Page 12 of Come As You Are
“Obviously I don’t need your help to become a total stud, but Matt tells me you signed on to keep his dirty little secrets, and I’m gonna need in on that action.”
“You don’t strike me as the lady-killer type,” I say bluntly. “At least not in the metaphorical sense.”
He snorts and flicks the lighter like it’s a child’s toy. “No? Guess I’ll have to stick to the usual weed and truancy then.”
“I’m not peeing in a cup for you, if that’s where this is going,” I inform him, staunchly keeping my eyes away from the flame, feeling for reasons I can’t begin to understand as if it’s a challenge.
“I wouldn’t dare ask, but only because I’ve heard they can tell it’s a girl.” He tosses the lighter aside, picks up one of those minibasketballs, and starts spinning it with his fingers. “That said, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of other opportunities to cover for me, and Matt’s right—if you need to ask how to get yourself in trouble, you’ve definitely got exactly the never-touched-weed, four-point-oh kind of vibe I need.” He’s right on both counts, but I don’t like how he says it. “My parents are really fucking pissed about me getting tossed out of my last school, and if it happens again, the next one isnotgonna be a castle-looking joint with a waffle bar. So you help keep me here, and I’ll help you…” He waves a hand in my general direction, as if my entire situation is just too dire for words.
It’s only the second-most insulted I’ve been today, but it still feels like too much to let slide. “I have a better idea,” I say, holding up my hand for the ball, which he tosses in my direction. It lands with a satisfying smack against my palm, and I toss it back. “How about instead of covering for you while you continue to be a parent-displeasing stoner slacker waste of space, I just… help you not to be?”
His smirk is so annoying, I wish it were physically possible to rip it from his face. “So I can be more like you, the superdork who somehow landed herself in an all-boys dorm?”
“Hey.” Again, tough to argue that point, but he doesn’t have to say it.
“You’rethe one who showed up here begging to be taught how to be cool,” he reminds me, tossing the ball back and forth between his hands. I can’t help watching the ball roll off the tips of his long, thin, surprisingly elegant fingers, like a kitten mesmerized by a yo-yo. “And I can’t argue with you needing it, because that was literally the most uncool thing I have ever seen in my entire life.”
“Yeah, well, at least Ichoseto come to Camden,” I snap, because it’s literally all I’ve got. Anyway, it doesn’t matter; he’s right that I’m here to change, and Iwillchange. “Whatever, are you in or not? You teach me how to be bad, and I’ll teach you how to be good. Deal?”
“Guess so.” And then he sends the ball flying back like a boomerang, and of course, my reflexes can’t keep up and it bounces right off my face. But I guess that’s something we can work on, too. I ignore his quiet laughter, grab it from the floor, and toss it at him, making for the door. “Your first lesson is free—fold your damn clothes. We’ll start on the rest tomorrow.” Idolove a project.
“You’re a peach, you know that?”
“No,” I say, yanking open the door and flashing my most charming smile over my shoulder as I make my exit. “Iwasa peach. Now I’m a bad apple.”
Chapter Four
NOW THAT SALEM AND Iare—well, notfriends,but partners in a pact, at least, I decide we’re tight enough for me to sit with him at breakfast. “By the way, I met your sister yesterday,” I tell him as I plunk my tray down next to his, my stack of waffles with a dollop of whipped cream a heaping contrast to his omnipresent sad green apple.
“I know.” He pulls a paper clip from his pocket and twists it out of shape with his free hand. I know before it even touches the table that he’s going to use it to scratch his name into the tabletop. I don’t know where her never-ending supply of paper clips came from, but Sierra used to do that all the time.
“You know? I didn’t think you and your sister talked.”
He gives me a quick side-eye before returning to his task. “She’s my sister. I talk to her every day, whether I like it or not. Do you not have siblings?”
Well, that’s a loaded question. And oh, how I love the ideaof Sierra not existing in this new world of mine. But still, it feels like too big a lie. And anyway, I can’t imagine Salem will care to do too much digging. “One. And we do not, in fact, talk every day. Or at all.”
“Oh.”
“You didn’t tell Sabrina about our… arrangement, did you?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, like I’m dying to share that you slipped a note under my door this morning outlining a basic hygiene regimen.”
I was actually particularly proud of my first contribution, and he can pretend his nails aren’t cleaner this morning than they were yesterday, but I know better. Still, I keep my smugness to myself so I can scout the room while he goes back to his rabbit food. I know it’s inevitable that I’ll see Heather and Lucas together at some point, but I’d like to push it off for as long as humanly possible.
Thankfully, when Sabrina rolls in a few minutes later, she’s sans roommate, buying me at least a little more time before I have to face the very nice girl whose boyfriend I accidentally-ish made out with. I wave to get her attention so she knows we have a seat for her, and she joins us a couple of minutes later with a heaping bowl of cereal as rainbow bright as her all-black ensemble is… not.
“Hark, the goth princess has awoken.” Salem flicks a bright pink O off the top of her breakfast as she forcefully nudges his tray aside to make room for hers. “Does your vampire clan know you’re up before nineA.M.?”
“Does your face know it’s hideous?” she returns withoutso much as a glance in his direction as she shoves a spoonful of sugar in her mouth.
“Do your faces know they’re the same?” I ask, and receive disgusted looks in return.
“Guess you both survived your first night in Rumson,” Sabrina says wryly, tugging on one of her Wednesday Addams braids. “I’d say you deserve a cookie, but you wouldn’t eat it”—she nods toward Salem’s green apple—“and you… have already got plenty going on there.” She eyes the heaping pile of whipped cream on my waffles.
“Tell me you are not judgingmysugar intake when you’re eating a bowl of cavity seeds for breakfast.”
Salem gives his virtuous apple breakfast an extra-large smug chomp, self-righteousness dribbling down his chin as he grins while scrolling on his phone.
