Everyone turns to look at me.
“No.”
“Then please refrain from laughing in my class.”
Oops.
A few people throw sarcastic looks my way, but this is actually a good thing. The teacher just said my name in front of everyone. Now maybe, finally, these idiots will want to be my friend now that they know who I am.
The teacher—I forget her name—finishes up her lecture and then looks out at the class. “Time to pair up with a partner. You know the rules. New semester, new partner. You can’t stick with your same buddy from last time.”
I sit up in my desk. Perfect.
Only… it’s not perfect. I expect everyone to get up and walk over to me and ask to be my partner, now that they know who I am.
But no one does.
Some people just get up and shuffle their chairs to the person next to them. No one really makes a big deal about it, but one thing is very, very clear. No one is asking me to be their partner.
A few minutes go by and I sit here, frozen in place, unwilling to get up and ask someone to take pity on me. And that’s exactly what it would be… pity.
Maybe the east coast is a lot different than I imagined. Maybe these people have no idea who I am because they’re stuck in this stuffy boarding school. For all I know, the school blocks Instagram or something.
Very well then. I swallow back the awkward and horrible feeling of being left out and I look at my laptop and pretend everything is okay. I’ll just be my own partner. That’s how it works when you’re homeschooled, after all. I’m good at working alone.
“Everyone pair up!” the teacher says. “No one works solo.”
I cringe. She’s talking about me. She has to be. I’m too embarrassed to look around the room and see who isn’t paired up yet. That would only draw attention to me, the epic loser, the new girl with no partner.
A shadow falls over my laptop screen. I look up and see the gardener Declan standing there, an old laptop tucked under his arm. “Hi, partner,” he says, dropping down into the empty seat next to me.
“You don’t have to be my partner just because you feel sorry for me.”
His beautiful blue eyes look over mine and my heartbeat seems too slow. It thumps three times as Declan watches me.Say you don’t feel sorry for me, I think. And then Declan says, “Yes I do.”
Chapter Seven
I shovemy key into the lock of my dorm room and twist, hard. The rusty old lock doesn’t wiggle much, and I glance up at the gold numbers on the door, scared that I’m trying to get into the wrong dorm.
But it’s the right number—my key just sucks. I twist and wiggle it again, and it finally turns a quarter turn, but not enough to open the lock.
The click of the deadbolt twisting comes from the other side. Belle opens the door.
“My stupid key doesn’t work,” I say, huffing into the room and throwing my bag on my bed, not even caring that my laptop is in there. I’ll just buy a new one if it breaks.
“It’s the lock,” she says, quickly closing the door again. “It’s old and doesn’t get used much, so the key doesn’t work well.”
“That’s crap,” I say, glaring at the offending door. “We’ll call maintenance and have them fix it.”
“No, that’s fine. It’s fine.” Belle’s smile says there’s something more to her thoughts, but she goes back to her bed and her laptop. I swear that’s all she ever does is sit on her bed, doing school work or whatever.
“Today sucked,” I say, plopping onto my bed. “It really, really sucked.”
“Why?” Belle glances up from her laptop screen. “The work is hard, but you get used to it.”
“No, the work is actually easy. My tutors taught me this stuff a long time ago. It’s everything else that’s hard.”
I want to keep talking, but I stop, because saying anything more would be admitting a weakness. Showing that I’m not the strong girl I pretend to be. But Belle is all ears now.
