Page 38 of I Would Stay Forever
I lurched off my bed and over to my desk on the opposite side of the room, where my laptop was sitting. It felt like it took ten years for it to boot up, as I hissed, “Come on, come on, come on” under my breath. Once it finally did, the time lighting up the middle of the screen in bright white numbers, I actually felt the world stop moving for half a beat.
Homeroom started in less than ten minutes.
I ran out of the room like I was on fire. I hated being late for school, and having it happen a second time in two days would not look good for me. So far this year, I’d managed to keep all the home issues under wraps, but if I kept showing up late, my guidance counselor would definitely start digging into my personal life and what was going on at home. And that was on top of the detention I was pretty much guaranteed to get.
I tripped on my backpack as I stumbled into the hallway. When I tried to catch myself, my foot slipped on some water on the floor—probably from Ainsley or Imogen walking around with dripping hair this morning—and skidded forward, slamming my shoulder into the wall.Ow.
Still, I didn’t stop. I now had approximately nine minutes until homeroom—nine minutes to shower, get dressed, and make the twenty-minute drive to school. No problem.
Maybe I could save face if I showed up late, telling the school secretary I had an appointment this morning. I would just need to look presentable enough, and show up within the first half-hour—if I was any later, they would call Mum to see where I was and she wouldn’t lie for me.
The bathroom door was wide open, and while that was a small miracle since I normally had to fight Ainsley and Imogenin the morning, it was also another reminder of how late I was because it meant they were both already gone. I tried not to focus on that as I twisted the shower handle all the way to hot and quickly brushed my teeth while the shower came sputtering to life.
It was all great until I got in and?—
Freezing. Ice-cold. Like lying in a snowbank without a coat. I may have cursed a few times under my breath as I twisted the handle back and forth, like I could somehow trick it into heating, but the water stayed glacial. Everyone else must have used up all the hot water, not giving a single thought to how I might not have showered yet. Then again, these days I usually ended up leaving before them so maybe they didn’t realize I was still home. I’d left my car parked on the street last night, so they probably didn’t notice it.
Either way, I was screwed right now. I was in and out in under three minutes, dripping and freezing and thinking of the millions of ways I could get back at my sisters for this. Back in my room, I stood dripping in front of my closet, scanning for clean clothes—of which, I had few.
I rifled through hangers, pulling out two hoodies, one jumper with a suspicious stain, and a pair of jeans I forgot I even owned. No school uniform.
Panic clamped tighter around my chest. I bent down to the laundry bin—overflowing—and yanked open the bottom drawer where I kept backups. There it was: The Uniform. The one I kept for emergencies. The one that hadn’t fit since the end of sophomore year.
I held it up. The skirt looked smaller than I remembered.
“Please still fit,” I muttered to no one. I stepped into it. Wiggled. Shimmied. Hopped.
It got stuck halfway up my hips. I sucked in. Yanked. It barely zipped, but only if I didn’t exhale. The waistband sat higher thanit was supposed to, and the hem felt more like a belt than a skirt. The blouse wasn’t much better. Tight across the chest, slightly too short in the arms, and the buttons strained just enough to make me anxious. I glanced around for a uniform jumper to pull over it, but came up empty. The only one I knew the location of was in my laundry hamper because Zoey spilled her coffee all over it at lunch the other day, and I couldn’t say that I thought it would be less embarrassing to wear that.
Four minutes until the final bell and thirty-four minutes until I was totally screwed.
Ideally, I’d just go running now, but my hair was too messy for me to dare to step out of the house, let alone sit next to Dean for a full period. I grabbed my straightener brush, shoving the plug into the wall with a little more force than was strictly necessary. I was too impatient to let it heat up all the way, but it still worked enough. Within two minutes, my hair started to take shape—tame, smooth, almost presentable. Good enough. I moved to the other side and was just about to put it to my hair when I heard the faintpop. Then a sizzling noise and the smell of hot plastic. I dropped the brush as if it had burned me and watched in horror as the light on the handle flickered out.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered. Sure, the brush was a couple of years old and I’d been meaning to replace it, but so far it had been holding on. Why did it have to choose today to totally crap out? I stared at my reflection in the mirror, silently willing it to magically fix itself. The half of my hair I’d already done fell neatly past my shoulder. The other side puffed out in a halo of frizz.
Well, sitting here wasn’t going to fix anything. I yanked it all into a messy bun with a random elastic I found on my desk. It still looked stupid, and was probably worsened by me trying to straighten it at all, but I didn’t care anymore. I just needed to get to school.
Everything on my desk that I thought I might need at school I shoved into my book bag, then swung it over my non-hurting shoulder and started to run downstairs. I was halfway there when I realized I was still barefoot. I groaned, stomped back up, and grabbed two socks without looking. I discovered once I was downstairs and pulling my trainers on—AKA way too late—that I hadn’t grabbed a matching pair.
On my right foot was a thin black ankle sock. Perfectly respectable to wear outside.
On my left foot was a thick fuzzy pink one that reached mid-calf and had a tiny embroidered cat near the top.
Now, I had two choices at that moment. I could go back upstairs, dig through my sock drawer, and pray to find a matching pair to my black sock, risking being that much later for school. Or I could just pull on my shoes and give up on my dignity completely.
I pulled on my shoes.
I didn’t even consider stopping for long enough to eat breakfast, although I did hear my mum’s voice in my head reminding me that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. I rushed out the door, my book bag practically falling off my shoulder and my keys jingling with every step as I ran down the path to where my car was parked in front of the Graham’s lawn.
Even though I had no time to spare, my eyes locked on the side window that faced directly into my room. Dean was surely gone by now—probably sitting in class and wondering where I was—yet I imagined him moving around in there. Pulling on his uniform in the morning. Running his hands through his dark hair. Smirking at me as he did up his tie.
I blinked, pulling myself back into reality and trying to ignore my suddenly racing heart. Why was I imagining Dean getting dressed? Okay, sure, it was a known fact that he looked greatwithout a top on, but I didn’t need to beimaginingit on top of already sometimes spying on him through his window.
Boundaries, Lavender.
I ducked into my car, catching a glimpse of my flushed face in the rearview mirror for a second before looking away quickly. I definitely couldn’t walk into school looking like this, so I guess I would have to use the drive to think of anything but Dean to get this to go away.
As if the universe heard me, the drive to school provided me with the perfect distractions in the form of being the worst drive possible. I had no music playing because I’d left my dead phone in my room and I wasn’t sure how to get the radio playing. Every single light turned red just as I approached. The stupid elastic I’d grabbed for my hair snapped, making my hair fall sideways. My bag wasn’t properly zipped up, so when I slammed on the brakes too hard and it went flying off the seat, everything fell out of it scattering around the floor of my car in a way that I knew would be a pain to clean up later.
