Rites of Passage | Damian x OC

13. In Control

"Keep on playing that song that I don't like

I just wanna feel normal for the night

Keep on kissing that guy that's not my type

I just wanna feel normal for the night

I should go, it's getting late

But Imma keep dancing 'til I feel okay"

~ Sasha Sloan, "Normal"

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"'Alma mater.'"

Startled, large hazel eyes landed on Damian as Jess's head whipped towards where he stood behind her, his voice having jolted her from her thoughts. When he'd walked past her sitting at one of the empty library tables near the nonfiction section they'd been working on for the last week, the small magazine she was bent over had caught his eye. Another quick glance over her shoulder and he was both taken aback and intrigued to see it was a crossword puzzle book. A small portion of it was complete with her scrawled handwriting, but even with just a few seconds of looking at it, Damian had the whole thing nearly finished in his head.

"Huh?"

Her brows wrinkled together in bewilderment while she looked him up and down, clearly baffled as to why he was standing there, hands clasped behind his back and spouting a seemingly random word at her.

Damian nodded at the book her hands were pressed over. "Nine-across. It's 'alma mater.'"

It took a moment for her to glance at the page and consider what he'd said, but the realization soon had her brows lifting with thrilled surprise as she immediately filled in the boxes with her blue pen. He came around the table and sat down across from her, figuring he'd take the remainder of his break here as well.

"Thanks, but... why were you looking over my shoulder?" Jess asked, glancing up at him after writing the answer in the puzzle.

"Curiosity," he answered casually and without a trace of guilt.

She pursed her lips then and looked down at the page, twirling the pen between her fingers and seemingly having no response to his reply.

"I never would have pegged you to be the kind of person who does crossword puzzles."

With a shrug, Jess met his eyes again. "I've been finding new ways to stay busy. It gets irritating and boring being on my phone all the time or just doing things that rely on technology, you know, like streaming tv shows and all that. It's nice to do something different."

"I doubt many teenagers these days could even say they know what a crossword puzzle is."

She sat back in her chair and folded her arms, quirking a single brow. "You're assuming I'm a teenager?"

Damian mirrored her facial expression, lifting a brow, too. "You're saying you're not?"

A beat of silence passed until she leaned back forward and rested her elbows on the table, a light grin on her face. "Nah, you got me. I'm seventeen, still a baby."

Was that her way of saying she was still not a legal adult? He'd never understood people's infatuation with becoming of legal age whether for a driver's license, legal adulthood, or consumption of alcohol and recreational drugs. It was all nonsense anyway—if she was referring to the fact that she wasn't yet a legal adult, he'd have to refrain from giving his unwarranted opinion about how she was still old enough to make her own decisions regardless of law.