Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 100612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
He walks into school beside me, the hallways filling with students, chatter growing louder by the second. My dude won’t shut the hell up about how lucky I am to have Harper, blah blah blah, piling on the guilt. It makes me feel like a dick for driving her archnemesis to school; I wonder what possible excuse I’m going to have to come up with to explain this away.
“Bro, Harper’s actually cool. Unlike Maddie.” He’s going on and on. “I dunno. That girl’s a headache.”
More like a concussion.
I grunt, my mind replaying every second of that cringey car ride.
I don’t need to hear Marcus singing Harper’s praises right now. Not that he’s wrong—Harper is awesome. But I feel like crawling into a hole and pretending the whole morning didn’t happen.
As I round a corner, I spot Harper.
She’s standing at her locker, rummaging through her bag.
She hasn’t noticed me yet—obviously—which gives me a moment to take a breath, pull myself together, and shove my self-loathing down where no one can see it.
Marcus elbows me. “There she is, man.”
“Bruh, shut up.” I roll my eyes, but there’s a half smile on my face.
He smacks me on the back. “Good luck. You need it.”
Harper lifts her head when I approach and stops digging through her floral tote. She beams up at me as I smile sheepishly down at her.
“Morning.”
Her pretty brown eyes light up when I greet her. Immediately I feel like a complete. Fucking. Douchebag.
“Wow,” Harper breathes. “You’re early for once.”
“Ha ha. I figured I’d start the day off on time.”
She tilts her head, studying me. “You okay?”
Dammit, why is she so fucking perceptive? Avoiding her inquisitive scrutiny, I spin the dial on my combination lock and give her what I hope is a convincing nod.
“Yeah, I’m okay. Just tired.”
That much is true. I was up all night thinking about her, then awake early to taxi her enemy to school.
She frowns. “That’s right—the other night you said you haven’t been getting much sleep.”
I did tell her that.
“Same, by the way.” Harper pulls out a binder and shuts her locker. “I feel like a zombie myself.”
I laugh a little, but the sound is hollow. So much so that she looks at me sideways; I can feel her eyes lingering on me.
“You sure you’re good?” she asks again, her voice softer this time as she flips through a notebook. Her long hair falls over one shoulder, and the light streaming from the English classroom turns it to strands of silk.
She’s so cute. I’m a terrible person.
I hesitate, guilt twisting my gut like a knife.
Do I tell her?
Yes.
No.
I have to; I have no choice. Not when I know Marcus is going to blab to Macy, then Macy is gonna blab to Harper—and I’d rather she hear it from me. Anyway, I did nothing wrong. Not technically. Maddie is practically almost nearly my neighbor!
Consider it me helping out a needy classmate who happens to be the girl I’ve been crushing on since middle school.
Wait, had a crush on. Past tense.
FUCK MY LIFE!
If you did nothing wrong then why do you feel like shit?
“Why do you look like you’re about to confess to a murder or something?” Harper is studying my face, brow furrowing deeper the longer she looks at me. “What’s going on?”
I take a deep breath, grabbing a pencil pouch from the top shelf of my locker simply to occupy my fidgeting hands.
“There’s something I need to tell you.”
“Okay.” She closes her notebook, giving me her full attention. “What is it?”
I swallow hard, staring into the abyss of my locker, wishing I could curl myself inside and disappear.
“So. It was no big deal, but…” Shit. “This morning, I drove Maddie to school.”
Harper’s expression freezes for several seconds. Then…it shifts. Her eyes lose their shine; her mouth begins to turn down the slightest bit.
Sad.
The noise in the hallway fades as she starts blinking rapidly.
“You drove Maddie to school?” Her voice holds a quiet tension that speaks volumes. “But you don’t have a car.”
“I know,” I say, instantly regretting the admission. I turn to face her fully. “I didn’t plan it; it just happened. She texted me this morning and needed a ride. Like—what was I supposed to do, right? I didn’t think—”
“That’s right. You didn’t think.” She cuts me off.
Harper is not looking at me anymore, her gaze drifting down the hall as if she wants to be anywhere but standing next to me, having this exchange.
“I’m sorry. I just—” I pause, trying to find the right words. “I was trying to be nice.”
“Nice,” she deadpans, unimpressed, because she knows I’m full of shit. We both know the real reason I drove Maddie to school: Curiosity. Allure. The crush.
“Yeah.” I toss the pencil pouch back into my locker. “I thought the ride would end better.”
“End better?” Harper scrunches up her face. “I don’t know what that means.”