Page 36 of Cruel Devotion

I smiled, watching her walk away.

As she left me there standing and staring after her, I wondered if she’d avoid me even more now.

If she did… I’d only try harder. Now that I’d gotten a taste of what it could be like without anyone judging or having to impress others or look cool, I wanted more of Haley’s affection.

Even if she only offered it because she was too good not to.

After how I’d bullied her for so long, that was more than I would ever deserve.

13

HALEY

When Eli suggested that we could be civil, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

He couldn’t change that drastically. After years of tormenting me, he wouldn’t magically switch to some other version of himself just because we’d had a moment at the library.

That night, he was vulnerable. I could tell the second he walked into the library, looking so lost and wounded, that something bad had gone down. While experiencing something hard was enough to make anyone feel humbled, even for a short moment, that didn’t mean the feeling would linger.

The following day, I fully expected Eli to go right back to his usual.

The smug looks. The cocky smirks. The teasing. Making fun of me and sticking with his MO from the last several years.

So it was only with surprise that I stared at him when he said hello in passing each time we were in the same area.

I could only watch him cautiously when he opened doors for me, almost like he was trying to be nearby as much as he could.

I waited for the other shoe to drop when he commented on something I said or did in class, all words of praise and not jokes at my expense.

I didn’t know what could’ve happened that night he walked into the library, but whatever it was, it had morphed him into a completely different person.

A civil one. And maybe even a nice one.

Eli was beingniceto me, and I spent every second of the experience doubting it. I had been the target of his meanness for too long to just blindly accept that he no longer wanted to make me miserable.

The more he changed his behavior around me, the more I tried to consider why he’d want to be friendly.

“Here.” He handed me the soy sauce at the table at the food court, somehow remembering from way back when that I liked it on my ramen noodles.

I stared at him handing me the bottle, wondering again, why?

Why he was sitting with me, the fifth time since last Wednesday. Why he was eating with me, talking to me.

This was more than being civil.

He was acting like afriend.

“What?” He glanced at me, then around himself as though he thought I was studying something or someone else.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

He was tolerable like this. I couldn’t turn off my curiosity aboutwhyhe was turning off his Mr. Popular, all-star jock, too-hot-to-resist act around me.

Yesterday, in sociology class, Davina said he was down-to-earth. So it wasn’t just me witnessing this change in him. And I couldn’t get past that.

Why?

Why is he acting like this all of a sudden?

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