“Well?” he asked. “Is the coffee good?”
I took another sip and smacked my lips. “It tastes like liquidized frosting.”
“Exactly as intended.”
I swallowed another mouthful, trying—failing—not to let it lift my mood.
He leaned in again to look at my textbook, resting his chin on my shoulder so he could read with me. I was tempted to shove him away with a hand to the face but the warmth of him against me was sending tingles down my spine and I couldn’t get my body to cooperate with pushing him away.
“Oh my gosh, are they still at it?” a voice floated a few lockers down. And even though they hadn’t said our names, my spine locked up. Tino must have felt it, because he slid a hand along my waist like he was trying to comfort me. It didn’t help.
“I swear she’s obsessed with the attention.”
“Obviously.” A second girl laughed. “Her brother’s famous—she probably can’t stand not being in the spotlight herself.”
I focused hard on the words of the textbook, hoping that if I read hard enough, I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything around me. That it could drown out the sounds of anything around me. It didn’t work, of course it didn’t, but it at least made me look busy when I wasn’t sure whether the girls could see that I was still here.
Did they know that I could hear them? Was that why they were doing it?
“She literally grabbed his jacket and pulled him in. It was embarrassing.”
The laughter that followed was sharp, thin, deliberately cruel. My vision went slightly fuzzy at the edges. Tino was practically clutching my sweater in a fist.
“Tino could do way better.”
“Like, leagues.”
And that was the moment he snapped, letting go of me and spinning around to face the voices. I felt off-kilter as I lost the support of him behind.
He turned, jaw clenching. “What the hell do you think yo?—”
He was cut off by the bell, loud and shrill. I slammed my textbook shut and stuffed it into my backpack one-handed, the other one dedicated to keeping my coffee upright. I didn’t look up to see whether the girls had heard Tino starting to talk to them or if they noticed that I was pointedly keeping my head down. My curtain bangs were falling in my face and I was happy to let them, happy for nobody to see the hurt in my eyes. I shouldn’t have cared what they thought about me or why I was with Tino. This whole thing was fake anyways, right?
And they didn’t know me, didn’t know my life or how much I hated the attention that came with being Jude Turner’s little sister. They didn’t know that I would rather trade it all back in, give back the money I’d gotten from selling his clothes and turn away the attention I got from being connected with him, if it meant I could go back to a time where I still lived with my brother, where I could go out with him without being chased down alleyways, where we could talk every day without him being loaded down by all his celebrity engagements. They didn’t know me, so why did them saying that I was just seeking attention have to dig into my chest right where it hurt the most?
“I have to go,” I said to Tino because it felt wrong to just walk away. My voice sounded wrong. Too thin.
“Lilah—”
“I can’t be late for the quiz.”
I slammed the locker shut, narrowly missing catching my blazer in the door. Tino reached toward my arm and I jerked back, not willing to hear those girls continue to laugh at my obsession with him, with everyone having their eyes on me.
“I’ll see you later,” I said quickly. I turned and walked fast down the hall—not running, but going just fast enough that I could pretend I hadn’t been there at all, hadn’t heard what they wanted to think of me.
CHAPTER 17
tino
Heart’s Coffeewas busier than I expected after school the next day, but I managed to snag a back corner table for Lilah and me to “study.” I thought it was implied that when I said we could have a study date here that we would actually be chatting and drinking coffee, but maybe I should have spelled that out better because the table was covered in her school supplies. Notebooks, highlighters, sticky notes—the works. She’d been frowning atWuthering Heightsfor so long that I was worried she might end up throwing it across the room in frustration.
I, on the other hand, was busy improving her notes.
“Stop it,” she said without even looking up, swatting my hand away before I could add another doodle.
“I’m making them better,” I said, twirling her pen. “Visual learning, Lilah. You’ll remember the symbolism if you associate it with—” I turned the page toward her, “—that.”
It was a stick figure with fangs labeledHeathcliff.
