Rafe glanced up then, at that very moment, and saw her standing there gaping at them. And she saw something cross his face, something dark and unexpected, filling her with guilt. It was a look so close to longing it made Violet wince. “Violet?” he said, his voice no longer flirtatious and teasing, and she thought she might have actually heard a note of regret, buried in the deep timbre of her name.
Violet wanted him to stop looking at her like that, and she certainly didn’t want Chelsea to see him doing it, so she dropped her gaze to her friend, ignoring Rafe altogether. “Did . . . did you just quote Catcher in the Rye?” She couldn’t help asking the question any more than she could stop the incredulity that saturated her voice. Since when did Chelsea quote anything from the required reading list at school? Or more importantly, since when had Chelsea ever read anything from the required reading list?
Chelsea’s smile was mischievous as she glanced up at Violet, admitting, “It’s the only line I know. And that’s probably the only chance I’ll ever have to use it.” She turned back to Rafe, her grin widening lasciviously. “Or maybe not.”
But Rafe was no longer flirting with her, and Violet’s legs felt unsteady, and all she wanted to do was turn and run away. Because standing there, with Rafe’s blue eyes boring into her, she felt far too vulnerable . . . far too exposed.
And far too confused.
When she felt a hand at her elbow, she jumped and spun nervously to face whoever had just grabbed her.
Jay was there, staring back at her with his warm, faithful eyes and a crooked smile on his lips. Gemma stood beside him, looking like they’d just arrived together.
“You aren’t serious, are you? We aren’t really going to eat our lunch in the dirt, are we?” Gemma folded her arms across her chest and eyed the grass as if Chelsea and Rafe were rolling around in an oozing pile of sloppy mud.
“You don’t have to sit here at all,” Chelsea told her, lifting her chin defiantly. One thing about Chelsea, she either liked you or she didn’t, and you didn’t have to guess which side of the line you fell on. And Gemma, for whatever reason, had landed on the wrong side. “We were doing just fine before you got here.”
Violet was still dazed, and then Jay’s hand slid down to hers, his palm settling lightly, gingerly over her own. For several seconds their hands stayed like that, their fingers lined up in perfect rows, from thumb to pinkie, his dwarfing hers. She savored the feel of his rough skin sliding over hers. It was electric, his touch, but not in the way it was when Rafe touched her. This kind of electricity started inside of her, filling her up and spreading to every fissure, making her feel connected. Whole.
Rafe glanced away, and she could feel him withdrawing once more, disappearing inside himself. A different kind of guilt stabbed her; she didn’t want to be responsible for hurting him.
But Jay’s fingers were still there, and when he finally slid them in and through and between hers, Violet felt the knot in her chest loosen. She could breathe again. And more than that, she could feel the rush of her own pulse pumping blood past her ears. Without saying a single word, Jay drew her down onto the grass, and Violet followed, letting her knees fold beneath her as she stayed right by his side . . . where she belonged.
Gemma, still standing above them, rolled her eyes and exhaled dramatically. “Fine,” she snapped, just as Claire and Jules came out into the quad, joining them. “I guess I’d rather sit in the dirt than sit alone.”
She scowled at each and every one of them in turn, but most especially at Chelsea, who smirked as the blonde girl tried to find some position that would keep both her and her clothing from touching the ground at all. Ultimately, Gemma ended up using her fancy new book bag as a cushion of sorts, keeping her knees bent so that her jeans didn’t so much as graze the tops of the grass. She brushed obsessively at nonexistent pieces of dirt or pollen or whatever else it was she thought might be landing on her, and she barely touched her lunch.
But it was Jay who had captured Violet’s attention, when he leaned across her shoulder, his breath finding her ear and sending shivers along the length of her spine. “What do you say we spend some time together tonight? Maybe do some homework?”
By the time she reached Anatomy & Physiology, the class where Violet had spent the entire first week of school pretending Grady didn’t exist—trying not to look his way or draw attention to herself—she’d nearly allowed herself to forget what happened. But now that she was standing inside the classroom they shared, Grady was all she could think about. Even though it had only been a week since school had started, the seat he’d occupied during that brief time had indisputably become his. And now it sat empty. Untouched. A shrine of notoriety.
Violet slumped solemnly in the chair next to Gemma, who’d fled from lunch early so she could wash her hands—and probably everything else she could reach—after being subjected to the “filthy outdoors.” Violet didn’t bother trying to contain the conflicting emotions she felt toward her classmates: anger, unease, disgust, worry—all coiled together in one enormous mass that had turned her into a time bomb of sorts. Even if Gemma hadn’t been an empath, she probably would have sensed something was wrong.
Turning an exasperated glance at Violet, Gemma scooted her chair a little farther away.
Violet just shrugged, not bothering to apologize or explain as she pulled out her notebook. She didn’t care whether she was making Gemma uncomfortable or not.