Page 22 of Catch Me

I shake my head and finish writing down my initial thoughts. When he sits, I say, “I figure we should tackle the different themes. I can work on pulling research for one, and you can work on another. How does that sound?”

He shrugs, barely even listening to me. Well, he could be listening to me, but his attention is on everything else in the library but me. He’s casually looking at all the other students in here, the librarian, even the bookshelves.

“You did want to work on this, right?” I ask. “That’s why you asked to come down here, correct?”

Oscar slowly tracks his gaze back to me. He has deep brown eyes that are almost black. “I like you, Briar.” I must make a disgusted face because he laughs. “I know, beyond all reason. You certainly haven’t earned it.”

“I wasn’t looking to earn it, jackass.”

His face flushes. “What’s your problem with me, anyway? You and your posse of three there are the only ones who can’t stand me since I got here.”

“That’s probably the dumbest fucking question I’ve ever heard. Why do you think we wouldn’t like you?”

He scowls. “Listen, I have to do what I have to do. I’m a man of opportunity and the opportunity fell in my lap. So, I’m not supposed to try to make my life better just because I might hurt someone else’s feelings? Get real. That’s not the way the world works, and if you think it does, you’re naïve. Or a child. Some of us had to grow up at a young age.”

Fury simmers underneath the surface. “You don’t think I know about growing up early? A dead brother will do that to you, so watch where you act all self-righteous.”

I stand up from the table, my chair gliding over the threadbare carpet as I head to the stacks. I search for The Great Gatsby, find two copies, and come back, dropping one paperback in front of him. He dribbles his fingers over the cover. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’m sure it sucked to lose Brady. I didn’t mean to discount that. But don’t discount my shit either.”

Ignoring him, I open up my copy. I flip through the pages, not reading, but like I can somehow transfer all the words into my brain to try to find the themes with just a glance even though I know that’s not possible. I’m going to have to do some searching. I’ve watched the movie and enjoyed it, but I probably don’t have enough time to read the book, research the paper, and write it. Oscar will probably be no help on those fronts either.

“So, uh, I know why people have been saying shit about your chest.” My face flames. I peek up to find him staring, but when he sees me looking at him looking at me, he glances away. “It’s pretty fucked up, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s who you’ve aligned yourself with. Congratulations, Oscar. You’ve got yourself a winner.”

My mind races, but underneath the anger building inside me of Sasha still showing people the picture and telling people what she did, I know I still need to figure out a way to get to her. I look up at Oscar to find he looks somewhat troubled. Odd, considering he’s a man of opportunity like he said. Could what Sasha be doing really bother him? It seems unlikely.

“Did she show you?”

His jaw hardens, and I see a muscle pop. “Yeah, I told her she should knock it off. It’s not cool.”

“A lot of other people disagree,” I say, commenting on the fact that I can barely move down the hallway now without guys leering at me. It’s disturbing.

“Yeah, well, people can be assholes.”

“Maybe they’re just men of opportunity too.”

He stops staring down at the cover of the book and flicks his gaze to me. A smile pulls at my lips because I know I’ve struck a chord with him. He goes back to inspecting the cover and says, “I thought you might want to know that she’s being punished. Her parents had to pay a five thousand dollar fine, and she’s got to do some community service for the parks system or something like that.”

My stomach squeezes. This is exactly the information we wanted. “How do you know that?” I ask. I fail at trying to seem uninterested, but I hope it just comes across as wanting to get revenge on her because I do want to get revenge on her. In the worst way.

He shrugs. “I was over at her house, and I heard her parents yelling at her. They’re super pissed.” He chuckles a little, then gets serious again. He shrugs. “I thought it might help to know that.”

“What’s curious is why she would keep showing people the picture if it really bothered her that she was being punished.”

“I guess she’s a woman of opportunity,” Oscar says, a dare in his eyes.

“The perfect couple,” I say, oozing the words with sarcasm.

Oscar and I don’t talk for the rest of the period.

11

On my way to lunch, I finally get a text from Reid, asking me to meet him outside the men’s locker room. I do as he asks. I wait for a few minutes, glancing down at my phone screen as the time ticks by to the start of lunch. Just as the bell starts to ring, a hand reaches out from behind the men’s locker room door and slides around my wrist. He pulls, and I go with him willingly.

With a firm hold, he moves through the locker room. We pass rows of lockers, but he doesn’t bother to turn around once. I’m about to ask him where we’re going when I see a door in the back of the room. He opens it and steps inside, moving me in behind him.

When the door shuts, it’s pitch black inside. I can’t see anything. All I have is his hand is mine. “Reid, are you okay?”

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