Breaking the Ice

seventeen

Working through the last half of the semester and the deadlines for college applications only meant I spent more time holed up in the school library. It was fairly big and quiet, usually half-full with the students who actually cared to study, and monitored by the stout yet usually terrifying librarian who sometimes baked cookies for her favorite seniors. More often then not, I spent a couple of hours after class cluttering textbooks and stationary across the long mahogany desks with my friends. Today, Simon was seated diagonally across from me, chewing the eraser of his pencil over his dual-enrollment chemistry homework.

"Hey, do you remember what value big M stands for? Mega?" he asked, flitting through the pages of his notebook with his free hand. "Ten to the power of..?"

"Six, I think," I muttered, chin deep in the paragraph I was writing. "Double check me on that, though."

"You're right," he said after another second of looking, circling something on his practice sheet before tucking his cheek into his palm and staring at me. I cocked a brow in question, but he waved me off. "Nothing, nothing. Just... I dunno'."

"You know, you've been different lately." I pressed send on the email I had been drafting and snapped my laptop shut. I was planning to attend university on an athletic scholarship and had been scheduling interviews with coaches and admissions offices. "Nervous. A little tired. But happy, I think."

Simon chuckled, shaking his head before dipping it back into his books. "If you say so."

I smiled, laughed through my nose. "Anyone to blame?"

His eyes shot up to meet mine before darting back down. "No."

"How about at that college party you went to last weekend?" I pressed. "With the dual enrollment class?"

His cheeks flushed lightly and he ducked back into his homework to hide it, but his ears lit up pink. "No."

I grinned, leaning back into my chair and balancing on the back two legs. "Come on. Y'all are always prying into my sex life. Did you meet a nice college girl?"

"We pry into yours because there is a sex life," Simon said matter-of-factly. He pushed his glasses up his nose and crossed his arms. "The party was great and without sex. That's all."

I squinted at his turtleneck sweater. "Uh-huh. Sure."

Simon scowled, tugging at his collar. "Earlier this week, your neck looked like it caught fire and you tried to put it out with a vacuum cleaner. So don't start."

With a careful shrug, I reached to push my hair from my face. It needed a re-twist, and I swore to make my oldest sister, Leah, do it when she came down for the holidays. "Just because I'm getting some doesn't mean you're not," I said. "Don't dodge the question."

In all honesty, the only time I had seen Beau in the past month had been Sunday night, while Carrie and her parents were away at a cheer competition. With all the mock exams I'd had and college essays I'd choked through, most of my time was spent nosing in books and buried in homework. And all the time I was free, Beau was busy getting ready for his figure skating competition.

That meant, of course, that I showed up to school on Monday with a genuine concern that he had sat on my hips hard enough to break my poor, bruised pelvis in half. Even today, two days later, I wasn't too sure of my recovery.

"And what if I did sleep with someone?" Simon asked with a scoff. "What difference would it even make?"

"Then I'd expect you to be rubbing it in Jase's face," I replied, looking over his shoulder and meeting the familiar gaze there. "Shut up his virgin jokes."