Page 9 of Secrets That Bind Us
"You're an annoying sumbitch, you know that?!"
He cackles again, "Nothing the Misses ain't ever said to my face!" He drives off, sticking his arm out the window and throwing me the middle finger.
I throw it back with a sigh– irritated but also feeling so much lighter, even though that lingering raw tightness is still in my chest. I drive away, letting those memories eat me alive.
Chapter Six
Dean
Age Sixteen
"Now, I know you know what a noun is, and a verb is what you do."
"Uh-huh." I agree, but I'm not looking at the paper she's pointing at. I'm looking at her. Verity Huntington. Round cheeks, black framed glasses perched on her button nose, which she shoves up– not by the middle, but by delicately placing the tip of her middle finger on the bottom of the frame and gently nudging them higher. Her dark brows hike up as she does, with a twitch of her nose and it’s so fucking cute. I don’t even think she’s aware of it. She turns her head to face me– light brown, almond-shaped eyes framed by lashes so black they look fake.
"Are you even paying attention?"
How could I? She smells like strawberries and sunflowers. Even though her hair is up in a messy bun, every time she gets too close to me, her breath smells like mint and something else fruity and equally good. I’m sure there’s some highbrow name for it, but the best I can come up with is that she just smells fresh, flowery, and fruity.
I like it. I wish she'd let her hair down. I want to pull on it like I did in eighth grade, when I sat behind her in pre-algebra and I'd copy off her tests when she wasn’t looking. Maybe I pulled it too much and that’s why she wears it in a bun all the time now. Or maybe it has to do with Emory cutting a chunk of it during class freshman year.
"What are you doing with Micah?" I blurt out.
She clears her throat and puts her pencil down, tilting her head to look at me, scrunching her nose when she pushes her glasses up again. "What do you mean?"
"I mean why are you with him?"
She shakes her head and then tucks her chin into the black oversized hoodie that hides what I know is a banging body underneath. Cause what I saw at the Fourth of July county fair last summer… she was so… juicy. Brown hair in loose curls that fell around those sun-kissed shoulders and landed on her uh,chest. That blue dress did nothing but accentuate it all. Even if she wore white Chucks and a denim jacket over it, despite the heat.
She knows I love that color. Is that why she wore it?
All I remember is getting stuck on that stupid fucking Ferris wheel with Tiffany– trying to break up with her for thehundredthtime that summer– and then being witness to Micah Henderson kissingmygirl as fireworks popped off at fucking sunset, while Tiffany droned on and on and fuckingonabout irrelevant shit like always. I’d never been so fuckin’ mad in my life.I couldn’t help but glare at them.
"Mrs. Bryant said-"
"I know what Mrs. B said. I'm askingyou– what are you doing with Micah? What's so great about him?"
She looks confused, her eyebrows shoot together. "Uhm, we're friends. We study together."
"You study together, huh? He allowed in here with the door closed?" I ask, jerking my chin to the door that Mrs. Huntington propped open with a chair.
"Well he doesn't have a uhm..."
"A what?"
She swallows visibly, rolling those plump pink lips inward. "A reputation."
"A reputation, huh?"
She makes a noise in her throat and won't meet my gaze. I don’t like that. I like when she looks at me. Her eyes dilate real pretty when she does. "Yeah."
"Your daddy think I'd touch his precious little girl?" I ask harshly, anger rising when it shouldn't, because she's right. I was an idiot freshman year. What started as me breaking up with Tiffany Myers under the bleachers– to not cause drama– turned into something that almost got me expelled, all because I couldn’t get a handle on my hormones. Instead, my dad worked it out to where I got sent to an alternative school, missing out on football altogether. And by the time I came back, Verity and Micah were just the coziest ofcozy.
It was seeing her in his letterman that tore me apart and made me break up with Tiffany for good. But Verity wouldn’t talk to me at all, keeping her distance from me like I was diseased. So I made sure to switch lockerswith Luke Harris– just to have a reason to be in the same hall as her. Only to find out she shares her locker with Zoey fucking Caldwell in the first place. I had to pay Harris fifty bucks just to switch me again since they go by alphabetical order.
Money well fuckin’ spent, if you ask me– ‘cause now she’s in my hall, and her shared locker is three away from mine.
"You know… your daddy has a reputation, too." But that'sclearlythe wrong thing to say, and I hate myself as soon as the words leave my mouth.
