Narrowing his eyes, Zamora pointed down the hall. ‘Principal’s office. Now.’

I tried to care that I was about to be expelled but couldn’t. Truth be told, it took every shred of self-control I had to walk calmly towards the office instead of leaping on to Wynn and thrashing him into dust.

Minutes later, my entire body was beginning to ache. My face hurt. My ears were ringing. My abdomen felt like I’d done crunches for four hours straight. My hazy vision was due to blood in my eye, which began to clear as I blinked. I fought nausea as Ingram stared at us from across her huge desk, where not a single file folder or receptionist’s message dared to be out of order. On the surface, the boy next to me seemed indifferent to the threat sitting feet away from us, but his hands dug into the arms of his chair.

‘There is zero tolerance in this school for fighting.’ She paused, letting this sink in. My clammy, blood-streaked hands pressed into my thighs and gripped hard, reminding me to remain silent. ‘I assume both of you are aware of this policy?’

I nodded. The dumbass next to me shrugged.

‘Mr Wynn? Did you just shrug your shoulders in answer to my politely stated question? Perhaps you need it stated in more … understandable terms?’

‘No, thanks.’ Oh, man. This guy was an even bigger idiot than I’d imagined.

Ingram’s eyes narrowed further – which I hadn’t thought possible. ‘Excuse me?’

‘No, ma’am,’ he mumbled.

‘No, ma’am, I didn’t just observe you shrugging your shoulders, or No, ma’am, you aren’t aware of the policy?’ she asked, knowing exactly what he’d meant, trying to get him to say or do something with expellable consequences.

‘No, ma’am, I don’t need it stated in more understandable terms. Yes, ma’am, I understand your policy. But I wasn’t fightin’.’

It took everything I had to keep my jaw from dropping. If he thought I was going to take the fall for this shit alone, he could think again. I wanted to turn that black eye into a matched set, though intuition kicked in enough to warn me that that reaction would definitely get me expelled – something this bitch had wanted all year.

Her mouth contracted into the type of pucker someone has after sucking on a lemon. ‘You weren’t … fighting.’ Her contemptuous tone carried a clear-cut warning. Somehow, I knew Wynn wasn’t going to heed it. ‘Then why all the blood and bruises?’ She leaned forward, her lips stretching into the beginnings of a gotcha grin.

‘I fell down the stairs.’

Her stare should have iced him over. ‘You live in a trailer.’

‘I didn’t say I was at home.’

Her gaze whipped to me. ‘And you?’

‘He fell down the stairs, too.’ Christ on a cracker, as Grandpa would say – Wynn was answering for both of us. I was so screwed. ‘We both did. It was epic. Pretty sure it’s on YouTube by now.’

Her eyes didn’t budge from me. ‘Mr Maxfield? Care to tell the truth?’

No matter what I thought of Wynn, Ingram was not on my side and I knew it. I took a breath. ‘I think we were pushed.’

Her eyes flared wide. ‘By whom?’

‘I don’t know. They were behind us.’

There was a long silence as she figured out that neither of us was willing to give up the other to benefit her. ‘You are both –’ she paused to harden her already-sharp jaw – ‘expected to follow my rules while you are in my house. If I find one teacher who will say they witnessed a single punch being thrown by either of you, I will toss both of your ill-bred carcasses back into the streets and on your butts without a moment of misgiving! Do. You. Feel. Me?’

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, because one, I had no doubt she wanted nothing more than to rid herself of both of us, which was anything but funny, and two, my lip was split in two places and would hurt like a motherfucker if I so much as smirked. But a middle-aged woman asking us Do you feel me? What the hell?

Wynn, fingering his chin, said, ‘This sounds familiar … Have you considered making a handout?’

I cough-laughed into a fist, wincing at the pain. Son of a bitch. My heart hammered as hard as it had when I’d first swung my fist at his face.

Her face mottled, and all I could think was the dragon was about to breathe fire. ‘Get out. I’m calling your parents. You are both suspended for a full week. Sit in the outer office until called. Do. Not. Talk.’

Under his breath, Wynn muttered, ‘Shit.’

Luckily, she didn’t hear him over my, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

We jumped up and exited her office, slouching into hard lobby chairs that did nothing for my sore back. I hoped Wynn was hurting even worse than I was. Facing the front counter of the main office, we left an empty chair between us.

I didn’t know what Dad would do or say. He barely spoke to me as it was.

‘Maxfield?’

Surprise, surprise, Wynn defied the do not talk command before the first minute was up. I ignored him.

‘Sorry about what I said. You know, about your mother.’ As if it needed qualifying.

Scratching at a splotch of dried blood on my jeans, I wondered if it was mine or his.

‘It was a dick thing to say.’

I looked at him, confused. ‘Yeah. It was.’

LUCAS

I almost began thinking of myself as two different people, at least where Jacqueline was concerned. I was the guy who’d been mesmerized by her for weeks and had regrettably earned her fear in saving her from an assault, and I was the guy who was the opposite of a threat – trading quips and stories through email while helping her catch up in class.

On one hand, I wanted her to know I was both the class tutor and the guy from Saturday night. Mostly, though, I wished I could be someone else altogether. Someone unrestricted by an otherwise sensible ethical line, and someone untied to possibly the worst night of her life.

Instead of entering the classroom when I arrived, I leaned on the wall across the hall and waited for her to show up. Without intending to be, I was a grudging witness to some banter between Kennedy Moore and Ivy. Leaning on the wall just outside the door, they swapped phone numbers and contact pics. She giggled the entire time. This was the sort of girl this guy thought could replace Jacqueline? There were plenty of intelligent women on this campus, including sorority girls, if that was his thing – but this girl?

No.

I turned my eyes away, and that’s when I noticed Jacqueline, standing in the middle of the hallway, watching them. From her stationary posture and the quiet hurt on her face, her motivations for skipping two weeks of class were all too clear. Not only had he ended their relationship without warning, he wasn’t wasting any time moving on. Only a masochist would want to watch that in action.