My heart slams.
“Poppy . . .”
She’s standing at the end of the aisle of books—the aisle I sworenostudent ever pulls a book from—and she’s got three thick tomes clutched againsther chest.
Of course Poppy reads books from this section of the library. If I weren’t so drained and exhausted, I’d smile at that.
“Hi,” she says softly. For some reason, her voice comes out small, nervous. I don’t like it. I don’t ever want her to feel nervous around me.
“Hey,” I say back, but my throat sounds rough, like I haven’t spoken in days. Maybe I haven’t. Apart from Felex, I’ve barely seen or spoken to anyone. This is the last weekend before finals start, my last chance to prepare for my exams. I clear my throat. “I didn’t expect you to be here.”
She walks closer, hesitating a little before setting her books onto the table across from me. “Yeah. I... just needed some new reading material. But it’s good to see you.”
Guilt punches through me. Despite seeing Poppy in Kitchen Spellwork on Fridays, we’ve not spent any quality time together recently. I rub the back of my neck and wince at how tight my muscles are from hunching over my books. “I’m sorry I’ve been distant. I’ve been kind of buried.” I gesture to the table, where my rune textbook is open, with parchments scattered around it.
“You look it.” Her tone’s gentle, and her fingers drift along the books on the table, like she’s not sure what to do with her hands. “You’ve been working too hard.”
I laugh under my breath, the sound hollow. “Yeah, maybe.”
She remains standing, her bookbag slung across one shoulder, her hand pressing into the stack of books she set on the table. There’s an uncertainty surrounding her, like being around me is making her nervous.
“You wanna sit down?” I gesture to the small chair across from mine.
“Um, sure.” Poppy removes her bookbag, then sinks into the chair. She fits in it a lot better than I fit in mine. But even as she sits there, she’s struggling to look at me, and something about the expression on her face and the tightness in her shoulders makes concern swirl through me.
“Brains.” I sit up a bit and lean my elbows on the table. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Her teeth nibble on her bottom lip, and she’s still not looking at me, instead staring into her lap, where I can see she’s twiddling her thumbs.
Something is clearly bothering her.
Immediately, I think of the invitations, of my failure to follow through on yet another thing we’d planned together.
“I got the invitation to the ball,” I say, trying to break through whatever thisthingis between us. “It looks great. Who designed it?”
A brief smile flickers across Poppy’s lips. “Maeve drew the artwork, and then we worked together to get the text right.” The smile slowly fades. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t pass them out with you. Honestly, I completely forgot about it. Then I felt like an ass when I remembered. Why didn’t you remind me?”
She shrugs. “It’s okay. And I know how much you’ve been studying and practicing. I didn’t want to add anything else to your plate.”
I narrow my eyes at her. “It doesn’t sound okay.”
Finally, this gets her to look up at me, and her eyes are shimmery behind her glasses.
“Poppy, what is it? What’s going on? You’ve gotta tell me. And don’t just say that everything is fine, because I know you”—I gesture at her—“and I know something’s bothering you.”
She bites her bottom lip again, and her eyes look between mine, like she’s trying to decide whether or not to say what’s on her mind. Then, with a whispered breath, she says, “I... don’t know what we’re doing anymore.”
My stomach twists. “What?”
In a more hurried voice, she says, “You told me you don’t want me to tutor you anymore. It feels like you’ve been avoiding me for weeks. And I saw you with Morgan, and—”
“Morgan?” I sit back and tip my head. “What does she have to do with anything?”
“I saw you near the runeball field together, laughing and smiling. She was touching your arm, and you looked so...comfortablewith her. Happy.”
I search my hazy memory, and through all the historical dates and rune maps and baking spells, I finally call to mind what Poppy is talking about: After our weekend practice, Morgan caught me on my way back to the athletics building. I had no idea Poppy saw that. But it was harmless.
