Page 20 of The Substitute
I shove a hand into my hair, tugging it. “No, it doesn’t, but I do, and I want to be friends.” And maybe that’s something I need to work out with my therapist. I don’t fucking know, but I seem to be fucking it up left and right.
“Whatever. Why were you blowing up my phone?” He flops down on his bed, and I can’t read him. He’s clearly still mad, but I don’t know what else. “Shouldn’t you be happy I’ve left the room?”
I study him for a few moments because this feels like a trap, but I can’t figure out how. “Yes, I’m happy you left the room.”
“Good. Then it doesn’t matter what I did.”
“Do you enjoy making me suffer?” I pull out my desk chair and take a seat, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “Be real.”
“Maybe a little, but you make it too easy.” Tobi rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have practice or something?”
“So you get to know where I am, but I can’t ask where you were?”
Tobi smirks. “Maybe don’t post your schedule on the wall if you don’t want me to know. So why are you still here?”
I pick up my phone like I’m busy or some shit, annoyed he somehow memorized my schedule in three days. “It got pushed an hour.”
“I see that look.”
I glance up from my screen. “What look?”
“The annoyance. If you don’t want to be stalked, maybe don’t stalk.”
“My bad. Sorry for asking.” I spin around, opening my laptop, but with mandatory team studying, I’m caught up on homework, there isn’t much to do.
“I was out with your brother.” He drops the words like a bomb.
Like this is a horror movie, I turn the desk chair back around, not meeting his eyes until I’m fully facing him. “Excuse me? I must have misheard you.”
“You didn’t. He offered to help me study.” Tobi shrugs. “So I took him up on it.”
I stare at him for a whole minute before I find words. “Why the fuck would he do that?” I know Savage, and he’s got to be doing this to get to me.
Mother fucker.
“I don’t know. Ask him yourself. He’s your step-brother.”
“Do you really need help studying?”
“Yeah, this is a really hard year for my major, and I need to take the GREs. He gets it.”
“Oh, he gets it, does he?” My tone is dripping with sarcasm, which Tobi clearly misses.
“Yes, he does. He’s pre-med. You know that, right?” Tobi is super defensive.
“I know full well what his major is. And how he is.”
“Then you should be happy I’m studying!”
“I’d be happier if you were going to class, too.”
Tobi just shrugs but I don’t have time to fight. I need to get to practice.
“I’m happy you’re studying, but this all sucks.” I throw my stuff in my bag, sad about the whole fucking thing.
“What sucks?”
“That you’re willing to give him a chance but not me.” I don’t look at him.
