17
Kieran: A Yes Or No Question
“How was your weekend, Kieran?” Imogen asks.
My shoulders lock up.
It’s morning, before homeroom, and the five of us — Imogen, Trinity, Zaina, Kennedy and I — are walking to the library. Now they’re all staring at me. I’ve taken too long to reply.
“It was fine,” I answer.
“What did you do?” Trinity prompts.
Well, yesterday I had mind-blowing sex with Jasper Harvey, and I’m still trying to decide whether it was a good idea. “Nothing much,” I answer.
Trinity laughs. “You’re talkative today.”
We arrive at the library door and I hang back to hold the door open and let the girls go first. I move to follow the girls in when something shoves against my bed. I tense up — at my old school, kids were always shoving into each other, but here, people are much more considerate of others.
It’s nothing, I think as I turn around. Just an accident.
Then I see Fin looking at me with a wrinkled nose.
“Watch where you’re going,” he says. His friends stand behind him. Hudson, Aiden and…
And Jasper. He looks down as soon as I look at him.
“You’re the one who bumped into me,” I say. “Haven’t you heard of a thing called personal space?”
“Speak for yourself. You seem like the type who’d want to be tou —”
“Fin,” Trinity barks.
I glance behind me, surprised to see Trinity and Zaina are here. I wonder how much they heard. Kennedy and Imogen have drifted away, distracted by their own conversation.
“Do you know what day it is?” Trinity demands.
“Monday?” Fin answers.
“And do you know what happens on Mondays?” Trinity asks. “Meetings with Mrs Abbot,” she continues when Fin doesn’t answer. “Don’t forget to show up. You missed almost every meeting last term.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Fin says, waving a hand. His gaze moves to Zaina, and he nods at her.
She looks away, wearing a strange expression.
Fin turns away. “Let’s go,” he tells his friends. The four of them walk away, Hudson saying something about how Trinity’s such a hard-ass. Jasper’s at the back of the group, and he determinedly doesn’t look at me.
“Ugh, Fin is the worst, isn’t he?” Trinity says, looping her arm in mine and leading me away with the rest of the girls.
Zaina makes a sound of agreement, but she glances back at him.
“I hate working with him. I can’t rely on him foranything. If there’s a meeting, he either won’t show up or will arrive fifteen minutes late. And he never checks his emails…”
Soon, the bell rings and I go to homeroom, where Jasper pretends I don’t exist. I’m used to it though. Curtis says good morning to me though, which reminds me that most people at this school aren’t assholes.
Curtis seems pretty cool. He’s dating another guy called Liam. For the most part, people here are nice about it. I’ll admit, I was surprised. At my old school, if you were a guy dating another guy, you’d get harassed non-stop.
I sit in my usual seat at the back of the room and stop myself from staring at the back of Jasper’s head. It’s hard for me to reconcile school him with bedroom him.Can I use my mouth?he’d asked yesterday. And he’d done such a good job too, getting all messy with his lips stretched out…
