Page 19 of I Would Stay Forever (Parkhurst Prep #2)

Emma’s door opened again and she stepped out, her mouth opened like she was ready to call for Dean, but she faltered when she saw us sitting together.

I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I walked out here, but I was sure it was more than the five minutes she’d claimed to need, and she was probably wondering why I hadn’t left for class.

I was just starting to get up when she clapped her hands together and said, “Well, isn’t this cute? How long have you two been dating?”

Dean made a weird strangled noise, while my eyes widened to a comical size. I glanced at the gap between us, just now noticing how small it had gotten. I hadn’t realized that I’d been sliding toward him as we talked, but I must have been.

“We’re not,” I said quickly, turning back to Emma.

“We were just...” I flailed, not sure how to make it clear that this was completely platonic.

Meanwhile, Dean was stumbling over his own excuses, saying words like “next door” and “brother” and a bunch of gibberish in between that I was sure Emma couldn’t make out.

She looked completely bewildered as she glanced between us.

I started throwing out more random excuses, like “we have a group project together” and “we barely know each other, really,” as if that would help at all, and when Dean finally went quiet, I took a breath and said, “He's just my brother's best friend.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dean flinch slightly. It took me a second to realize it was because of the way I’d worded it— just my brother’s best friend. As if he was nothing more to me. Not my friend. Nothing.

Two months ago, the words would have been right.

Two months ago, I was sure he wouldn’t have cared.

But now, even though I’d spent all of August and the last week denying it, I could see that something had changed between us.

We didn’t just stop and talk to each other to be polite because he was Sebastian’s friend.

We didn’t only tease each other like siblings now.

As odd as it was, I was pretty sure that Dean and I had somehow slid into the territory of being friends .

“Well, we better get to this meeting, huh?” Dean said, practically jumping to his feet.

He didn’t glance back at me as he walked toward Emma’s office, but she gave me a curious glance.

I got to my feet as well, swinging my book bag over my shoulder and glancing at the clock.

The bell was going to ring any second now, so I might as well start heading upstairs to my second period class before the rush of other students.

“It was nice meeting you,” I said to Emma.

Then I booked it out of there. I’d completely forgotten about the teacher that had been in the doorway, but she was long gone now, I guess deciding not to come into the guidance office after all.

I wondered how long ago she’d left. How long I’d been sitting with Dean unnecessarily.

And more than that, I wondered why I was happy that neither of us had noticed.

“Do you have volleyball practice today?”

I jumped at the suddenness of my brother’s voice, slamming my head straight into the side of my locker.

I groaned and rubbed at the mark as I rested back on my knees and looked up at him.

I’d been digging around the floor of my locker, trying to find my student card that had slipped out of my bag at some point.

The hallway had been empty when I got here since my class let out early, but as I looked around, I realized that there were a number of students here, all of whom must have seen me on my hands and knees like an idiot. Lovely.

I stood up, brushing dirt and whatever else had been on the floor off my plaid skirt.

The floors had been sparkling clean this morning like the school had been deep cleaned last night, but now they’d been stomped on by hundreds of students tracking in the outdoors.

It was only out of the sheer desperation of not wanting to be among the crowds of students who lost their student card within the first week of the school year that had me daring to kneel on it in the first place.

“No,” I told Sebastian. “Our first practice is on Tuesday.”

To nobody’s surprise, all the girls that had previously been on the team made the cut again this year, along with three new freshmen and one sophomore.

“Will your practices always be Tuesdays?” he asked as I started pulling books out of my locker and stuffing them in my bag.

“Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays,” I said. “Which reminds me, what time is your football match next Wednesday?”

He put on an exaggerated American accent as he responded, “You have to call it soccer here.”

I rolled my eyes but laughed. “You knew what I meant. I have a group project meeting after my volleyball practice and I can’t decide if we should try to have it at the house or if it will be easier to just stay at school until your game.”

“Pretty sure it’s at six but I’ll double check,” Sebastian said.

He leaned against the locker beside mine, crossing his arms. I was pretty sure I heard a couple girls down the hall audibly swoon.

I rolled my eyes and focused on my locker again, grabbing a claw clip to put my hair up.

