AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s actually a common misconception. They’re much smaller, and they spend much less time aboveground.” I pick my sign back up and hoist it high. “Equality for all creatures!”
Miles places a hand on the cheap card table that’s been our base of operations. “Who’s in charge here?”
“That would be me,” Kendall says from the other side of the table, where she’s been tidying a stack of flyers. Miles isn’t short, but she has a good three inches on him, her brunette topknot giving her even more height. She reaches for a flyer. “Are you interested in joining us? We’re staging a protest in Olympia next week.”
“I prefer to let my bank account do the talking.” He slides his phone from his pocket. “Do you guys have Venmo?”
I level him with a deadly glare. “You’re not serious.”
“You’ve convinced me. Especially this one right here,” Miles says with a nod toward me. He may not have mastered smiling, but he has a hell of a smirk.
Kendall points to a URL on the flyer. “You can donate through our website. Every little bit helps.”
“Then this ought to make a sizable dent.” He swipes through his phone before tilting it toward me, and I watch as he hits submit.
On a ten-thousand-dollar donation.
“That’s a very generous donation, sir,” I say through gritted teeth.
Kendall stares down at the alert on her own phone, eyes going wide as she presses a hand to her chest. “That’s—oh my god. Oh my god.”
“Excuse us.” I grab Miles’s sleeve, hauling him away from our table and back over to the sculpture where he was spying on me. “What do you think you’re doing?” I hiss. “You’re ruining my good deed!”
“Look, some of us fight with our words, and some of us with our time, but we all know that our wallets speak the loudest.” He gives me a very serious look, every facial muscle schooled into submission. It must hurt, resisting emotion like that.
“I didn’t realize you were so passionate about nearly endangered rodents.” I release my grip on his shirt, hoping he can feel every bit of resentment in my eyes. “You’re unhinged.”
“Maybe.” He props an elbow against the sculpture, perfectly calm and frustratingly self-assured. It takes all my willpower not to knock his elbow off. With his lashes at half-mast, he looks properly evil as he leans close, his breath warm against my ear. “Still not going to work,” he whispers.
DAY SIX
Chapter 13
“THIS HAS TO BE A mistake.”
“Yeah, no fucking shit,” I mumble.
Lucie and Paige turn to gape at me, and with a defeated groan, I fling the covers back over my head.
DAY EIGHT
Chapter 14
“HAPPY SEPTEMBER TWENTY-FIRST,” MILES SAYS in his cheeriest voice when I walk into physics, his eyes bright and thoroughly judgy. He’s not exactly smiling, but then again, I’m not sure I’ve seen a real smile from him yet. Miles treats smiles the way I do stickers and stationery—reluctant to part with them, as though they are precious things he has a finite number of.
“I despise you.” I take the seat in front of him, out of habit more than anything else. He’s back in that middle row from my first day—which wasn’t his first day, according to his mozzarella-stick simulation. Again, I wonder about everything he’s done over the past two months. I’ve been stuck for a week and I’ve already been stretched to the point of nearly snapping. I can only begin to imagine how frustrated he’s felt.
How lonely it’s been.
And how as soon as I found out he was trapped, my first instinct was to push him away.
While I attempt some halfhearted notes to pass the time, I’m intensely aware of Miles behind me. I’d kill to read minds instead of travel through time. All my bravado, all my insistence I could figure this out on my own, and now he knows I’ve failed. Worse, it’s time for me to start groveling.
STOP STARING AT MY SCREEN, I type in a Word doc in forty-eight-point font, just to see if he’s watching me. When I hear a muffled snort, I add a few exclamation points.
A squeak as he leans forward in his seat. “How’d it all go?” he whispers over my shoulder. “Because I’m guessing if you’re back in class, you wanted to talk to me. Does this mean you’re finally ready to do things my way?”
Or maybe I don’t have to grovel at all.
