine your fate for the rest of your life. You’re nine months away from graduation, so you drop out? It’s just…it’s stupid.”
He laughs. “Well, when you put it so eloquently.”
“Laugh all you want. You quitting school is just giving in. You’re proving everyone that’s ever doubted you right.” I look down and eye the tattoo on his arm. “You’re gonna drop out and show the world just how hopeless you really are? Way to stick it to ‘em.”
He follows my gaze down to his tattoo and he stares at it for a moment, working his jaw back and forth. I really didn’t mean to go off on a tangent, but skimping on an education is a touchy subject with me. I blame Karen for all those years of drilling it in my head that I’m the only one that can be held accountable for the way my life turns out.
Holder shifts his eyes away from the tattoo that we’re both staring at, and he looks back up and nudges his head toward my house. “You’re here,” he says matter-of-factly. He turns away from me without so much as a smile or a wave goodbye.
I stand on the sidewalk and watch him as he disappears around the corner without once looking back in my direction.
And here I was, thinking I would actually have a conversation with just one of his personalities today. So much for that.
I walk into first period and Breckin is seated in the back of the room in all of his hot pink glory. How I didn’t notice those hot pink shoes and the boy they’re attached to before lunch yesterday boggles my mind.
“Hey, gorgeous,” I say as I slide into an empty seat next to him. I take the cup of coffee out of his hands and take a sip. He lets me, because he doesn’t know me well enough yet to object. Or maybe he lets me because he knows the ramifications of intercepting a self-proclaimed caffeine addict.
“I learned a lot about you last night,” he says. “It’s too bad your mother won’t let you have internet. It’s an amazing place to discover facts about yourself that you never even knew.”
I laugh. “Do I even want to know?” I tilt my head back and finish off his coffee, then hand him back the cup. He looks down at the empty cup and places it back on my desk.
“Well,” he says. “According to some probing on Facebook, you had someone named Daniel Wesley over on Friday night and that resulted in a pregnancy scare. Saturday you had sex with someone named Grayson and then kicked him out. Yesterday…” he drums his fingers on his chin. “Yesterday you were seen running with a guy named Dean Holder after school. That concerns me a bit because, rumor has it…he doesn’t like Mormons.”