Page 28 of The Confidant
“Yep, that was the winner last night.”
“Did you get most of your homework done, though?” I asked, a little worried that thisDear Elizathing would be the burden I’d expected when she decided to do it.
But she just shrugged and said, “I’ll just wake up at five tomorrow morning to finish.”
I wanted to tell her she should just do her homework this afternoon and not sacrifice sleep, but Scarlett was even more paranoid than I’d been about keeping the Sabbath day holy back in the day, so I kept my mouth shut.
We filled our trays with food when we got to the great hall—today’s lunch consisting of Malibu chicken, rice pilaf, and a green salad. I grabbed a bottle of water and a stack of napkins, since I was notorious for being a messy eater. No one from our friend group was to be seen among the crowd of Sunday lunchers, so we found an empty table for ourselves.
“Want me to help you pick which emails you’ll answer this week?” I asked as I cut into my chicken.
“I don’t know,” she said, a hesitant look in her eyes. “I should probably wait until tomorrow or something.”
“Why?”
She looked at me like her reason should be obvious before saying, “Because it’s Sunday, Hunter. You know I don’t work on Sundays.” She poured ranch over her salad, her expression telling me that she was trying to figure out how to add more time into her schedule tomorrow. Then she set the small cup of ranch back on her tray and shrugged. “I’ll just wake up at four A.M. tomorrow instead.”
Oh no, she wouldn’t.
And since her phone was currently poking out of the top of her back pocket, I quickly reached down and grabbed it.
“What are you doing?” She gasped, as if shocked I’d get so close to touching her butt.
Not that it would be the first time, since she certainly hadn’t minded when I had run my hands across her back pockets during one of our make-out sessions in my car last spring.
I swiped up on the screen and held the phone in front of her face so the facial recognition technology would unlock it. As I searched for her email app, I said, “This isn’t homework. It’s an extra service that you provide to the students of Eden Falls Academy. Helping people is fine on Sundays, right? It’s service, and Jehovah was all about serving people, wasn’t he?”
She chewed on her lip, looking like she wanted to protest my logic. But after a moment, she sighed and said, “Okay, yeah. I guess that’s true.”
She took her phone back from me and opened the app herself. “Wanna go through these with me then? Maybe help me think of advice?”
“I’d be honored,” I said. Then just because I should, I added, “Not sure how good my advice will be. But I can take a crack at it.”
She clicked on an email, and as it loaded, I leaned closer so I could read it with her.
“Is that a new shampoo?” I asked, realizing too late that I’d just made it obvious I’d sniffed her hair.
But instead of looking at me like I was a weirdo, she nodded. “It’s one my mom sent me for my birthday.”
“I like it.”
And when she blushed at my compliment, it took everything in me to read the email she had open instead of staring at her.
The first message was from someone who called himself, “Can’t Catch a Break,” who wrote about the trouble he was having with a teacher.
This particular teacher used to be one of my favorites, and I managed to get A’s on all my assignments and tests at the beginning of the year. But when I went home for Christmas break, I found out that my dad had moved out while I was away and that my parents were getting a divorce.
It was a shock because they had always seemed so happy. But ever since then, I’ve had a difficult time concentrating and keeping up on my studies.
I’m still showing up to my classes and working hard, but it feels like the drama at home messed up my brain and I’m not sleeping well anymore and zoning out all the time.
Anyway, I completely failed a test last week, and when I asked this particular teacher for a way to make it up, she didn’t seem interested in helping.
I really need to get my grades up since I’m in sports and hoping to get a scholarship for baseball. But if I can’t get my GPA up, I won’t even be allowed on the field.
Thank you in advance,
-Can’t Catch a Break