“But speaking of timing, we need to talk about Ainsley and Imogen.”

My face scrunched up in confusion. “How is that speaking of timing?”

“We can’t rely on Mum and Dad to pick them up from school anymore, so we have to figure out a schedule.”

I slowly dropped my hands back down to my sides and stared at the class schedule I’d taped up to my locker door as if it would somehow solve every problem in my family.

Because of my parents’ bizarre work schedules, one of them was always home when we finished school, so they could drive us home or to our various extracurriculars.

Most of the time, I caught a ride with one of my friends anyway, but Ainsley and Imogen relied on our parents being able to pick them up.

It hadn’t been a problem the past few days because sports and clubs hadn’t started up yet, but starting next week, we would all be needing to go home at different times.

“What days do they have to stay at school late?” I asked Sebastian. I assumed if he was coming to talk to me about this, then he already knew what we were working with.

“Imogen’s easy enough—she’s only here on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” he said, counting it off on his fingers.

“Ainsley has swim practice on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Fridays—but the problem is she has dance on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so on the overlap days, she has to go straight from here to dance.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my face against the cool edge of my locker door, mentally mapping out a calendar for myself.

I’d told Dean we could work on our project after his football practice on Mondays and Wednesdays, which meant I’d be completely useless in getting Ainsley to her dance practices for the next couple of weeks.

“How about if I deal with Imogen and you deal with Ainsley?” I asked, my forehead still pressed against the door.

“Imogen being here after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays already aligns with my volleyball schedule, so it should be good. Would that work or does it conflict with your soccer practices?”

“Her swim practices end at the same time as my soccer,” he said slowly, sounding like he was trying to piece it together in his mind.

“I’ll have to let Coach know that I need to be off the field in time, but then if I shower quickly, I guess…

” He trailed off and when I glanced over, he was running a hand over the side of his face, looking as exhausted as I felt.

When Dad left, the last thing on my mind was how it would affect our schedules.

I’d been so worried about everything else, I hadn’t thought of this at all.

“Maybe I can move about my group project meetings,” I said. “They’re supposed to be on Mondays and Wednesdays, but I bet he could?—”

“No,” Sebastian interrupted. “Don’t move around stuff for school. You need good grades this year for university. It’s more important than my stupid soccer practices.”

“Your soccer practices aren’t stupid,” I argued. “And besides, it’s more important to you than my History of Warfare class is to me. I mean, what kind of class even is that?”

Sebastian studied me with a small frown. “You’re in History of Warfare?”

“Mm-hmm.” He was still frowning, so I added, “Is that a problem?”

“No, it’s just…” He shook his head. “Dean’s in that class and he didn’t mention seeing you in it. I was just surprised, but I guess he didn’t notice you.”

Even if the class had been big enough for me to get lost in the crowd, I probably would have been a little offended by him not noticing me or thinking I was important enough to mention to Sebastian, but the fact that he sat next to me made it so much worse.

I opened my mouth, ready to tell him that Dean was actually the person I’d been talking about when I mentioned my group project, but the words died in my throat as I wondered if maybe there was some reason that Dean hadn’t said anything.

Should we be keeping this a secret? It wasn’t like we were doing anything wrong.

I couldn’t see any reason that Sebastian would be mad that we were sitting next to each other in class or forced into doing a project together.

But maybe Dean knew something I didn’t. Maybe there was some reason that this was supposed to be a secret.

So instead of telling him, I said, “I guess I’ll go find Imogen then.”

Sebastian gave me a tight smile that looked like a very stressed person’s best attempt at happiness.

Things had been looking up this week, but now, he was backsliding into the state he’d been in for much of August. I wanted to do everything in my power to take that stress off his shoulders, but I knew there was only so much he would let me help with.

Sebastian wanted to take care of us all, not just Ainsley and Imogen, and as much as I reminded him that we could be a team, he went about most of his life alone.

I was sure the only reason he’d come to me about this was because he knew there was no way for him to be able to help both Imogen and Ainsley, and I had the means to help with my new car.

It was a small thing to be able to take off his plate, but I guess it was something.