Page 108 of A Heart of Bluestone

“I don’t think father gives a shit if you’re eating or not,” he says. “Booth five. He is waiting.”

I stab my fork into another potato, then lift it. “I’ll call him back.”

“The fuck you will,” he pushes from the table, then comes around it, advancing on me. “Get up. Get up now.”

He swipes for my tray. It’s knocked off the edge before it clatters to the floor.

The sound of the metal clanging is enough to draw in some looks from nearby students.

Still, I stay planted in my chair.

I bite down on the hunk of potato still speared by the fork.

It’s all I get the chance to do before Oliver snatches me by the arm and hoists me out the chair.

I go limp.

My deadweight slams into him.

Oliver fumbles to catch me, but he does. His arms loop under my pits, and he holds me upright.

“Fucksake, Liv, you’re acting like a little brat.”

I say nothing. I have no answer.

The dead can’t speak.

And I’m playing dead.

It’s childish. Brattish. But it’s the only escape I have from taking that call.

I’d rather be knocked out my Mildred than go to booth five.

Arms hooked under me, Oliver drags my limp weight out of the mess hall.

Eyes flicker to us, whispers chase us out into the atrium, but the only movement that comes from me is that I spit out the potato.

It splatters all over the sleeve of his cashmere sweater.

Oliver hisses, “Enough, Liv! If you don’t get your ass to booth five now, I’ll go tell Father that you need to be visited in person.”

No longer limp, tension seizes me—and I am rigid, a toppled statue whose eyes bulge.

His warning is low, soft, a growl, “Father will pay you that visit, and you know it.”

“Fine,” I shout and yank out of hold. I topple onto my feet with a stagger. “I’m going, I’m going.”

The mistrust narrows his eyes into green swords.

I stalk past him and march through the atrium.

Oliver is hot on my heels, the clack of his Oxford shoes lashing at my tense back.

At the mouth of the corridor, whose length is lined with curtained wooden booths, there is a queue of at least a dozen students. Before I can make my way past them, a fifth-year brushes by me. But not before I spot the hard-boiled sweet he’s just popped into his mouth.

I swivel for him.

“Gimmie that.” I snatch the thin plastic wrapper from him then turn my back on the stupid look he gives me.

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