Page 11 of As the Rain Falls (Sainte Madeleine #1)

His pencil, a sharp blue one that had been idly spinning between his fingers, slips and clatters onto the desk.

I stare as he snatches it back up, tapping it against the paper in a jittery, uneven rhythm.

His eyes flick to the clock, then to Mrs. Yun, then finally back to me, and I catch the exact second when his playful confidence fades away.

“You don’t know him like I do,” Mateo explains, his voice quieter now. His knee bounces under the desk, making our tables tremble. “Just a warning, Rivera. Girls like you don’t stand a chance against guys like him, so don’t even try to pretend that you can handle him.”

Girls like me .

Classic.

The thing nobody ever likes to hear, especially not me.

It’s, like, so backhanded and so demeaning.

“O-kay?” I agree, but it really sounds more like a question. “Whatever, dude. No need to try to insult me. Caleb is the one who seems to be going after me. I literally don’t care about him at all.”

“I’m not trying to insult you, Rivera. Really, I’m just trying to say—”

“What? That I’m clueless? Give me this!” I cut him off and grab the note with Caleb’s number. His face falls as I place the piece of paper inside my backpack.

“I really don’t think you should do this.”

“Listen, I don’t know what’s going on between Caleb and you, but I’d like to be left alone because I don’t want any drama.”

“Neither do I, I swear. I’m trying to warn you off because he is…”

“He is what?” I snap. “God, just leave me alone!”

The bell rings abruptly, cutting our conversation short.

I glance forward, hearing Kayla and Alice start to argue with each other. Alice says something I don’t get to hear, and a second later, my friend snaps.

“This eraser is mine!”

“It’s not yours, Saint-Louis,” Alice claps back. “It’s literally mine! It has my name written on the sides, you see?”

“You stole it! You stole it from my purse when I wasn’t looking last week!”

“Psss! Psss!”

Antony Silva throws a piece of paper at Mateo’s head. It falls back on the floor before the brown-haired boy can catch it.

“Man, do you know the answer to question five?”

“Which one is it again?” Mateo turns his back to me, distracted by the question. “Is it the one about the boats?”

“The one about the floating boats, yeah.”

“Answer B.”

“Pens down!” Mrs. Yun claps her hands together, and the class groans in unison. “Everybody, pens down! The test is over!”

I pick up my stuff and walk up to Kayla, not bothering to lose my breath over boys when my education is clearly more important.

With my test in hand, I stop by her side and make a sad face. “Can I see your answers?”

Mr. Yun grabs my paper, glaring at me like I am her personal number one enemy. “See you next week, young lady.”

My shoulders drop.

“See you next week, Mrs. Yun,” I smile politely, waiting for Kayla to get her stuff together.

My friend hands her the text, and I give her a gentle nudge towards the exit door. Alice is walking right behind us.

“The weirdest thing just happened to me,” I tell them, thinking about my conversation with Mateo Pereira.

Kayla throws her braids back, glaring angrily at Alice. I frown, watching as Alice rolls her eyes in a much more childish way than my friend just did.

“Well, something exceptionally weird happened to me too!”

“What’s going on with you two?” I keep my tone lighthearted, not wanting to add fuel to the fire.

“I think I just failed my first high school test.” Kayla turns to me and opens the door. “All because of her!”

“Alice?” I bite my lip, fighting off a smile as I look over my shoulders, watching the black-haired girl blow some air out of her mouth. “What did you do now?”

Kayla doesn’t let her answer. “She stole my lucky eraser!”

“I did not steal anything!” Alice sneers, which is supposed to sound aggressive, but we both end up ignoring her a little. “I really didn’t—”

“Your lucky eraser?” I echo Kayla’s previous words, finding them funny. “Is it really enough to get you all fired up?”

“Fired up?” Kayla exhales loudly. “You just wouldn’t understand, Cassandra. It’s a very important thing for a girl like me to keep her lucky charms around her at all times.”

I nod profusely as I trace after her, my lips twitching with amusement. I don’t particularly believe in lucky charms, but maybe Alice does. Maybe it’s the kind of thing they both share in common in spite of all the differences.

Again, they’re both really odd people.

“Ugh!” My friend stomps hard against the ground, walking away from me with an annoyed look on her face. “You are the worst, Alice! The worst!”

I smile so hard, watching her leave. “Why did you steal her eraser? You really need to learn to leave her alone.”

“Oh, because I’m the problem here?” Alice gives me a side-eye. “Your friend is such a psycho, yelling at me for no reason. I literally just said that! And you know what? Whatever! You’re always going to take her side anyway because you’re afucking pushover!”

“Alice, wait. That’s not true either!”

I start to speak, considering that she might actually be telling the truth this time after all, but Alice knocks shoulders against me, throwing her hair back without sparing me a glance.It forces me to take a step back so that I won’t hit the wall, which really isn’t all that nice of her to do.

“Hey! Can you watch where you’re going?”

She turns around then, and flashes her dark eyes at me. Surprisingly, I see more than the usual irritation there. This eraser business is more serious than I first thought.

“Well, maybe you should just stand out of my way, don’t you think? Get lost!”

Oh?

My steps falter as I watch her leave, not knowing how I should respond to that. Zacharias pauses next to me, his freckled face looking especially troubled as he glares at her back. Alice catwalks down the hallway, not giving a damn about either one of us.

I think she might be tracing after Kayla. Good for her, I guess. Alice is not one to avoid confrontation like I am.

“Can you believe she ran for class president three times in a row and won?” he snorts lightly. “What a fucking bitch.”

“Well.” I play with my hair, rolling it around my fingers. “You sort of voted for her, didn’t you?”

“I did,” Zach smiles, looking a little awkward, and brushes his red hair back. “How do you even know about that?”

“I read the results, remember?” I stare at Alice’s retreating back as she leaves. “And I recognized your handwriting on the paper, Mr. What-A-Fucking-Bitch . ”

He groans dramatically, “Alice can be very convincing sometimes, okay?”

“Or maybe you’re just too easily convinced?” I press my books to my chest before standing on my tippy toes and looking for Kayla amongst the crowd. Zach shrugs, like he can’t refute my perfect argument.

I like it when I’m right.

He really is impressionable, at least in my humble opinion.

Zach sighs. “Okay, yeah. Touché, Rivera.”