Bound Together (2 page)

Matt
looked at me, and then Mr. Rhinehart’s back.
“Ah, Mr. Rhinehart?”
He stopped walking and turned to face us. 
“It’s just I don’t know if…
Zoey
and I should
be partners on this assignment.” He said my name like he didn’t know it and was only
reciting
what Mr. Rhinehart had said
a moment before
. We’d gone to school together since first grade, what a douche. “
Maybe I could be with Brian and she could be with
Stephanie
,” he suggested.

“You’re both grown
-
ups. Start acting like it.” And with that he turned and
headed for the front of
the classroom.
“You have thirty
-
seven minutes to plan out your assignment,” he said glancing at the clock.

You. Have. Got. To. Be. Kidding. Me
. I could tell
Matt
wasn’t happ
y
about being paired
together
either
, and that
only
made it worse
.
I avoided meeting
his
eyes, though I could
tell
he was looking at
me. I fished around inside my backpack for a pen. My hand found something odd
-
shaped at the bottom and I pulled it out. It was Pete’s inhaler.
How the hell did that get in here?
I hoped Pete would be okay without for the morning
.
I could bring it over to him at lunch.

“
Zoey
?” he said softly, breaking my concentration from the inhaler. “Are you…okay?”

I dropped the inhaler into my
bag
and took a deep breath. “Whatever. Let’s get this over with.
”

Chapter Two

Matt

Zoey
Marshall
was looking at me like I was diseased. And was that a thing of
pepper spray
she was holding? She threw it back in her bag.

“So, um, did you have any ideas for the assignment?” I asked.
She continued glaring at me for what felt like too long
.
I pulled my eyes away from hers and flipped open my European history book. “
Should we just brainstorm some ideas together?” I offered. She didn’t say anything, and began picking at her thumb nail.
Flecks of purple polish fell onto the tile floor under her desk.
What the hell was her problem? We were going to
Europe
, not detention. Why was she always so damn
sulky?
“Listen, I get that you’re not happy about working with me. I know we’re not exactly friends. But it’s not like we have a choice now, do we?” She looked up at me like she wanted to say something, then closed her mouth.

I
flipped open
my notebook
to a blank sheet of paper
. “I had a few ideas
, so I guess I’ll start.
Greek influence on French Impressionism
.
Napoléon Bonaparte
.
King Louis
.”
I wrote each idea down and looked up at her for a response
.
She
looked down
at the page
, blinking at the words I’d written
.
I flipped through the pages in my textbook. “Imported goods
and currency
?” I offered. She didn’t say anything, so I wrote it down on the paper.
She was
back to
inspecting her thumb nail. The
purple
nail polish
was
nearly
chipped
off
. I watched her peel the paint off her nail and drop it to the floor in little specks.
She seemed a million miles away, zoned out on something. D
ark circles
shaded
her eyes, but other than that
her
skin was perfectly clear and porcelain white. “Were you going to
mace
me before?”

“Huh?” She looked up at me suddenly.

“That bottle of spray you took out of your bag
.
” I nodded to
the
backpack at her feet.

She twisted in her seat and kicked the bag
further
under her desk.
“No,” she scoffed. “That’s my brother’s inhaler. I don’t know what it’s doing in there.”

“So did you have any ideas for our paper?” I held up the sheet bring
ing
her
attention back to the assignment. Getting into a conversation with her probably wasn’t a wise idea.

“Whatever you want to do is fine with me. We can always just figure it out when we get there.
” She took out a sketch pad and charcoal pencil from her backpack and began
sketching dark lines across the page. I watched the lines become
a twisting, knotted branch
as she worked.

“Remember, mandatory pre
-
trip
meeting tomorrow at eleven
a.m
—
my
classroom. Bring a parent,” Mr. Rhinehart called
as the bell rang
.

I had Advanced Weight Train
ing next
as my gym credit.
Our whole varsity football team was in
the
class. It was basically a goof
-
off hour with weights.
I went into the locker room and pulled off my jersey. I glanced in the mirror. My biceps were getting huge. I flexed
in the mirror
and was caught by Justin as he rounded the corner.

“Nice guns, man.”

