Page 30 of Something Rad
My lips press into a firm line. “I don’t appreciate sarcasm either,” I say, echoing him. “And this isn’t funny.”
“Are you sure?” he asks. “I think it’s getting funnier by the minute.”
I shake my head, ignoring his comment. “You know, I was going to get out of it before you opened your big mouth.”
Robbie straightens in his seat, towering over me. “Why did you need to get out of it at all?”
My brows pull together in confusion. “What do you mean? I already told you, this can’t be on my record–”
“Why did you get detention in the first place?” he asks, cutting me off.
My mouth falls open, but before I can answer, Robbie leans forward, crowding my space, his eyes burning like pools of melted chocolate.
“Why were you late, Cooper?” he whispers, his voice low and daunting.
His eyes search my face and, when I don’t respond, his lips pull into a smirk.
Yeah, I think he noticed.
“Ms. Cooper?” Ms. Cage’s voice suddenly sounds out, making me jump in my seat. “Mr. Summers?” Robbie doesn’t move a muscle, continuing to stare at me. “Care to actually join this class today? Or should we make it two days of detention?”
My back stiffens.Twodays? “Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Sorry, ma’am,” I answer for the both of us, dropping my gaze to my textbook.
Robbie clicks his tongue, and I can see the way he shakes his head at me in my peripheral vision before slowly turning back forwards.
I feel my face and the back of my neck warm. I start mindlessly scribbling in my notebook as Ms. Cage begins droning on about the American Revolution, but, after a few seconds, I can no longer ignore the heat of the gazes I swear I feel on me.
I glance to my left, seeing Jesse Lamonte and Paul Strothers eyeballing me with some sort of combination of suspicion, confusion, and…interest?
I slowly let my gaze drift away from them and then stiffen as I realize several people throughout the classroom have their eyes trained on me.
No, I shake my head, returning my gaze to my desk. They aren’t looking at me.
I flex my fingers, pulling my journal out from underneath my notebook. I open it up to a new page and begin writing before the thought passes.
No, their eyes are clearly on Robbie.
Always on Robbie.
eight
ROBBIE
Despite the serious hostility from Cooper in Ms. Cage’s class, library detention actually goes fairly smoothly this afternoon. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still being hostile towards me. But, rather than yelling at me with her mouth, she’s yelling at me with her eyes.
Those huge gray eyes.
I still don’t even understand what she has to be so angry about. I effectively got her out of detention. Her afternoon is as it would have been had she not been lurking in the hallway and eavesdropping on my and Denise’s conversation until the tardy bell rang.
I don’t know why she was listening to us, how long, or what all she heard. I also don’t know why she tried to hide and scurry away from me like a little mouse once she had been caught, or how she suddenly turned from a mouse into a lion once her ‘record’ was on the line.
I don’t know why she seems to so strongly dislike me, me not having said a word to her in years, or how she can verbally attack me in one breath while staring at me in the hallway as if I’m the ultimate answer to a question she’s long been seeking in another.
I also don’t know why she was gripping the pen attached to the class election sign-ups for dear life.
Ialsodon’t know why I cared enough to go back and look at that clipboard later to confirm what it was.
I just don’t know what she has against me, or how her presence that was practically nonexistent to me just days ago is now somehow nagging at and invading everything around me.
