The space she opened up between them turned hot and thick—just as it had when his hand came close to touching her. And the longer they sat there, the hotter it got. It burned, in a way that made it impossible to concentrate. She read over the same paragraph thirteen times and still it didn’t sink in.
Though she did her best to pretend. She kept her head down, one hand almost shielding her face from view. Occasionally she wrote something in her notepad, sure he wouldn’t notice that all of it was an irrelevant mess of song lyrics. He was probably just concentrating on the book he was looking at:The Female Body in Film. It had plenty for him to concentrate on, after all. Lots of juicy pictures of babes in tiny panties.
Or so she thought.
“Not really convinced we should write three joint essays and deliver two presentations on the lyrics to ‘You Ruin Me’ by The Veronicas.”
She kept her head down in the wake of his words.
It made answering easier—and more convincing.
“I…that was just a reminder for me for later on.”
“You wanted to remind yourself about some song lyrics?”
“Why would I lie about a thing like that?”
“I have no idea. You tell me, honey.”
“I’ll tell you that we are supposed to be studying.”
“I know. Why do you think I’m so concerned?”
“You’re not concerned at all. If you were you would be silently writing things down right now.”
“Silently writing things down, got it. No problem, boss.”
He sounded sincere—though it still surprised her when she heard the slide of his pen over paper. Halting at first, but then quicker and more sure.Soonall she could hear was frantic scribbling, as though he was really getting into it. He was forgetting her pretend notes and their banter, and just doing the work. She was sure of it.
And then came the note.
The torn-off, jaggedly written note, pushed under her nose.
So what do you like about “You Ruin Me”?
Of course she tried to resist replying. She really did. But he was talking about the song. He knew the song. And he had crossed out and started again so many times. She could see one sentence beneath the scribbles:it would be really cool if we could talk a little bit.
Then suddenly her pen was scribbling underneath his question.
I like that you knew it well enough to guess where those words came from.
You think I’m going to be embarrassed about being a fan of The Veronicas?
You used to be embarrassed about stuff like that.
And now I wish I hadn’t wasted so much of my time worrying about what the right thing to wear or say or do was. Look where it got me.
Being forced to study by your mortal enemy?
No. Seeing youcallyourself my mortal enemy.
She hesitated there, pen hovering over the space she was supposed to fill. That one underlined word—call—going around and around in her head until the urge to writenoin ten-foot-tall capital letters was enormous. It took almost everything she had to dial it back, and even when she managed to, her writing came out like his. Jagged and too firmly pressed into the paper.
Full of emotion she didn’t intend.
I don’t really feel like I am anymore.
What do you feel like you are?
