“I think you should probably go now,” I tell him, even though I’m as reluctant to see him go as he apparently is to leave. “The teacher needs to start class. Besides, aren’t you the one who told me to keep my head down and not draw attention to myself?”
“That was the old plan.”
“The old plan?” I stare at him, bemused. “When did we get a new plan?”
He smiles at me. “Two nights ago. I told you it wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Wait a minute.” My stomach drops. “Are you telling me the cafeteria, the walk to class… This was all because of Flint?” Just the thought makes me feel awful.
“Flint who?” he deadpans.
“Jaxon.”
“It was all because of you,” he tells me.
I’m not sure I believe him, but before I can probe any more, he reaches out and takes hold of one of my curls in that way he does. He rubs it between his fingers for a couple of seconds as he watches me with those unfathomable eyes of his. “I love the way your hair smells.” Then he stretches out the curl before letting it go so it can boing back into place.
“You need to go,” I tell him again, though the words are a lot more breathless this time around.
He doesn’t look happy, but I stare him down.
It takes a few seconds, but eventually Jaxon nods. He steps back, a grudging look on his face, and it’s only as he moves away that I realize my heart is beating like a heavy-metal drummer.
“Text me a pic of your schedule,” he says as he moves toward the door.
“Why?”
“So I know where to meet you later.” His face melts into a grin, and the butterflies I always feel when he’s around take flight in my stomach.
“I have AP Physics right now, so I’m out in the physics lab and won’t make it back before you have to go to your second period. But I’ll catch up with you later. If I can’t, I’ll have one of the others walk you to class.”
Yeah, because that will help me blend in. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s not a problem, Grace.”
I sigh. “What I mean is I don’t want you to do that. I just want to get to class like everyone else. On my own.”
“I get that. I do,” he continues when I give him a disbelieving look. “But I meant it when I said you aren’t safe here. At least let me watch out for you for a few days, until you learn the ropes.”
“Jaxon—”
“Please, Grace.”
It’s the please that gets me, considering I’m pretty positive Jaxon isn’t the kind of guy to ask for something when he can order it. And though I think he’s overreacting, he seems really worried, and if this will set his mind at ease, I guess I can handle it for a few days.
A very few days.
“Fine.” I tell him, giving in as gracefully as I can. “But only until the end of the week, okay? After that, I’m on my own.”
“How about, we renegotiate at the end of the week and see—”
“Jaxon!”
“Okay, okay!” He puts his hands up. “Whatever you say, Grace.”
“Yeah, right. That’s a bunch of—” I break off because he’s gone again. Because of course he is. Because that’s the story of our lives. He disappears, and I get disappeared on.
One of these days, I’m going to turn the tables.
He’s right, though. As soon as he leaves, the classroom floods with people. I try to stand to the side, waiting to see where there might be an empty seat, but Mekhi nods me over to the desk next to him in the second row.
I go, even though I don’t know if a person normally sits there, because it’s nice to have someone in this class to talk to. Especially since he’s grinning at me while everyone else is doing the same old stare-and-glare.
The teacher—Ms. Maclean—bustles in after everyone has taken their seats. She’s dressed in a flowing purple caftan, her wild red hair piled atop her head in a haphazard bun that looks like it’s going to fall down at any second. She’s not young, but she’s not old, either—maybe forty or so—and she’s got a huge smile on her face as she tells everyone to open their copies of Hamlet to Act II.
Half the class has books and the other half has laptops, so I pull out my phone and start looking for a public-domain copy, since I left my book in California. But I’ve barely typed “Hamlet” in the search bar before Ms. Maclean drops a dog-eared copy on my desk.