It’s not a lie.
I do care about her, in my own little way. I think beneath her stuffy exterior and Miss Priss attitude, she’s a good person. I think we’d be friends if the conditions were favorable.
“See you in Chem,” I say as she pulls away.
***
I’m stopped outside my classroom by Claire Fahnlander.
“Jensen, hey.” She twirls her hair around her finger and leans against a red locker. “I know you’re new in town. I’m having some people over this weekend, like, for a senior party. My parents are going to be out of town, so I’ll have the whole place to myself. You should stop by. You know, if you’re bored or whatever.”
She bats her lashes. She’s the kind of girl who knows she’s pretty—the kind who skirts through life on her good looks and manipulative charm. She’s the type you could spend a drunk and rebellious teenage weekend with and not think twice about her again because underneath her fuck-me façade, there’s nothing at all.
I glance into the classroom to find Waverly watching. Her eyes veer away the second she’s caught.
Claire turns to see what I’m looking at and then rolls her eyes. “Ugh, Waverly Miller. Total wannabe.”
“Really?” I scratch the space above my brow. “She doesn’t seem like that to me. A little uptight, maybe. A little tightly wound.”
I can’t imagine Waverly wanting to have anything to do with Claire or her posse of mean girls. There’s a group of bitches like that in every school across North America.
“Trust me. She’s annoying.” Claire folds her arms. Her mouth twists into a devious grin. “Anyway, about this weekend, you should come by around—”
I don’t say another word. I simply walk away.
“Hey.” I pull out the chair next to Waverly, leaning in and nudging her arm. “What’s up?”
“I didn’t know we were friends now.” She flips her notebook open and clicks her pen, staring straight ahead at the dry erase board in the front of the class where Mrs. Davenport is writing and erasing something.
“Are you cool with what happened last night?” I whisper. I hold my breath, anticipating her answer. She’s clearly bent on making me wait.
Is she punishing me? If so, I did nothing wrong. I planted a seed. She chose to water it.
I snicker as she scribbles today’s date on the corner of her paper and throws her pen down. “Yes, Jensen. I’m fine.”
I don’t believe her.
The eight a.m. bell rings and Mrs. Davenport takes attendance. Claire Fahnlander watches us from the corner of her eye. I swear she’s plotting all the ways she thinks she’s going to make me hers.
She’s in for a world of disappointment if she thinks I view her as anything other than a piece of ass, and even then, I have no intention of fucking around with that. She’s probably been with half the school, or at least anyone with a football jersey and a half-smile.
“You’re different now,” I whisper to Waverly. She stares straight ahead at the white board.
“Can’t get anything past you, huh.” Her voice is hardly audible.
“So you did it. I know that much,” I cross my arms and sit back in the chair, not even attempting to fight the grin consuming my lips. I lean over to her, whispering into her ear, “But the biggest question is, were you thinking of me when you came?”
Waverly jolts and pushes her chair back, causing a metallic grinding noise to beckon all eyes our way. Mrs. Davenport stops yammering about reactants and holds her marker in the air. She scans the classroom and spins around, resuming her lecture with an air of annoyance in her tone.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than watching a girl squirm from the heat of my stare. She was a delicate flower when I met her a few days ago. Now she’s blossoming right before my eyes.
Quiz sheets are passed to us and the teacher rains silence upon the classroom and mutters something about an hour.
An hour to take a quiz? I flip the sheet over. It’s thirty questions. I hate when teachers give way too much time for these. She probably wants some quiet time so she can do a little online shopping or Facebook browsing during work time. No one needs a whole fucking hour to take a thirty-question quiz.
That’s an hour of sitting here with my quiz finished and being unable to breathe a single word to Waverly. As pleased as I am that she touched herself last night, I want to make sure she’s okay. I’m not a complete asshole.
She finishes her test after fifteen silent minutes and turns it in before coming back to her spot and pulling a book out from her bag. I squint to see what she’s reading. Jane Austen. How classy. Of course she wouldn’t read anything modern. I doubt Mark Miller allows his precious daughter to be exposed to modern-day romance and all its oversexed dialogue.