Page 73 of All In Good Time

The image of his bruises as he glared and cursed her blinded her to everything else in the passing period between the first and second classes.

Groups huddled together, chattering on about something Becca didn’t care to try and hear. Whatever had stimulated this rise in gossip mattered little to her, and she pulled on her headphones to play the music from her Walkman and drown out the crash of chatter.

Nothing fazed her anymore. Over the past week, she’d become a shell, mindlessly following schedules and overly focused on school assignments. It was the only thing that could successfully distract her fromother stuff.

Since everyone was so caught up in the hallway, she was the first into the classroom, with four minutes to spare. She chose to stare at the back of the teacher’s head as he scribbled his poorly written chalk instructions on the board and zoned out to the beat of the Bowie song playing in her ears.

A poke to her shoulder startled her, causing her to jump, and she covered her heart as it sped up. Even more surprising was the boy sitting in the unassigned desk next to her.

“Hey, Rebecca.” Chance smiled at her, the same way he had at the pool over the summer—which was the last time he’d spoken to her at all. He was oblivious to her reaction. “How are you?”

They’d been in the same class since school started over a month ago, and he just now felt the obligation to say something? Apparently, she’d transformed into a cynic in a single week—that had to be a record.

“What do you need?” It was rude, she knew it, but she’d rather get this awkward moment—plus whatever his ulterior motives were—over with.

Chance at least had the decency to look sheepish as he skipped over the pleasantries. “Where was Derek at for the past week?”

Becca didn’t give him the answer he wanted. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t.

Stop trying.

“Not sure.”

“Really? I thought you, of all people, would know.”

“Well, I don’t.”

His face set into an unsatisfied frown. “Did you guys break up?”

She made a face at Chance, unable to hold back. “We weren’t dating.”

Unsure if he’d been joking or not, she evaluated his astonishment. It looked genuine. “Sorry, I just kind of assumed.”

“Class is about to start.” She pointed at the clock, and to the students who were finally starting to fill up the seats.

“Right. I’ll just ask Derek about it later in gym today.”

He’d just said the first thing that really interested her.

Back straightening, her hand shot out and grabbed his arm, stopping him from moving to his own seat. “Derek’s here?”

“Yeah.” He raised a brow. “You didn’t know?”

No.

She didn’t know.

She hadn’t seen him since that day in his bedroom. Part of her thought she would never see him again after everything he said. All of her knew she deserved that.

But he was here, in these hallways. His class was just four doors down from hers.

If Chance said something, she didn’t hear it. She heard nothing at all past the ringing in her ears.

* * *

“I’ve heard three people so far say he was following AC/DC around the country on their tour. Four people said he got involved in some underground fighting ring. And my personal favorite, coming in at a whopping twelve people—‘Derek ran away to hide from his stalker, Rebecca Lewis.’” Nicole had made a list of every rumor she’d heard passed around about Derek’s return and read them off to Becca as she nibbled at the ends of her crust. “Thoughts?”

Good thing Nicole had been paying attention to what was being said, because Becca hadn’t heard much of anything after finding out Derek was back at school. At that point, her main focus was avoiding any route she knew he was likely to take—going so far as to eat on the outside bleachers, just so she didn’t have to see him at lunch. Nicole didn’t object, and Marty was too busy with something else to join them.

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