Extra Ordinary (Riddle Era)

Chapter 18

The moment Tom saw her walking down the steps opposite him, he knew he was done for. There were too many thoughts in his head and inexplicable books in his arms and not a single excuse on his tongue and it was all her fault.

His head was a jumble, running over the million impossible implications of her words with Warren. Over the insane, terrifying, wonderful idea that she might truly be precisely as patient and gentle and kind as she pretended. Over the ridiculous, alluring, unthinkable possibility that she might have been telling the truth.

The thoughts had been running on loop in Tom's brain, tripping over themselves, scrambling to find answers he didn't have, to search for some sanity in the madness that was everything about Steele. Because if she had been like that, patient and honest and full of words that were far too meaningful, for Myrtle Warren, for the biggest nobody in the entire school, for that shallow, eternally miserable girl no one would even have listened to if she'd suggested Steele was anything other than perfect, then maybe, just maybe, she wasn't pretending at all. After all, why would anyone bother pretending for Myrtle Warren?

Which wasn't the right question, really, because Tom knew he certainly would have kept the charade up even if it was only Warren to see, but he wouldn't have... tried. Not like Steele had tried. Because there was no one to see her kindness to Warren. No one to commend it. No one to care. Except Warren herself, of course, whose opinion, in the grade scheme of it all, meant nothing.

But Steele hadn't just gone out of her way to be kind to Warren, she'd made it sound like she did it regularly. Like this was a constant. Like she really was just... that... good. Which was insane, of course. No one was that kind without reason. No one offered solidarity and sweetness and support of the sort Steele had without expecting something in return. Which was exactly where he kept getting stuck. Because it was undeniable that Steele had offered it. But it was also undeniable that Myrtle Warren had nothing at all to offer back.

And if she was kind and sweet and caring to someone with nothing, then... well. Then might that mean that she cared? That those kind words were honest? The thought was laughable. Or should have been. No one was that honest. No one was that good. And no one cared. He had learned that young. He was not going to let himself forget it.

And yet... and yet, what if she had been honest? What if she did care? What then?

And this was where his thoughts always seemed to end up, no matter how he tried to rationalize his way around it. This was where he kept getting stuck, over and over as he'd slunk through the library, collecting those books he didn't want anyone seeing. The genealogies he didn't have a way to explain an interest in. The newspaper articles no sane person would care about. The birth records and dry government texts that in the hands of an orphan would only ever mean one thing.

And it was because of this distraction, because of his preoccupation with her, that Tom didn't notice Steele until it was too late. Until he was standing in the middle of the staircase, painfully exposed. Until he was fully in her line of sight, arms laden with books and head full of a terrible blankness instead of the rush of excuses and lies and explanations he should have had ready made.

If he was honest, he considered bolting anyway, but he knew that would only make him more suspicious. So instead, he braced himself, electing not to read too much into the reality that part of him hadn't felt like running at all.

"Tom," Steele said a moment later, her voice surprised, if perhaps a bit tired as she caught sight of him from the opposite steps. "What are you doing up?"

Tom forced a smile that should have been harder than it was. "I could ask you the same," he countered, dodging the question even as he kept descending the steps towards her. "It's well past curfew." Which, of course, was perhaps not the most useful thing to point out since he was also out of bed, but then, he didn't think she would have forgotten that if he'd simply avoided saying it.