Steering the Stars (31 page)

       “Tillie, I didn’t mean for that to come out like that. I just—I just have a lot on my mind and I’m not feeling well and I’m off today.”

       It was a lame thing to say and she didn’t even bother to respond. She just turned her face so that I couldn’t make out her expression and started to gather her things. A notebook. A blue pen. Three number two pencils.

       One of the pencils rolled off her desk to the floor. I bent over and snatched it up before she could do it.

       “I’m sorry,” I tried again, holding the pencil out to her like an olive branch. “Really.”

       “Forget it. We all have bad days,” she said as she took the pencil from my hand and stood up from her seat. Her face was tight and her normally friendly eyes were guarded. “It’s fine, Hannah.”

       But I knew that it wasn’t fine. How could it be?

       “Okay,” I said, feeling like a headcase. “I’ll see you later?”

       “Yeah,” she said and waved once as she walked away.

       Ruben was standing in the aisle. He frowned down at me, shrugged his shoulders to show his confusion and then he ran off to catch up with Tillie. As the two of them crossed the door, he said something to her I couldn’t hear and slung one arm over her shoulder.

       I hunched over farther into my seat and let out a shaky breath.
Could this day get any worse?

      
“Hannah?”

       Crap. I’d forgotten that Joel was still sitting behind me. This meant, of course, that he’d witnessed the whole awful scene with Tillie.

       “Don’t,” I said stiffly.

       “Don’t what?” He touched my shoulder and that concrete slab in my gut cracked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to go hide under a rock or throw myself off a bridge. Instead, I shook his hand off.

       “I just… just…” I squeezed my eyes so tight that tiny explosions of orange and fiery yellow burst behind eyelids. “I know how I was with Tillie but it’s none of your business, okay?”

       He stepped around his desk and crouched down in front of me, trying to make eye contact. I looked everywhere but at him because I feared peering into those tiger eyes. I feared I would lose it.

       “I can’t talk to you right now,” I said to the floor. My voice sounded different, not even like it belonged to me. “I still have to meet with Mr. Hammond and figure out this test thing.”

       He was quiet for a beat too long. “Then later.”

       “Later,” I confirmed, silently praying he would go away. After another five seconds of trying unsuccessfully to get me to lift my chin and meet his gaze, he gave up and stood to leave. I remained in my seat with my feet rooted the floor.

       When Joel was gone and the classroom was mostly empty, Mr. Hammond met my gaze. His voice cut across the new quiet like a sharpened blade. “Miss Vaughn.”

       That was my cue. My chair made an unpleasant scraping sound against the floor as I stood. Cringing, I grabbed my bag and shuffled to his desk.

       “What happened?” he asked outright when I was standing in front of him.

       “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I blew it with the test.”

       He looked down for a moment. “Hannah, it’s more than the exam. A few weeks ago, you and I had a discussion in this very classroom about finding your voice and writing from the heart. It’s obvious to me that you are struggling with this. I can’t overlook the test but I could be persuaded to work with you if I could understand what the problem is. Is something happening that you want to talk about?”

       Was something happening?
Yes.
And did I want to talk to someone?
Yes,
but that someone was across the Atlantic ocean and currently not answering any of my phone calls. Having a heart-to-heart with a teacher who I’d known for about five seconds was not the same thing.

       “Not really,” I answered.

       Mr. Hammond obviously didn’t believe me. He raised one perfectly-shaped eyebrows. “Not really? Your work or lack thereof would indicate otherwise.”

       “I know... I just…” I was struggling to come up with an excuse that didn’t sound like an excuse. I knew that I was a failure in every single way. As a student. As a friend. As a girlfriend. As a sister. “I haven’t been feeling well or getting much sleep.”

       “Unfortunately, that’s not good enough. As I said, I can’t forget the things you’ve missed but I can offer you an opportunity to try to recover your grade.”

       “Okay.” I was listening.

       “Turn in ten thousand words to me on Monday the ninth and I shall grade that in place of the exam.”

       “
Ten
thousand words? On what?”

       “That’s entirely up to you.”

       I blinked. Was he kidding? “B-but I need some guidance,” I protested. “Ten thousand words is a lot and I have no idea what to write about!”

       Mr. Hammond exhaled. “Hannah, at this level I can’t hold your hand through each and every assignment. You’re going to have to take some initiative on this one.”

       Irritation welled inside of me. Didn’t he get it? Didn’t he see that I wasn’t cut out for this, for writing or Warriner? Why would he still expect anything from me?

       “Look,” I said, “writing is…it’s just too hard for me right now. I feel like every time I put my pen to paper or my fingers on a keyboard, I lock up. I don’t think I can do it.”

       He crossed his arms over his chest and considered me. “When I chose your essay out of thousands, I did so because I saw potential in you. I didn’t expect you to come all this way to give up.”

       The weight of his words burned through me. I felt them under my clothing and on my skin. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t have been chosen to win the contest.”

       Mr. Hammond’s mouth fell open a little. “So that’s it? You’re just going to accept a zero on your exam and the other assignments and be done with it?”

       I sniffed. With a note of finality, I said, “I guess so.”

       “Then we are done here for now.” He chose a pen from the small container on his desk and turned to write something in his grading ledger.

