By the time I get to class—ten minutes late—the back of my neck is drenched with sweat from running all the way to Jackson Hall. My hair is unbrushed and ratty from the ride here, I have no makeup on, I’m wearing the same shirt I slept in—which I borrowed from Adam and is easily two sizes too big—and my jeans smell like they were worn three days ago and haven’t been washed since . . . because they were, and because they haven’t.
And Adam Everest is looking up from his exam to smile at me from the front row. A breathless sigh escapes me as I approach Dr. Pullman. “Sorry I’m late,” I tell him.
“Are you feeling okay?” The concern on his face reaffirms just how terrible I look. “You can always take this exam later if you’re not feeling up to it, Rowan.”
“No, I’m okay. Thanks though.” I force a smile as he hands me the exam, and then I drag myself up the stairs to sit next to Leti. He looks me up and down, and I can see all the questions he’s dying to ask me spinning behind his golden-brown eyes.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whisper, and then I sit down and get to work. The test is absolutely killer—which is why I nearly dive out of my seat when Adam stands up to be one of the first students to turn his in. I want to body surf over everyone in the rows in front of me so I can stop him from leaving. I want to scream at him to check and double-check and triple-check his answers. But then his exam is in Dr. Pullman’s hands and he’s walking out the door.
God, I hope he passed. He better have passed . . . or I’m going to kill him and then bring him back to life just so I can kill him again.
By the time I’m finished with the test, I feel drained—emotionally, physically, intellectually. I’m tempted to skip speech class and walk back to Dee’s dorm for a nap, but I have a feeling she’d kill me for not showing up to give her all the details of last weekend. I’d wake up hanging upside down from the fire escape, with her standing in front of me with her arms crossed and a fire poker in her hand.
When I stand up to walk down the stairs of the auditorium, Leti stands up too, and I can tell he was waiting on me to leave. We hand Dr. Pullman our tests and then find an open bench in the hall. I sit with my legs sprawled out in front of me and my head resting against the cold white brick behind me. “That test was brutal.”
Leti sits with his legs crossed, his entire body shifted toward me. “Sweetie, I have to ask . . .” I peek my eyes open to stare at him, and he picks at my sleeve. “Is this even your shirt you’re wearing?”
I stare down at the oversized band T-shirt swallowing my torso. “It’s Adam’s.”
“Mm,” Leti muses, tapping his chin and then tapping my nose. “And why are you wearing Adam’s T-shirt, pray tell?”
“This is going to sound really bad . . .”
He waits patiently, even though his arms are hanging awkwardly at his side like he wants to shake a confession out of me.
“I didn’t have any clean clothes when I left his house this morning . . .” Since I’d only packed enough clean clothes for the weekend, Adam insisted I borrow his to wear to bed, and this morning, I barely had enough time to launch myself into a dirty pair of jeans, much less worry about changing my shirt.
Leti’s mouth drops open, but no words come out.
I start giggling, and then I say, “I just spent the night. We didn’t do anything. God, Leti, there’s so much you’ve missed.” I tell him all about the trip and then about walking in on Brady, glossing over the homicidal thoughts that now go hand in hand with the memory of my ex’s face. By the time I’m done, I feel like I’ve just narrated a soap opera. An extremely unrealistic one.
“So let me get this straight,” Leti says. “Adam wasn’t even mad you lied to him, and then he kissed you, and you turned him down?”
“Not right away . . . but yeah.”
Leti shakes his head. “I just don’t even think we can be friends anymore. Some baby angel just lost its wings and died because of you.”
I playfully roll my eyes and slap him on the knee. “Don’t be a drama queen.” But that nagging feeling is back, the one that tells me I blew a chance I should have taken. “You think I did the wrong thing?”
Leti pulls a pack of gum from his pocket and pops a piece into his mouth before offering me one. I take two. “I’m sure I haven’t the slightest clue, baby-angel-killer. I guess what’s right for me might not be what’s right for you . . . Do you like him?”
I stare at my flip-flops and chew on my lip until I can’t bear to hold it in anymore. “I like him a lot,” I finally confess. “Like, seriously, Leti. He’s like . . .” I sigh. He’s Adam. He’s so Adam.
“And I’m guessing that’s why you didn’t let things go further . . .”
I stare up at him, not understanding. “Huh?”
“Adam is a heartbreaker. And you’ve had your heart broken enough.”
Leave it to Leti to hit the nail right on the head. I wrap my arms around his neck, squeezing him tight and breathing him in. He always smells faintly like mint chocolate chip, and he always seems to know exactly how I’m feeling. “Thanks, Leti.”
“For what?”
I pull away and smile at him. “Always getting me.”
One side of his mouth pulls into a smile, and then he asks, “Have you told Dee yet?”