My feet stopped altogether.
Rafe drew up behind me. “By all means, move at a glacial pace.”
I whirled on him. “You’re quoting The Devil Wears Prada while I’m about to lose my shit?” Whoa. Too much truth-telling.
His big brown eyes went wide. “What’s the matter?”
I looked up into his handsome face and felt like punching him in the teeth. “What’s the matter? Just everything. And your only concern is a project that’s not due for an aeon.”
His face softened. “That is not my only concern. Let’s just go sit down inside.”
“No! I’m not going in there.”
I tried to duck around him, but he caught me around the waist. “Bella,” he whispered into my ear. “What’s the alternative?”
“Transferring.” The word popped out as if it had been waiting there all along. I needed to be somewhere else — a college where I wasn’t that mess of a girl in that picture. Graham had said I shouldn’t let the assholes win. But right now I was willing to hand over the trophy without a fight.
“Bella,” he said again, his voice low and steady. The sound of it cut through the clatter of the hamster wheel in my brain, the one that was running scared. He put his arms around me, and I hid my face against his soccer jacket. “We’ll sit in the last row. Nobody will even know we’re there.”
I doubted that was true. But, as he’d pointed out, what was the alternative? I didn’t really have a Plan B. There were seven months left of my college career. I used to think of myself as a person who could survive anything for seven months.
Obviously I’d thought wrong.
My heart thumped spastically against my ribs as I considered leaving school. But where would I go? If I showed up on my parents’ doorstep, they’d want to know why. That would be a fun conversation. This problem wasn’t going away, even if I ran.
All these thoughts battered around in my brain while I stood pressing my nose into my neighbor’s shoulder. Because that wasn’t weird or anything.
I took a tiny step back, even though I didn’t want to. “All right. Let’s go.”
With his hand at the small of my back, Rafe walked me into the lecture room. He didn’t let go until the second we took our seats in the last row. When class was over, I was up and out of there faster than you can say later, suckers.
“Going to lunch?” Rafe asked, practically jogging after me.
“Not yet,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t slow down my getaway.
“I have to work. I’ll see you later?”
I gave him a salute, then jogged toward Beaumont as fast as my legs could carry me.
Who knew running was so useful? Obviously I’d never been mortified enough before to understand its charms.
Seventeen
Rafe
During the lunch shift, I chopped a lot of vegetables, washed a lot of pans and worried about Bella. I was in way over my head. Maybe a smarter man would have already gone to the dean and explained the situation. But some of what Bella had said rang true. What could they do, anyway? If Bella named the guy who’d brutalized her reputation, they could make him take the picture down. But that could take weeks, and the damage was already done.
Also, if I went to the dean she’d never speak to me again.
That was the wrong reason to keep her secret, though. I worried that my judgment was completely obliterated by all the complicated feelings I had for her. Every time I saw her square her shoulders against the latest indignity, I wanted to scoop her up and hold her close. Nice, right? Just what she needed—another guy to ogle her.
My job was just to be the best friend I could be. For right now, that meant watching and waiting. If Bella went to class, ate meals and went to work at the rink, then maybe I didn’t have to take any drastic action.
Before lunch was almost over, I went out to the salad bar with one last pan of lettuce.
“Hey,” someone said. “I didn’t catch your name the other day.”
I looked up to see Bella’s friend Graham. “It’s Rafe,” I told him.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Kinda working here,” I said, more annoyed with him than I ought to have been. But I was pretty sure this was the guy Bella had fallen for, and so I disliked him just on principle.
“It will just take a second.”
“All right.” I led him over to the door to the kitchen, where nobody else could hear. “What’s up?” I asked, noticing that Graham’s boyfriend had also joined us.