Then he clapped once and said, “Announcement done.”
As Yom climbed down from the table, the cafeteria erupted in murmurs and the rabid clicks of unmuted, fervid texting.
“Okay, well, that was wild,” Trish whispered. “But I’ll give him a solid seven out of ten, with points deducted for not actually apologizing, the problematic use of the word slut, and reducing my identity down to my sexuality.”
I didn’t answer her. I could only stand there, rooted to the spot, looking at all the people staring at me.
Until, suddenly, a certain tall hockey player blocked out my view of the gaping crowd.
“Now we can go,” Yom said with one of those lip-curling sneers he seemed to love.
The way my brain was set up guaranteed I’d be replaying this maximum-cringe event in my head for months—possibly years. So, when Yom took me by the hand and escorted me toward the parking-lot-facing exit of the student center, as if he wasn’t affected by all the eyes and phone cameras following us out, I let him.
But this time,our car ride was not silent.
“That was crazy!” I exploded as soon as we were enclosed in his truck, away from the prying eyes of students and smartphones. “Why did you do that?”
“So that there will be no more misunderstanding.” Yom twisted the key into the ignition, and his gargantuan truck roared to lifewith a growl that somehow felt personal. “That way, no one else is getting hurt.”
“No oneelse?” I repeated, alarm bells starting to go off in my head. “Who else got hurt?”
Yom didn’t answer, just pulled out of the space he’d somehow managed not to get towed from, even though it was clearly marked for University Employees Only.
Yom Rustanov didn’t strike me as the type of guy who’d willingly take a personality test. But I didn’t need to see his results to know that compliance would likely be his lowest score on the DISC Assessment Trish made me take for her Organizational Psychology class.
“You’re not going to hurt that guy who threw pop at me, are you?” I asked, fretting my hands as he zoomed out of the parking lot.
“Why can you not study at my house?”
“What?” I blinked at the question that didn’t answer mine at all.
Yom’s hands tightened on the wheel. “You said you will go to library after shift. Why? When I have so much room? What does library have that my house does not?”
“Um…” I bit my lip.
“It is because of glitch in your brain,nyet?” he asked as we rolled to a stop at one of the two traffic lights between school and the Gemidgee Animal Shelter.
I froze, my breath catching in my throat. “How did you…?”
I looked over to find him watching me with a sharp, intense gaze, like a hawk about to swoop. “You have brain glitch thatis making you feel stupid. This is what you yelled at me about. After calling me sociopath.”
Oh, right. I did say that.If it were anyone else, I probably would have apologized for using what Trish called “problematic, psychology-shaming language as an insult.”
But after being served with the Anything List and having to stand by while he did damage control on the misleading rumor he’d spread about me, I had to wonder if I’d called it right.
Maybe if I sat quietly again, he’d forget he asked me a question.
“You will explain this brain glitch to me,” he commanded, returning his eyes to the road when the light turned green.
Dammit.
So, I guess we were having this conversation. “It’s a couple of brain glitches, actually,” I told him. “Dyslexia with a serving of ADHD on top.”
“I do not know either of these terms,” Yom said.
His voice was flat, and his eyes were on the road, making him even more unreadable than usual.
“Well, for the purpose of this conversation, I’ll just say dyslexia is the brain glitch that makes it really hard for me to read, write, and spell without pouring a ton of concentration into every task. And ADHD is the opposing brain glitch that makes it hard for me to actually concentrate. Unless it’s something I really enjoy—like physically working with animals. Then I get hyper-focused.”
