The Book Thief 》Hemmings A.U

19.00

     THREE CLASSES LATER I find myself leaning against the library doors, blowing on loose strands of my curly blonde hair impatiently as I wait for Luke. The school bell dismissing students rang ten minutes ago, and I had tried to waste time by unloading books at my locker at a pace equivalent to that of a sloth, trudging down the steps, waiting in the back of the mile long bathroom line to do nothing but reapply lip gloss, and even looping around the school twice. Despite prolonging my arrival, Luke still wasn't at the library like we had planned. Part of me thought that he was going to ditch me again like the night we nearly got arrested, but it had only been ten minutes and I was getting ahead of myself.

     After a grand total of fifteen minutes, Luke arrives; smirking and playing with his lip ring and sliding against the wall beside me. He presses his back firmly against it, book bag slung over his right shoulder as he turns to face me.

      "Does your lip gloss taste like something?" Luke chirps as way of a greeting, a genuine smile --as opposed to the annoying, cocky one-- spreading along his lips. "Kate wears one that tastes like mints. I roll my eyes, groaning quietly without even bothering to hide my distaste. Kate wears one that tastes like mints, I mimic silently to myself, huffing as I pull my bag closer to my body.

      "Strawberries, I think....?" I trail off halfheartedly, forehead crinkling in confusion. Being around him never failed to make me profoundly confused. Luke nods briefly before running his pointer finger across my bottom lip; lingering for a fraction of a second. He draws it back with an annoying smirk and slowly presses his finger to his tongue.

        "You thought correctly," He whispers, biting his bottom lip. I clear my throat and step away from him, sliding past his tall frame to slip into the library. What the fuck was he doing? 

      I settle down on a table near the back of the library and empty out the contents of my book bag, spreading the studying material out like I had earlier with Lucy. Luke sits across from me, eagerly wrapping his fingers around the one and only math book on the table.

     "Math?" I trail off slowly, handing him a pencil. He nods, pressing his lips together.

     I was never one to turn down studying, especially with retakes so close, but I didn't exactly want to start off with math. I thought that it was complicated and even borderline unnecessary. It's like finding a simple answer can't be allowed; there's some kind of rule that says there has to be a gazillion steps to every damn problem.

     "How do you think I got such a good score? I'm not stupid, just...." He leans forward in his seat, scanning over the stack of index cards laid out. "Apathetic. And yes, I do know what that word means and yes, I used it in the right context. You're going to have to step up your resources if you want us to get a better SAT score, Cohen." Luke grins with his tongue poking out and I grit my teeth, wanting more than anything to smack him upside the head. I knew it. I knew that the Luke of last night would be easily replaced. That he would return to the self righteous asshole I hated so very much. I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

 ✉✉✉

       Luke taught me a thing or two about math, which I was grateful for. The good thing about taking PSAT'S (despite already having taken the SAT's) is that results are returned with incorrect answers. Luke and I walked through them, so at least now I wouldn't get questions similar to those wrong again.

     What I wasn't grateful for, though, was the fact that he wanted both Lucy and I to attend the football game taking place later tonight. It was the homecoming game; so amped up in Wilmington and just about everywhere else on the planet that not going is just as bad as murdering someone, if not worse. Honestly, people took sports way too seriously.