       I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I watched him write what I assumed was a zero next to my name and my head screamed at me,
What have you done?

      
Mr. Hammond was still writing. Without looking at me, he said, “You are dismissed, Miss Vaughn.”

       I didn’t know how to take it all back and start the conversation over so I did the only thing I could think of. I walked away. I pushed through the classroom door and slammed straight into Joel’s chest.

       “
Ooof!
”

       His hands jerked out of his pockets and he caught me by my shoulders before I could tip over. “Steady there.”

       “You didn't have to wait for me,” I told him over the noise of the hallway.

       “I wanted to,” he said, reaching down to take my hand. “You said we’d talk later.”

       My insides were still lurching wildly. I could barely catch my breath and everything around me seemed woozy and faraway. My armpits were damp and my head was starting to pound. “And?”

       “
And
now it’s later.” His eyes went over my shoulder to the classroom door. “So, what was that about?”

       I tugged my hand from his grasp and forcefully brushed my hair out of my face. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It was just boring academic stuff.”

       “You mean like not turning in your work and just deciding not take a test?”

       I shook my head. For what felt like the hundredth time today, I said, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

       “And, let me guess, you don’t want to talk about why you yelled at Tillie? Or why you’ve barely looked at me all week?”

       “I didn’t realize that this was an interrogation.”

       “Hannah...” His voice was laced with frustration. He looked up and down the hallway and then he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the stairwell. He stopped near a classroom door, peeked inside and pulled me in behind him.

       It was the end of the day and the room was dark. I could tell by the posters on the wall that it belonged to one of the history teachers.

       Joel closed the door and guided me against the wall. He pressed his long body into mine, fitting my legs between his thighs. Then he brought his hands up to cup either side of my head and tilted my face so that I had no choice but to look at him. His eyes were bright. Worried.

       He said, “I don’t want to interrogate you so let’s just get that cleared up, okay?”

       I nodded and he went on, “I’m just trying to talk and figure this thing out before it gets away from me. I get that you have secrets and there’s stuff that you don’t want to share with me yet but… Hannah, you and I have something, don’t we?”

       I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t make myself form the right words. Joel and I did have something—I just wasn’t sure what it was. With everything in my life falling apart, I was confused, scared to mess up something else.

       He ran his thumb over my cheekbone and I instinctively moved my lips to kiss his palm and then his wrist. He sighed and moved his hands to the wall behind my head so that his arms caged me in. Then he dropped his face against my neck and touched his mouth to the thin delicate skin beneath my chin. It felt so good, so different from how I’d felt for the past week, that I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I wanted to forget about school and about Caroline. Just for a minute.

       “I know it’s only been a few weeks,” he murmured against me, “but I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
       My lips didn’t move but in my head I told him that it was the same for me.

       “Open your eyes, Hannah,” he whispered.

       My lashes fluttered as I focused in on him.

       He moved my hair out of my face and rested the inside of his hand against my cheek. “Don’t you see it?” he asked.

       “See what?” My voice was barely audible.

       “That I’m crazy about you.”

       “You don’t even know me.”

       He shook his head. “But I do,” he said. “I know that you like Girl Scout cookies and Kraft macaroni and cheese and that you’re a lightweight when it comes to beer. I know that you’re stronger than you think you are and that you’re going to be a writer one day. I know that you like to laugh and you can find the constellations in the night sky. I know how you look when you’re sad and when you’re happy. I know how I feel about you and that I felt it the very first time I saw you. Why else do you think I signed up for the squash team?”

       I blinked. My heart was going off like a field of exploding landmines and my head felt too light. Like it might detach and float away from my body at any second.

       I had no idea what to say. I wanted to tell him that I was crazy about him too, that I knew it the moment I saw him on the first day of school in the administration office. Instead, I said, “My best friend and I are in a fight.”

       My words sunk in and the skin above his forehead crimped. Probably not what he was looking for after a declaration like that.

       “Caroline?” he asked.

       “Yeah,” I said, feeling a single tear drip from my left eye. “We had a fight over the weekend and she’s not talking to me.”

       “So that’s why you’ve been acting weird?”

       I swallowed and nodded.

       “Okay.” His soft laughter trickled down my spine like icy water.

       “It’s not a joke,” I said frostily.

       “I know that.” He paused and smiled a little. “But I thought it was something else.”

       I was annoyed by how nonchalant he was acting. I was obviously upset and he was acting… relieved. WTF?

       I sniffed. “And me being in a fight with one of the most important people in my life somehow amuses you?”

       “No, of course not.” He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in closer.

       This was all wrong. That gnarled feeling I’d had all day was back.

       “You don’t understand anything, do you?” I shook my head and pushed off of him. “I feel like I’m walking around with a Caroline-shaped black hole inside of me and you’re acting like it’s no big deal. For your information, it
is
a big deal.”

       “I understand that.”

       “Do you?” I asked harshly. “Because I thought you didn’t have anyone that mattered to you like this. That’s what you told me.”

       His face took on a slightly panicked look. “Hannah…”

       “I’m not happy here, okay? I miss my family and my friends and… I just… I can’t do this right now.”

       “You can’t do
what
?” he asked. He took another step back and I felt the cool air of the classroom invade the space between us and brush up against my skin.