“Thanks,” I pulled a
shirt
from my locker,
sniffed
it, then threw it on over my head.
This
morning had started off shitty.
I’d had a run in with Chelsey in the hall
just
before first period. I’d broken up with her last
night
, but today she informed me that
she’
d cheated on me last weekend with Dave Cook,
the
s
afety on my team
. It didn’t matter
—
I was the one who ended things with her,
so
I shouldn’t care.

             
“Hey bro, sorry about Chelsey. I heard what happened,” Justin said without glancing over since we were both changing. He must have heard
her version of why we broke up
—
the one that made it look like she did the breaking up.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said.

“
S
he was hot, but she
wa
s
kind of annoying,” Justin said.
“She had nice tits
, though.”

I gave him a
just drop it
look.

“
What?
”
He held his hands up in surrender. “
She did.” He wasn’t lying, the girl was stacked, but that was beside the point.
I didn’t know why I was with her and when I could no longer remember, I figured it was time to end it.

             
We hit the weight room and cranked up the stereo, Animal I Have Become by Three Days Grace blared from the speakers mounted in the corners. Justin and I went to the bench press and loaded it up with forty
-
five
s while the rest of the guys stationed themselves around the room in groups of twos and threes.

             
“So you leave for
your trip
on Sunday, right?” he asked
,
getting into position first.

I stood behind him. “Yeah.
”

He
took a deep breath and pulled the bar free, lowering it to his chest. He blew out
a breath, pushing the bar up
. He only made it eight reps before I had to help him
re
-
rack the weight
. He sat up and got off the bench. We switched positions.

Coach Dickey walked by, his white ball
cap with the blue panther pulled down low over his forehead. “Don’t work too hard today, I want you guys fresh for tonight’s game.”
He patted my shoulder.

I leaned back on the bench and
pushed the bar straight up, locking my elbows before lowering the weight down towards me. I did fifteen reps, puffing my breath out as I lowered the bar e
ach time, then
re
-
racked it myself.

“
Damn.
You’re an animal, man
.
” Justin slapped my back when I sat up. We did a few more
sets
, then stretched on the mats before hitting the showers early. Coach pretty much expected us to slack off on game days.
“You know, I think
it
’s
better that you and Chels
ey
aren’t together anymore,” Justin said from across the locker room.
I glanced over at him.
“
Paris a romantic country
you know,” he said.

“It
’s
a city
—
not
a country,” I corrected.

“Whatever
.
I just
mean now you won’t be tied down
—
you’re free to hook up who whoever you want on this trip.”

I wasn’t planning to hook up with anyone, I just figured it
would
be my one chance to get out of this town and see the world, before I stuck around after high school to take over my parent
’
s
tire
store.
“I got paired up with
Zoey
Marshall
on our assignment while we’re there.”

“
Zoey
who?” Justin asked.

“That
goth
girl, always wears black, doesn’t talk much. She sits with Morgan at lunch. I think she might be dating Jordan Redding.” I wondered how I knew so
much about a
girl I supposedly never noticed.

“Is she hot?” Justin asked.

I thought about it for a second. I’d never seen her looking put together, but she did look better without loads of make
-
up, like Chelsey always wore.
She had long dark hair and bright sky blue eyes, b
ut I knew the right answer, the answer according to
Justin
would be no. “
N
aw
, not really
,” I shook my head.

“Well, who cares, you know? What happens
on class trips stays on class trips
,
” he laughed.

Only I knew nothing would be happening between me and
Zoey
in
Paris
. We’d be lucky if we could survive the week and get our assignment done. She gave off very clear signals
—
and that signal was
eff
off. 

Chapter Three

Zoey

During lunch
I jogged over to the elementary school and dropped Pete’s inhaler off with the nurse. I didn’t have enough time to eat, so I grabbed a bag of pretzels
on my way back
and headed to fourth period, Calculus.
I listened to Ms. Ashby drone on about functions and tangent lines while I tried to chew my p
retzels as quietly as possible and
thought
about
my assignment with Matt
. I
’d
figured
he
would’
ve tried to make me do all the work on our assignment, but he surprised me when he took out his books and started jotting down
his own
ideas. His writing was really neat too
, with small, perfectly shaped letters
.

Ms
.
Ashby heard me
reach my hand into the bag, and her head
has
turned from the white board to the ba
c
k of the room where I
was
sitting
. “
Zoey
—
no food in class. You know that.”