Feeling a little lost, I stand a few steps apart from the others and don’t know where to go.
“Zoe, where’s Jase?” Francesca raises her eyebrows. Yes, where is he? I’d like to be able to give her an answer, but I have no idea. I can’t exactly tell her that he’s probably trying to avoid me right now.
“I’m here. Sorry. Pearson called me to his office.”
I feel a flood of relief when I hear Jase’s familiar, slightly breathless voice. I turn around just in time to see him pull his sweater over his head. His T-shirt rides up at the same time, showing off his sculpted abs. My heart skips a beat again, and the blood goes to my face. Great. Absolutely super.
“All right,” Francesca says with a nod, without questioning Jase’s excuse. “Then please go to your partner. We have a lot to do today.”
Jase nods, but I see his jaw tense. He hasn’t looked at me yet, even though I’ve been staring at him since he entered the room. I can’t stop, either, when he finally comes over to me. Not that it surprises me now, but still...
Look at me, I plead silently, and finally, he turns in my direction, and his green eyes focus on me. Have they always been this green? Probably. His gaze is darker, more withdrawn, and at the same time, I can read him a lot better than I could a few days ago. After all, he’s told me a lot of secrets, while I’m still keeping mine to myself.
“Hey,” I say quietly, cursing myself at the same time for not coming up with anything better. Also because my voice sounds like this. Just as breathless as his just did, even though I didn’t just run across half of campus twice because the principal wanted to talk to me.
I stop. Pearson. What did he want from Jase? Was it about his tuition fees? Or his scholarship? I want to ask him all the questions that are going through my head, but Jase avoids my gaze again, and I can’t get a word out. He takes his position, and his closeness does strange things to my body, not to mention my emotions.
I get warm as he takes my hand, and my heart beats out of rhythm again.
Pull yourself together, Zoe.
I take a deep breath. Francesca gives us instructions. We begin to move, and this time, I’m not the one who is tense, can’t keep pace, and moves stiffly. Jase is.
“Jase, what’s wrong with you today?” Francesca asks disapprovingly.
Jase tenses, and all at once his face is blank.
“Nothing.”
She sighs. She doesn’t believe him, I can tell, but she doesn’t ask any more questions. “One more time, from the top,” she says.
“Jase.” I tug gently on his hand. He looks at me, and I give himan encouraging smile, which is immediately extinguished when his face darkens.
“Don’t do that,” he says, and I bite my tongue to keep myself from asking what he means: Don’t smile or say his name? Probably both. The rest of the class is agony, and when Jase almost drops me during a lift, Francesca has had enough. She finishes the lesson and shoos us out of the studio. Jase is gone faster than I can take off my ballet slippers.
I quickly pack my things and don’t even bother to put my pants on over my tights. I just pull on my cardigan and hurry after him.
We have to talk.
Unfortunately, Jase’s legs are much longer than mine. I see him disappearing into the dorm just as I leave the practice building. It’s cold out, and it’s raining enough to make my cardigan damp and sticky on my skin by the time I finally reach the dorm myself.
I walk directly up to the fourth floor—Jase certainly won’t be stopping at the cafeteria to get something to eat. The corridor is totally quiet, with everyone still leaving their classrooms and on their way to lunch.
I hope I’m not doing the wrong thing as I knock on his door. But it opens, and all at once my mind is totally blank.
“How much ofnodidn’t you understand yesterday?” he asks sharply.
“I understood it all, and I know why, really. But please... can’t we talk?”
“I really don’t know what you want to talk about. I mean, what do you have to say, Zoe? Are you going to tell me what happened last year? Or why I suddenly became public enemy number one? I really don’t care—don’t you get it? I have enough problems, andI can’t deal with you too.” Jase tries to slam the door in my face, but I block it.
I stop worrying about whether I’m doing this right or whether it feels right. I just know that I’ve considered telling him everything before, and sure, the timing absolutely sucks right now. But I think there’s just no right time for the truth.
You always imagine it that way: a right moment and a right place with the right person to say the things that need to be said. Aside from Jase, nothing here is right, and maybe it’s a mistake, but I’ve already made enough mistakes, and I can’t keep this secret anymore.
“I didn’t come to the treehouse that night because someone put roofies in my drink.” My voice is monotone. I’ve practiced saying these words, the truth, in the hope that they’d lose some of their horror. So far, that hasn’t happened.
After
