White Teeth Teens

7. She's a Tease

**Author's note: This was written before the SAT rules changed in 2016. I noticed some people thought the SAT score was really good even though it's implied that it was bad. This is because I wrote this novel with the 2400-point grading system in mind.**

It's barely been an hour and I already want to leave. I shouldn't have walked away from the girls like that. Who knows where they are now in this mansion? I wonder if they would've helped me if they had seen what happened.

I start feeling awkward about being outside just staring off into space so I take out my phone scroll through Instagram. Dean posted a picture of the team huddled at the game today. Over fifty people have liked it so far. Being related to him sucks. It's like living in a shadow but you're allergic to the sun.

I hear the kitchen door open behind me and some of the noise leaks out. The door claps closed and the body of a boy curves itself around to check who I am.

"Oh, hey Rory." His voice is soft and he invites himself to sit at the edge of the lawn chair. Now that the porch light is on his face, I see that it's Ben. He's wearing the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and he smiles his buckteeth at me. I pull my legs closer to my body. I'm tense all over again.

"Hey." Ever since Liz made that comment, I've felt so strange around Ben. Nothing I want to say sounds right in my head. "Nice playing today," I manage.

"Thanks." Ben pulls out his phone and squints from the brightness of the screen. He taps at it a few times, sighs, and then puts it back in his pocket. "I have to be home soon."

"Why?"

"I've got an SAT class in the morning."

"SATs? I'm not taking those 'til at least Spring." Just the thought of them makes me shudder.

"Yeah, well, my brother basically failed them so my mom doesn't want me to take any chances."

"Can you fail the SATs?"

He laughs. "No, but he got a really, really bad score."

"How bad?"

"1340."

I cover my mouth with my hand. "Wow."

Ben peers at me. "You've got two eyelashes on your cheek right there." He points to them. I wipe my cheek until Ben says, "You're good."

I notice that his eyes follow my hand as I rest them in my lap. "So how do you like Drawing class?" I ask.

"It's okay, I just didn't think we'd been drawing so many shapes." He rubs his eyes and pushes his palms down his face with one great sigh.

"Yeah, and Mr. Tom is kinda creepy," I say.

Ben starts cracking up. "Have you... have you called him that in class?" His shoulders bob up and down.

"No!" I'm horrified. "What? Why?"

"No one calls him Mister Tom. It's just Tom!" Ben's still laughing at me. "If you called him that in class, I bet he'd embarrass the crap out of you. Just seems like that kinda guy."

"Oh crap! Really?" I groan and cover my eyes with my hands. Ben tries to peel my hands away from my face.

"Hey, no, no, I didn't mean to freak you out! You never even called him that to his face, so you're fine!"

"Well I'm still embarrassed. You're laughing at me."

"I will never laugh at you again, Rory." He pretends to zip his mouth shut and throws away the invisible key. The sound of glass breaking echoes inside but we both ignore it. "So why are you out here all alone?" Ben asks.