“Stop,” Finn commanded coolly, gripping my wrist tightly. It wasn’t enough where it hurt, but it was just enough where I knew I couldn’t break free.
“Let her go.”
“What are you doing?” I demanded. I was still super pissed off, and I wasn’t a big fan of people intervening in these kinds of situations, especially people like Finn who gave me ambiguous feelings.
“There’s a teacher coming!” Patrick shouted nervously.
“Come on.” Finn yanked my wrist and started pulling me.
Reluctantly, I untangled my fingers from Tegan’s hair and let Finn drag me away from her and the gathering crowd of onlookers. If I hadn’t promised Matt I would turn things around, I wouldn’t care if a teacher caught me pounding on Tegan. She deserved it. I looked uncertainly back at Patrick, who ran a hand fretfully through his thick hair.
“I’ll cover for you. Hurry.” Patrick nodded, shooing me on.
Just before Finn dragged me around the corner, I saw Patrick go over to Tegan to try and clean up my mess. The bottom half of her face was covered in blood, and she screamed when Patrick went near her.
“Where are we going? What are you doing?” I snapped at Finn.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I couldn’t believe I was letting anyone drag me anywhere. Why wasn’t I prying his fingers off of me or putting up a fight? Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with how warm and strong his hand felt on me, and maybe, I kind of like it.
“Shut up,” Finn whispered harshly.
Finn peered in a window in the door to the art room. Since lunch hadn’t ended yet, the class was still empty. It was a studio art class, though, so it was never locked in case students wanted to work on something, and the teachers never hung around to monitor it. Finn pulled open the door and pushed me inside.
“Will you stop pulling me around like that?” I barked at him, but he said nothing.
I finally wrenched my wrist free from him and took several steps away.
He stood in front of me, clearly annoyed, rubbing the back of his head. His dark eyes burned on me, and all my anger disappeared. I was too startled and confused to really feel anything else. My heart pounded heavily in my chest, and I tried to slow it down.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, almost meekly, and rubbed the wrist he had been grabbing. It didn’t really hurt, but it felt like something to do.
“What the hell are you doing?” Finn shot back. He was looking at me like I had done something wrong, and maybe I had, but I didn’t get why he cared so much.
“I was fighting with this bitch that has been out to get me since I got here!” Some of the anger surged back through me, and I felt my confidence return. She had deserved it, and even if she hadn’t, I was still pissed off and Finn had no right to be mad at me for that. “Now I’m trying to figure out why you stopped me and what the hell your problem is!”
“You can’t solve everything with a fight,” Finn said, as if that explained anything.
“Good. Great. Maybe I can’t,” I admitted. “But why do you even care?
And why did you drag me off like that?”
“So you didn’t get caught! Do you want to get suspended again?” Finn looked at me evenly, but I just furrowed my brow at him.
Had he been trying to protect me? He was afraid that I might get expelled or something? What did that even matter to him? My heart fluttered happily at the thought of him caring about me in someway and trying to protect me, but the rest of me angrily acknowledged that I didn’t need anyone to protect me. I could take care of myself.
“That doesn’t answer anything!” I shook my head. “You stopped me before the teacher was coming. That was just incidental.”
“A teacher was going to come eventually,” Finn reasoned. “And even if they didn’t, Tegan isn’t going to keep this to herself.”
“She will if she knows what’s good for her,” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Wendy!” Finn was completely exasperated, and I couldn’t figure out why. “You think you’re so wild and untamed, but you’re not. You’re just rude.”
“She was rude!” I countered defensively.
“So what? Just because she’s an idiot doesn’t mean you have to stoop to her level!” Finn insisted. “You’re almost an adult! You can’t keep freaking out like an angry little kid every time something doesn’t go your way!”
“You’re the one that’s freaking out!” I snapped. Finn nodded, seemingly aware that he was letting this get to him more than it should. He ran a hand through his black hair and took a deep breath.
“You’re a bright girl, Wendy, but you can be so… hard to be around.”
Finn sounded pained, and he wasn’t looking at me when he spoke. For some reason, his words stung a lot deeper than they should have.
“You frustrate me so much!” I still had no idea why he was so upset, and I had no idea how he could make me so upset.
“You frustrate me!” Finn countered, not unkindly, and looked back up at me.
“Me? How did I frustrate you?” I asked incredulously. “I’m nothing but straight with you! I don’t drag you off without any explanation!”
His normal unruffled demeanor had returned. He stood in front of me with that perfectly unreadable expression, and he smoothed out the untucked tails of his navy blue button-down shirt.
“What do you want me to explain?” Finn kept his eyes on me evenly, and I swallowed to keep back my anger. I wanted to shout at him, but if he was going to play this reasonable, then I was going to prove to him that I could too.
“Why you were so upset that I was fighting with Tegan.” I looked at him expectantly, and part of me thought he would just brush me off and walk out of the classroom. The bell was about to ring, and I had my fingers crossed that it would hold off long enough for him to answer.
“Fair enough.” He paused thoughtfully before continuing. “It matters to me if you get expelled. Your safety is important to me,” he answered coolly.
I had no idea what to make of that. Truthfully, I had no idea what to make of anything about him. He was like nothing I had experienced. The obvious follow up question to what he just said would be, why do those things matter to you? Instead of asking that, I just stared at him, trying to collect my thoughts and slow the fluttering of my heart, and then the bell rang before I had a chance to really find anything out.
“We should get to class.” Finn went to the door and held it open for me.
“Okay,” I nodded and walked over to the door. I stopped when I was right next to him and looked up at him. This close up, his eyes were even more intimidating, and he smelled sweetly of cologne. “But if you every drag me away like that again, I will punch you. Hard.”
“I don’t doubt you will, and I’ll keep that in mind.” A hint of his smile played on the corner of his lips, sending my ridiculous heart into a tailspin.
I lowered my eyes and hurried out the door. I glanced back over my shoulder as I walked away, and he was going in the opposite direction. Taking a deep breath, I rushed to my locker and tried to convince myself that I wasn’t attracted to that clearly disturbed boy. Patrick was waiting anxiously at my locker, but he broke out into a relieved smile when he saw me. Tegan and any sign of our fight were long gone.
“So, everything’s okay?” Patrick ruffled his hair and watched me as I struggled to open my locker. After he second, he offered, “Here. Let me try.
What’s your com?”
“36-21-7,” I told him. “I don’t know if everything’s okay. What happened after I left?”
“Mr. Meade came and got Tegan and took her to the nurses’ office,” Patrick explained, and he popped open my locker com almost immediately.
“She didn’t give up your name or anything, so you’re good. Where did you go?