Deeper

Library

West pulls out his earbuds, and I try to think something other than the word doomed. Doomed, doomed, doomed.

I try to remember what I was going to say to him—I had a whole speech planned—but I can’t. I can’t.

I stare at his belt, instead.

I think about grabbing it and yanking him closer. As if this is a thing I could do. A thing I have ever done, with anyone, much less West Leavitt.

Doooooomed.

“Hey,” he says.

Which isn’t fair, because it means I have to look up.

I do, eventually.

Our eyes meet. His pupils are huge, and there’s something so intense about the way he’s looking at me, it’s kind of scary. Only scary is the wrong word. I’ve felt a lot of scary in the past few weeks, and this is different.

This is scary like pausing at the top of the steepest hill on a roller coaster, bracing yourself for the drop.

“Hey,” I say back.

“What’s up?”

“Can I talk to you?”

He considers this request. “No.”

It’s not what I was expecting him to say. All I can come up with is “Oh.”

Then it’s totally silent again except for his music, and there’s this . . . this atmosphere. I think it must be him. I think he’s making the atmosphere with his skin and his eyes, which look almost silver right now, and maybe he’s also making it with all the muscles in his forearms, which are clenching and unclenching his hands in this way that’s just—

It’s just something. Intense, I guess. Menacing, but without the menace.

I have never stood this close to him before. I’ve never been alone with him since the day he parked his car right next to my feet and made me pass out.

I’ve never felt this excited, awkward, and senselessly worried in my whole entire life.

Until he takes a step toward me. That’s worse.

Better, too.

Better-worse. It’s totally a thing.

I back up.

He’s supposed to stop stepping toward me when I back up, but he doesn’t. He keeps coming. He moves right into my zone of personal space, and I get pinned up against the stacks, my butt pressing against a low shelf, West’s hands braced on either side of my head.

“I’m working,” he says. As though I’m a book, and he’s shelving me.

I try to say, I’ll come back later, but instead I make this sort of clicking, gargling noise that makes me sound like a bullfrog. I can feel my throat flushing—always a dead giveaway that I’m embarrassed. I clear it and manage to say “That’s fine. I can . . . come back. Or I’ll c-call you.”

I don’t have his phone number. Or any intention of calling him.

I don’t know why I’m imagining I can feel the heat off his skin, because that’s impossible. He isn’t that close, surely. I cast my eyes up, trying to visually measure the number of inches between our faces.

It’s not very many inches at all.

West doesn’t touch me, but he is much closer than he needs to be, and the way he’s looking down at me, his chest rising and falling rapidly, color high in his cheeks—I can’t help but think about his fist connecting with Nate’s mouth. The way Nate fell to the floor, heavy and limp.