He needed to talk to her. He always needed Dove.
“Tell Andrew the truth, then,” Lana snapped. “Dove said you were a coward and she was right.”
Panic crept into Andrew’s voice. “What truth?”
Thomas whirled back and got in Lana’s face, but she didn’t move an inch. The way her eyebrows rose was equal parts scathing and condescending, and Thomas’s attempt at looking formidable was lost due to them being the same height.
“You don’t know anything about me,” he said, low and venomous. “And you know less about Andrew if you think he’s some delicate wallflower that you need to ball up in cotton wool. He could cut me to bloody pieces if he wanted. I couldn’t stop him even if I tried. So can you stop pretending he needs saving from me? Back up andleave us alone.”
There was something so raw about being known this intimately, being understood down to his darkest parts. Andrew’s heart felt swollen to twice its normal size.
Lana looked like she wanted to eviscerate Thomas. Instead, she gave him the finger. Then she turned to Andrew and eyed him with a ferocity that seemed more concerned than anything else. “Invitation to hang out with me always stands. Have fun with this toothache incarnate.” She stormed off.
Andrew stared at Thomas. “What was that?”
“Forget it. She has a problem with me.”
“Is this about your fight with Dove?” Andrew said.
Thomas’s teeth clenched. “Leave it alone.”
Andrew did not know how to swallow all of this. He hadn’t realized Thomas and Lana hated each other this much—or maybe both only meant to protect another. Lana on Dove’s side, Thomas on Andrew’s.
Andrew didn’t have time to gather his scattered thoughts before Clemens’s voice boomed through a megaphone telling everyone to board the bus. But then he looked straight at Andrew and Thomas and added, “This is a public event, and students are to conduct themselves with the respect and decorum befitting Wickwood Academy. Anyone not in full uniform will be left behind. Anyone with an attitude problem will be left behind. Anyone unable to comply to the rules will be left behind.”
Andrew winced as he looked at Thomas, who had already failed that entire checklist. Thomas glanced down at his missing tie and blazer, and red flushed across his freckled cheeks.
“He’s doing this to stop me coming,” Thomas said. “Because failing us in class wasn’t enough.”
“I can’t go alone.” Andrew tried to keep the growing anxiety out of his voice. “Turn your shirt inside out. It’ll hide the paint stains.”
“But the buttons—”
“Button it inside out. Just do it.”
Everyone else began filing onto the bus.
Thomas started unbuttoning his shirt. Students behind them started whispering and made a wide arc around their disaster zone. Thomas stripped his shirt and fought with the tangled sleeves.
Ahead, Bryce Kane wolf-whistled. “God, Rye. No one asked for a striptease.”
His friends jeered, and Andrew quickly stood in front of Thomas to hide all the bandages and tape covering his torso while he wrestled his shirt back on and fumbled with the backward buttons. He still had no blazer, but Andrew snatched the limp tie and redid it, jerking the knot a little too tight. The collar wouldn’t sit flat inside out, but it had to do. Thomas tucked in his shirt, agitated and frenetic, as they lined up to board.
His eyes locked on Clemens. “I’m dead without the blazer. He’ll ban me.”
Lana, about to board the bus, had turned to watch their disorganized wardrobe shuffle. Her eyes met Andrew’s for half a second before she turned and bumped into Ms. Poppy, who in turn spilled her thermos on Clemens’s shoes. He leaped backward with a barely stifled curse while Ms. Poppy twirled around in a flurry of apologies, her enormous skirt only adding to the confusion.
Andrew grabbed Thomas’s wrist and dragged him aboard the bus while no one was watching.
It didn’t make sense, Lana gifting them this distraction after her vehement verbal collision with Thomas earlier, but maybe Dove had put her up to it.
Andrew followed Thomas down the aisle. “That was way too close.”
They packed themselves into seats, Thomas wincing as his abused skin pressed against the bus upholstery.
“Are you okay?” Andrew whispered.
“All I care about right now is you and dealing with the”—Thomas’s voice dropped low—“monsters. Nothing else matters.”
