Page 11 of A Scandal in Homeroom
She pouted and my focus was immediately drawn to her lips.
What would it feel like to kiss her?
Like an explosion, I imagined.
“I don’t understand you, Locke. There are a lot of guys who would kill for the chance to have me break their hearts. Just ask anyone.”
“Oh, I have. You’ve got quite a reputation. You’re what’s known in my world as atease.”
She frowned at that. “I don’t tease anyone. A tease implies a promise that isn’t delivered. I never promise. People assume things. That’s their problem.”
“Well, I have that going for me. I never assume anything.”
It was a rare moment of honesty from me. I knew Adler was playing a game. I knew she wasn’t interested in me in any serious way. How could she be?
I knew who I was. What I was. What girls saw when they looked at me.
She smiled again. “See? We understand each other.”
I sighed and decided I needed to go on with my business.
“I’ll ask again. What do you want from me?”
She opened her mouth, then stopped herself. Then she looked at me as if she was seeing through some disguise I was wearing. Like I was Batman, but she knew I was actually Bruce Wayne.
“I don’t know. I just…do what I do around guys. But I think you’re different.”
“I’m completely different from anyone else you’ve ever known.”
“Isn’t that reason enough to want to get to know you more?”
I offered her my own version of a sly smile. “My dear Miss Adler. No oneknowsme.”
With that, I walked around her and made my way to the cashier. I didn’t think about her as I made my way home.
I didn’t think about her at all.
* * *
Reen
I opened up my laptop,a used Macbook Air I’d had one of the computer geeks at school rebuild for me. I glanced over my shoulder confirming the door to my bedroom was closed. I knew the Sumners would knock before entering.
This was the first year I actually had the room to myself. I’d shared with their daughter, Carolyn, but she was now at Rutgers University, living on campus. I shook my head at the ridiculousness of wasting money on college.
Carolyn was already drowning in student debt. She wanted to be a dentist, which would mean even more school and more debt. That was a lot of fucking teeth to clean to get out from under all of that.
Not me. I wasn’t going to college unless I had the money to pay for it. I wasn’t as lucky as Heath, who qualified for the kids-of-addicted-parents scholarship. All that shit had to be documented properly. Not possible when my mom just bailed one day, leaving me to find my own way to Child Protective Services.
I tried to explain to the committee responsible for accepting the applications that my mom was, in fact, addicted to heroin, but unfortunately, I had no proof. Being abandoned wasn’t enough of a qualification.
I didn’t care. Fuck college. Knowledge, if one knew how to obtain it, was free. I had a library card and I used it.
Janie thought I might qualify with my SAT scores alone. I hadn’t taken them yet, but my PSAT scores were off the charts.
Not that I was in competition with Beth or Fitz for Top Academic. That didn’t fit the persona I was cultivating. I had to work to make sure there was the occasional B or sometimes C thrown into my GPA, so people correctly saw me for who I was.
Someone who was having too much fun being pretty to dedicate herself properly to her schoolwork.
