ME, CINDERELLA?(52)

“You heard the cunt,” the guy said. “Fuck off.”

If I hadn’t pulled Mark two steps away, he would have swung at the guy, I’m certain. But I didn’t want anyone to get hurt because of me. The door slammed and we walked down the hallway.

“You okay?” Mark said. His voice trembled.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” I said.

He had tried to convince me to report the guy, and eventually I had gone to one of the deans and filled out a form. I didn’t hear what happened with the guy, and I never saw him again. But the fact that Mark had stepped forward and stood up to a guy almost twice his size—that was something. Not a lot of people would do that, especially for a girl they barely knew.

I snapped out of my thoughts as Mark was finishing a sentence. “…see what happens?” He was looking up at me eagerly, his dark eyes sparkling.

“Sorry,” I said. “What was that?”

“Do you want to try it as an inverse function, the way the assistant was showing us? We could see what happens when we try it backwards.”

“Huh,” I said. “Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe just a couple more minutes. I’m pretty tired.”

“Me, too,” Mark said, although he seemed buoyed up with enthusiasm now that Eliot had talked with us about the problem.

I bent over to the page and got through the first part of the proof without any trouble, then got to the hard section. It took some manipulation, but eventually I got everything reduced to a simple two-part solution. No way, I thought. Hope rose up in me as I double checked all my work to make sure it was right. I couldn’t get excited about this. Not yet, not until Mark had seen it.

“Hey, Mark,” I said. “Check this out.”

He leaned over to see my page.

“How did you get—wait, what? Holy shit, Brynn!” He pushed back his chair and stood up, the paper held inches away from his nose. “No way!”

“Check to make sure it’s right, first,” I said, but he was already pulling me up into a bear hug, a huge grin on his face. I couldn’t help but laugh, he was so excited.

“Of course it’s right,” he said. “Wow!”

“It’s just the first part,” I said, pulling back slightly.

“The part we were stuck on! You’re amazing!” He looked at the paper again, his eyes tracking each line. I saw him pause on the step where I had manipulated the equation into a solution. Tossing the page down on the table, he shook his head in wonder. He turned to me and placed his hands on my cheeks. His fingers felt warm against my skin.

“You. Are. Amazing,” he said, and kissed me.

At first I was too startled to say a word, and I froze under his embrace. His lips pressed against mine, insistent, and I was shocked to find myself responding to his kiss. My body began to lean forward just as Mark pulled back. His face was filled with joy.

“Amazing,” he repeated, but now his eyes darted back and forth to mine, searching me for an answer to the question he had just posed. We had been friends for so long, and I never realized that he might want anything more. Now I felt utterly confused, and my mouth dropped open, searching for the right words.

“Mark…” My words ran away from me. They always had.

A slight noise from the front of the library made me look up over Mark’s shoulder.

Eliot was standing not thirty feet away, and from the looks of it, he had seen everything.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN



After hanging up the phone, Eliot became possessed with curiosity. They were only students, to be sure, but he knew what Brynn was capable of, and he was intrigued by the partial solution. He wanted to see more, and after some tossing in bed he realized that his brain would not let him sleep until he had satisfied his curiosity. He hopped into his car quickly and drove to the library, eager to examine their work. He hadn’t expected to find them still there, and he certainly hadn’t expected to find Brynn in the arms of that boy, Mark.

What’s more, he hadn’t expected the surge of jealousy that turned over in his stomach as he saw Brynn kiss Mark back.

Poisonous thoughts flooded his mind as he stood there, watching his hopes unravel in another man’s arms. He had not known how much he cared for Brynn, or maybe he had pushed the thoughts down again, suppressing his heart with his intellect so as to protect himself from hurt. As much as he rebelled against the feelings of hurt and rage that washed over him, he found his normally impenetrable inner defenses worn to a thin shield that buckled and broke even as he stood, eyes fixed on the scene before him.

Eliot could not bring himself to step out of sight until it was too late. Unable to think of anything to say or do, he simply turned and walked back down the stairs he came from. Initially he thought she might run after him, catch him, but he was at the bottom of the stairs and nothing had happened. Still in shock, he walked out to his car and drove away, and kept driving.