“Overall, I’m really pleased with this assignment,” Alex—Mr. Belrose says as he passes the papers back. “There were a few of you who struggled, but I think that was probably more due to behavioral issues than anything else. Still, if any of you would like to see me after class, I’d welcome the opportunity to talk through your assignments.”
We had submitted papers based on the first ten chapters of Les Mis. I know mine rocked, naturally. I have this whole Jean Valjean thing down pat. In fact, if we were ever to perform the play, they’d have to cast me as a lead. There would be no question, honestly.
I am more interested in my cuticles than my paper when Belrose tosses it down on my desk. The whole class, I haven’t been making eye contact with him. It’s his move, really. If he wants me, he knows what to do.
Rob Samuels, who conveniently moved from the back row to the seat next to me since I’ve sort of been avoiding him, gives a low whistle. “Damn, Stone. Slipping a little, huh?” He grins at me, and I automatically smile back.
We all know I don’t slip.
Rob reaches out, and his hand grazes mine. Normally, I pull away when Rob does things like this, but today, I leave my hand where it is, letting Belrose see that Rob likes me too. That Rob has always liked me, and no matter how hard Belrose tries, he will never go back as far as Rob and I do.
He doesn’t need to know that Rob isn’t a real possibility for me.
“Are you okay, Riley?” Rob asks, his voice soft.
“Excuse me?”
He leans over and nudges my Les Mis paper with a knuckle.
I look down, and then do a double take.
What?
That’s not possible.
Scrawled hurriedly across the top of the page is not the A I am so used to seeing in Belrose’s handwriting. It’s not even a B, or God forbid, a C.
It’s an F.
On what I happen to know for a fact is a goddamned good paper.
“It’s a joke,” I tell Rob, but I flip through the other pages for comments. And there are none. Not one. And on a paper that warrants an F, there should at least be another red mark or two that explains why.
And the absence of said red marks can only mean one thing: Belrose is screwing with me. He’s punishing me for Sandeep. He thinks he has the power here. But he doesn’t.
Oh, he doesn’t.
I look up at him and for the first time all class I meet his eyes, and I smile.
Challenge accepted.
I take my phone out of my backpack, preparing to send him a scathing e-mail, but Belrose yanks my phone out of my hand roughly.
“You know the rules, Miss Stone.” His voice is cold, and he shakes my phone at me. His eyes hold mine, and they’re hard. “If you want your phone back, you’ll have to come see me after school.”
The class is silent. And they should be. They’re stunned. They’ve never seen Belrose be such an asshole. Especially not to a prize pupil like me.
“Fine,” I say.
“After school, Stone,” he repeats, and starts scrawling on the board.
So this is how he’s going to get me to talk to him. Huh. He’s going to embarrass me.
Is this his way of getting back at me? Or his weird way of saying he misses me?
I narrow my eyes. Either way, he has no idea who he’s playing with.