Her gaze flicks over me and I’m having whiplash because she tries to kiss me next. My hands find her waist and I push her away gently.
“Stop.”
She’s back to being pissed at me. Arms folded across her chest—and is she pushing up her boobs? I want to jab my fingers into my eyes. I will never understand girls.
“I’m sorry if you misunderstood me. If I did something to lead you on. I never meant to.” I open the bathroom door to leave, but apologize one more time. I don’t think I did anything, but just in case. “I am sorry, Iz.”
“Yeah,shewill be.”
A month later,I’m volunteering in the library shelving returns.
I do this during study hall sometimes. I enjoy the quiet, the mundane of shelving books. Plus, our librarian, Mrs. Knight makes a mean oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.
This week, my study halls have been monopolized by Sutton. Dylan dumped her, and there’s a rumor surrounding her being adopted. Specifically why.
It’s ranged from hurtful ideas to idiotic reasons. My favorite exaggeration is that her parents are spies for NASA and abducted by aliens. Make that one make sense?
It’s trickled into name calling and out-of-line questions.
It’s been floating around for a couple weeks now. Thought it would have died out, but someone is still stirring the pot despite my efforts to snuff it out. None of it’s true. Sutton doesn’t know anything about her birth parents.
We’ve spent our study halls hiding out, but she told me she was meeting with her hockey coach today, so I opted for the library.
I’m pushing the book cart toward the poetry section. Tucked away in the back corner of the library, dimmer, the only windows are from skylights in the ceiling. Having a poetry book to shelve is rare, this was only my second time ever—and I’ll never admit it to anyone, but I’m the one who checked this book out.
I’m leaning over the cart, flipping through the pages to take a picture of my favorite poem. When I turn the corner to the aisle, my phone clatters out of my hand.
Pushed up against one of the shelves is a brunette female, and making out with her, is the last person I’d want to see.
Now what I do next, I’m not entirely proud of. I’ve never liked to let the aggression and power I have on the ice bleed into other areas of my life.
Before I know it, I’m grabbing the back of his shirt. Turning and shoving Dylan into the shelf next to Izzy.
“What the hell, man,” Dylan seethes.
“I should be asking you that. Does Sutton know about this?”
“Cooper. Stop.” Izzy grabs at my forearm, fingers pulling at the fabric of my crewneck.
“How long has this been going on?” I glower at him, our faces centimeters away. My breath is that of a dragon, hot and pungent with furry. I whip my gaze to Izzy. “Do you care to answer?”
Her jaw tightens, arms cross in front of her, similar to her posture in the bathroom at her house. Some of her lip gloss is missing.
“We didn’t mean to let it happen, it just did.” She’s lying. Her tone is too casual. You’d assume there would be remorse, but there isn’t.
“It was you.”
“What was?” she challenges.
“You started the rumor.” It burns as I say it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I turn to Dylan. “Did you know she started it?”
“Not till Sutton and I had already split.”
“Dylan!” Izzy groans, as he reveals the truth.
