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“What?” I look up long enough to see a confused look cross his face, my ratty backpack dragging at the end of his slackened arm. “My mom sent you up here?”
“Yeah,” I say, letting my attention revert to the books in front of me. “I told her I was here to tutor you and she told me where your room was.” I pull a book loose from the shelf and sink down, sitting cross-legged to settle it into my lap. “That I could come on up.”
“You told my mom you were here to tutor me and she just let you come up here?” He repeats what I said in the form of a question. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a girl.” He says it like it’s obvious. Like I’m dumb for not understanding what he was trying to say.
“Not really,” I say, running my hand over the dust jacket, my mind already a million miles away. Books have always been able to do that for me. Take me away. Make me someone else. Give me a life, better than my own.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean I’m not really a girl,” I say, opening the book so I can flip its thick, creamy pages through my fingers. “At least not the kind of girl someone like you would be interested in.”
“And what kind of girl would someone like me be interested in?” I feel my brow crumple at his tone. He sounds angry.
I tell the truth, refusing to acknowledge the burn in my gut when I say it. “Someone pretty,” I say, finally looking up at him. He’s still standing in the doorway where I left him, my backpack still in his hand. The way he’s looking at me makes me nervous.
I close the book and slide it back into its hole on the shelf. Standing, I wipe my hands on the legs of my jeans. “Should we get started?”
“Yeah,” he says, shouldering my backpack, his jaw tight. “Let’s go downstairs.”
“But…” I shake my head. He’s acting weird, and I don’t understand why. “Your mom said it was okay for me to be up here.”
“Well, I said it’s not,” he barks at me before turning on his heel. Seconds later, I hear him on the stairs, leaving me no choice but to follow.