The Education of Hailey Kendrick - Eileen Cook [33]
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you do something embarrassing like fall down the stairs in front of a group of people, you are required to act like you are fine, even if you aren’t. Your arm could have a bone jutting out, and you would still try to laugh it off as if everything were hunky dory. This compound fracture? It’s nothing! I like to let my bones out of my body once in a while for fresh air. It’s good for them.
“I’m fine,” I said, trying to give Mr. Harrington the impression that nothing important had happened and he didn’t need to call Ms. Estes. She played by the book. She would require me to go to the hospital to make sure I didn’t have a brain bleed or anything that could be blamed on her. If there were painful medical tests I would have to undergo, she’d love it even more. With my luck she would insist on sleeping in my room so she could wake me up every ten minutes in case I had a concussion. I took a step back from Mr. Harrington so that he could see I wasn’t going to fall over. He pulled a Kleenex from his pocket and handed it to me. He motioned with his hand to my mouth. I touched my lip with the Kleenex and saw a bright bloom of red appear. One of my teeth must have cut my lip. Great.
I looked back to the top of the stairs. Tristan was starting to back away. Joel’s mouth was hanging open in shock. He couldn’t have looked more surprised if he had found the tooth fairy lying sprawled at the bottom of his staircase. He looked down at me and then over at Tristan, as if he weren’t sure what might happen.
“Tristan, wait.” I started up the stairs after him, wincing and adding an ankle strain to the list of injuries. I slipped between Kelsie and Joel at the top.
“What are you doing here?” Kelsie whispered as I went past.
I didn’t bother to answer. I kept my focus on Tristan, who was still walking away. The two sophomore girls were standing in the hall, thrilled to have a front row view of this action. I was surprised they didn’t pull out popcorn and Team Tristan T-shirts.
“Stop.” I grabbed the back of Tristan’s sweater. He whirled around, and I took a quick step back.
“What do you want?” he asked in a hard, flat voice.
“I need to talk to you,” I said.
Tristan laughed, and the sound was harsh, nearly barking. “You know what I need? I need to know that I can trust the people in my life. I need to know my girlfriend of four years hasn’t been screwing around on me. I need to know when someone is talking to me that they’re telling me the truth.”
“I’ll tell you the truth.”
“Who was the guy?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Tristan shook his head, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Well, that’s great. This has been a really useful conversation.”
“That’s not what’s important. It doesn’t matter who it was. What matters is that it didn’t mean anything. It never should have happened, and if I could take it back, I would. I can tell you that it never happened before that night and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been in some sort of crazy state.” I whirled my hands around my head to indicate just how nuts I was.
“How do you live with knowing what you did? I would never have done something like that to you. Never.”
I looked down at my feet. He was right. He wouldn’t have. Given the circles his parents traveled in and the fact that he was both good-looking and rich, Tristan was always surrounded by girls who wanted him. They’d flirt with him when I was standing right there, and he always brushed them off. He wasn’t someone who didn’t have opportunity; he was someone who didn’t have that kind of motivation.
“I am so sorry. I’m more sorry than I’ve ever been in my life. I don’t mind being on restriction and having to clean the school. I can even live with the fact that everyone’s mad at me, but I hate that I hurt you.”
“Do you love this guy?”
“No! He means nothing. The kiss meant nothing.”
Tristan looked me straight in the eyes, his stare pinning me to the ground. “That makes it worse, you know. I know you think