Are you real?she wanted to ask him.Am I awake?
And yet she was, she was sure of it. The correct color of sunlight poured in through the windows. Nothing was wet or chilly or wrong. At the top of the stairs, Judd let out a whine.
“Morning,” said Thomas. He didn’t ask whether she was okay, and she supposed she deserved that.
She wondered what she’d been doing when he stumbled upon her. Foaming at the mouth, maybe. Crawling the walls on all fours, like some sort of horror movie haunt. Shame made a thousand little cuts along her veins. She didn’t want him to see her like this, curled in on herself like a pill bug and sweating through her nightdress, a sleep mask pushed into the matted mess of her bangs.
Uneasy, she searched for some sort of way to redirect the focus back on him.
I thought you might be illiterate. In the miasma of her panic, she couldn’t recall the correct sign, and so she settled for finger spelling.I-l-l-i-t-e-r-a-t-e.
In any case, Thomas seemed entertained, not offended. Wry amusement flinted his eyes.
“Did you,” he said, glancing down at the book under his arm. “Well, you’ll be impressed—I’ve memorized at least half a dozen words.”
She tried a new tactic.That’s an academic textbook.
“Wow. Nothing gets by you.”
He was mocking her. He wasmocking her. No one ever mocked her. Not tragic, quiet Vivienne, who never said a word. Not pretty, untouchable Vivienne, who wore the Farrow wealth like armor. She harbored no illusions about what kind of person people thought she was, but no one eversaidanything about it. She signed a feeble something, dropping her hands between them with all ten fingers splayed.
“Yeah, well, you thought wrong,” he said, understanding at once. “I’m not a dropout. I’m taking a gap year.”
That’s not what your file said.
His eyebrows shot up. “You snooped through my file?”
You poke around in my life; I poke around in yours.
A smile broke across the lower half of his face. It was a sunrise grin—slow and warm and bright. He looked absurdly, beatifically pleased with her response.
It was the exact opposite reaction she’d been going for.
Don’t smile at me, she ordered.
“Do you want to know what I think?” he asked, ignoring her. “I think you’re more interested in me than you’re willing to admit.”
Don’t flatter yourself. I keep my enemies close.
“That’s not it,” he said. “You like me.”
He had the instant, regretful look of someone who hadn’t meant to say a thing quite how he’d said it. The words fluttered between them like a trapped moth.You like me. You like me.She was suddenly, starkly aware of how ridiculous she looked with her knotted bedhead and her silk pajamas, her face unwashed and her teeth unbrushed.
You’re wrong, she signed.I hate you.
He took a bite of his bagel, considering her as he chewed. The moment seemed to stretch on and on, quiet and excruciating. Finally, he swallowed.
“I don’t believe you. Thirty minutes, and then we’re leaving.”
She smothered the urge to stomp her foot.I can’t get ready in thirty minutes.
“Better go quick, then.” He took another bite, speaking around a mouthful of bagel. “I meant what I said. I’ll drag you to class if I have to.”
•••
The ride to New Haven was quiet, the sky outside the car a clean, cloudless blue. Vivienne ignored Thomas to the best of her abilities, playing with the air vents so that the cold blew across her skin in intermittent chuffs.
“You don’t have to sit in the back, you know,” said Thomas as they idled at the third set of lights. “You can sit up front; I’m not your limo driver.”
