Something both silly and important.
Daisies.
I’m wearing daisies.
My dress has printed daisies on it. That’s why he said that.
Oh, and it’s white, my dress.
Holy crap.
Lost in the woods, I’m dressed in his favorite color — white — and he’s staring at me in a way that makes him look like a predator. Part human, part wolf, who hunts unsuspecting girls like me.
Girls foolish enough to wander alone at midnight.
“I beg to differ,” he drawls when he finishes his perusal and comes back up to my face. “You look daisy fresh to me.”
See?
Predator.
Beautiful, gorgeous… predator.
I fist my dress and press my back into the tree. Raising my chin, I try to look more experienced even though I’m anything but. “And I’m not a freshman either.”
“Is that so?”
Look at that tone, so condescending.
God, I hate him.
Also, I hate myself for saying that.
But now that I have, I’m going to stay the course, because backing down would be even more cowardly.
“Yes,” I tell him. “I mean I am. But I should’ve been a sophomore. I repeated a year. And so I’m older and hence wiser. I’m about to turn sixteen in three months.”
All true.
I did repeat a year. Back when my mom had been sick and eventually died of cancer.
Everything had fallen on Conrad, who was only eighteen at the time and a freshman in college. He had so many,manyballs to juggle back then, what with my mom’s deteriorating health, getting a job, keeping the house, taking care of my brothers and me – well, all my brothers chipped in and helped with me, but they were all kids themselves – that perfect attendance wasn’t very high on the list.
So my teachers thought it would be best if I repeated a year.
“Sweet sixteen, huh,” he murmurs, his eyes all glowy and intense.
I swallow. “Yes. So you shouldn’t have said what you said. To your friends.”
“What’d I say to my friends?”
I fist my dress harder.
I know what he’s doing. He’s provoking me. Because this is what he does.
He, Reed Roman Jackson, provokes and I, Calliope Juliet Thorne, make good choices.
So I should make a good choice here and backtrack.
