“That’s me.”
“I thought I saw you yesterday. So. You’re back.”
“I’m back.”
When I offered nothing else—I don’t know what she was waiting for me to say anyway; she’s the one who owed me an explanation—she made a huffing sound. “Fine, whatever. I need the help. What’s your rate?”
“Thirty dollars an hour,” I said. It was too high. She was going to tell me to get lost—
“Done,” Emery said. “Tomorrow and Saturday at four o’clock? There are study lounges on the third floor, just off the library.”
Her imperious tone got my hackles up. Clearly, Emery Wallace was used to the world bending to fit her schedule. “Tomorrow works, but I have row tryouts on Saturday.”
“Oh yeah?” she said. “My boyfriend is captain of the crew.”
Her boyfriend, Tucker, the bully…
I made my voice stony. “That information has no bearing on mylife.”
A pause, and I could practically hear the moment when Emery decidednotto hang up on me.
She scoffed. “Whatever. Tomorrow and Monday, then?”
“I can do that.”
“Great,” she said with sarcasm. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Four o’clock.”
Tomorrow. After seven years, we’d be face to face. Part of me wanted to step back in time to make it happen yesterday. Part of me feared it’d be like tearing open an old wound and making it bleed again.
“See you tomorrow, Emery,” I said quietly.
She gave a tight, “Yep,” and the line went dead.
I set my phone down and stared at it for a moment before my gaze wandered to the items on my desk. There weren’t many; only the things I used or cared about the most: a photo of Dad and me at the fifth grade science fair, where I won first place for my homemade particle accelerator; my laptop; a can full of pens; a notebook; and the bookMeditationsby Marcus Aurelius.
I opened the book to the middle, to the flower that lay pressed between the pages, where it had been for seven years. The daffodil had dried to a papery consistency and had lost much of its bright hue, but in my mind’s eye it was still a vibrant yellow. I could still remember the exact moment Emery put it in my hands. I could still feel her soft kiss on my cheek…
“Don’t be stupid,” I murmured. “Do not. Be. Stupid.”
Like every night for the past seven years, I contemplated throwing it away, and just like every night for the past seven years, I put the flower safely back in the book and returned it to its place.
Chapter 4
Emery
In calculus the next morning, Mr. Greer scribbled endlessly on the whiteboard. For the rest of the students, it seemed to make sense, but the figures and symbols were like hieroglyphics to me. I was hopelessly lost and completely distracted by the fact I had Xander Ford’s number sitting in my phone. In a few short hours, we’d be face to face. Or sitting right next to each other, like we had on the rock like we did when we were kids…
Only we weren’t little kids anymore. Xander certainly wasn’t. His voice on the phone yesterday, for instance. Hearing it for the first time in seven years was like vertigo. And not the bad kind. His voice had deepened, but it was stillhim.
Whatever that meant. As if I knew Xander anymore. Or ever. My heart was still claiming ownership because I thought I’d been in love with him, but that was obviously a stupid, silly thing to believe.
He’s going to save my ass in math. A tutor. That’sallhe is.
“Miss Wallace?”
I jerked out of my thoughts to see the entire room watching me.
“Sorry, what?”
