Breakable

‘Mr Wynn,’ Mrs Dumont said, scowling darkly.

He shrugged. ‘I can’t find my partner, Mrs Dumont.’ His eyes lighted on Melody, who sneered a little. ‘Is it you?’ He snatched the paper from her hand as she objected.

‘No.’ She snatched the paper back, raising her chin. ‘I got Clark.’

Her boyfriend was already sitting next to her. They didn’t even have to move from their front-row seats to work together. So I got stuck with Boyce-fucking-Wynn, while privileged Clark Richards gets stuck with his hot girlfriend. Naturally.

‘Oh, no no no – that won’t work.’ Mrs Dumont rushed over, her eyes on Melody. ‘You can’t be paired with your … er, friend. I want us to all experience a shift in culture and environment! Relocation diffusion in action!’ As the three of them were trying to figure out what she meant, she grabbed Boyce’s and Melody’s slips of paper and swapped them. ‘There. Now Clark, run along with Boyce. I’ll be passing out project assignments in a moment!’ She seemed to think this would soothe Clark from having to replace a hot girlfriend partner with a hulking bully partner.

‘What the –’ He scowled, clamping his jaw. ‘Why can’t Mel and I work together?’

Mrs Dumont smiled benignly and patted his shoulder. ‘Now who has F?’ she called, ignoring his question entirely.

I raised my hand a few inches off my desk without saying a word. Four pairs of eyes found me. Only Mrs Dumont smiled. ‘Come on up to the front, Landon. You can take Clark’s seat for the next three weeks.’

From the look on Clark’s face, she might as well have said, ‘You can screw Clark’s girlfriend for the next three weeks.’

‘Dumb f**king luck, Richards,’ Boyce said, pinning me to the corner with an unblinking stare. Somehow, being involuntarily paired with some other guy’s girlfriend was one more strike against me.

I shouldered my backpack and walked up the aisle, feeling as if I’d been condemned to lethal injection instead of forced to complete a project with a girl I’d fantasized about at least once. As Dumont handed out the packets, Melody pulled out a spiral notebook and began dividing our responsibilities – Melody on the left, Landon on the right, both underlined. She pencilled a thick line down the middle, using the edge of her textbook to keep it straight.

‘I’ll do the maps,’ I volunteered, my voice low.

She pressed her lips together and held herself bolt upright, clearly irritated. Great.

She started to print maps under my name and stopped midway, turning to level big, pale green eyes at me. ‘Do you … draw? Because I can do them, if not.’

I fixed her with a stare of my own. ‘Yes.’

When I didn’t elaborate, she rolled her eyes and muttered, ‘Fine. I’d better get a decent grade on this.’

We exchanged phone numbers and addresses, though she made it clear she didn’t intend to set foot outside either the school building or her parents’ house with me. The Dover McMansion was just down the beach from Grandpa’s place. ‘Oh, yeah. Maxfield. Clark said –’ She went silent, probably at my black expression.

Clark was son to John Richards, our town’s biggest developer of residential monstrosities and vacation condos. He’d been hounding my grandfather to sell his prime beachfront property forever. Things came to a head a few years ago, Grandpa said, when Richards tried to get the city to invoke imminent domain, claiming Grandpa’s ‘shack’ was an eyesore and his fishing business was a front. Grandpa told him where he could stick it right there in the middle of the city council meeting. The intimidation attempts had slowed since Dad took over the financials for Maxfield Fishing, but the hostility was potent as ever.

Melody cleared her throat somewhat delicately. ‘Uh. So, call me tonight, after I’m home from dance class.’

Dance class. What did girls like Melody wear to dance class? Spontaneous images threaded their way into my imagination. I twisted one of the rubber bands on my wrist. ‘’K.’

‘Like, eight o’clock?’

‘’K,’ I repeated.

She rolled her eyes. Again. The bell rang and she shot up to exit the classroom with Clark, who narrowed his gaze on me as he slung an arm over her shoulders. Boyce came just behind him and shoved me back into the desk. ‘Freak,’ he said. ‘Richards will probably have you killed if you touch her.’

I hadn’t had any intention of touching her. Funny how that threat made me want to.

LUCAS

I guess my brain rebooted during the four hours of sleep I finally got, because I remembered the nagging thing I hadn’t been able to recall since Saturday night.

If Jackie didn’t drop the class, she was going to fail it, and she had exactly one day in which to do it – because the last undergrad drop date was tomorrow.

The likelihood that I could find her again, today, was low. I only had one choice – I could email her as the class tutor – like a courteous, informative reminder of the drop date. Dear Student: you might want to take care of this important thing – hint, hint.

Never mind that no one else on campus would receive this kind of individualized dire warning. Administration didn’t believe in sending many specific alerts, especially about dropping courses. They preferred to include them on web pages of department requirements, or nestled somewhere in that registration documentation everyone scrolls through without reading, right before clicking the button that says I agree.