Page 3 of Across His Line

He thinks he’s the one in control of this. Everybody in this school thinks so, and on most days, so do I. So I give myself something small. I count to three, slowly, and I let him stand there and wait for it.

One. Two. Three.

Then I look.

His eyes are so dark they’re almost brown, and that’s how I know. That’s the tell. I’ve spent years learning his eyes. Dark green is annoyed. Forest green is a bad mood. This is something else.

“You’re not going to Woodbury.” He looks between my eyes, back and forth, close enough that I can smell the Trident winter mint gum he’s always smacking. “I don’t want to fucking see you there. Withdraw your application, little Tessa.”

I blink.

“Do you understand?”

I can see both paths so clearly they might as well be painted on the stairs.

If I talk, he’ll threaten me. My job, my mother, my reputation, my name in a group chat, whatever’s cheapest for him in this moment. He’s never had to pay for anything in his life, which is exactly why he always knows what things cost other people.

If I don’t, I’ll spend the rest of my life fantasizing about all the things I would’ve, should’ve, could’ve said to him. I’ll be forty, folding towels in some kitchen, suddenly furious at a boy who doesn’t remember my name.

I don’t like to live with regrets. I’ve watched what they do to people when they’re left out too long.

We graduate in nine weeks anyway. Standing up to the boy who’s made my life a living hell is overdue.

I step forward and tilt my head up to look at him.

“Unfortunately, Rafferty,” I say sweetly, “I’m going to Woodbury whether you like it or not. So, no. We don’t have an understanding. And we never will. You’re a fool to think someone like me could ever be obsessed with a boy like you. Look at you.”

I drag my eyes down the whole length of him. Tall. Built. A face people take photographs of without asking. And I feel the lie of what I’m about to say sitting on my tongue, because he is the most beautiful thing in this school, and every person in it knows that, including me. But he’s also mean, and rude, and cruel in a way that takes effort, and I think the effort is the part I’ve never been able to forgive. Anybody can be careless. He works at it.

And then I hesitate.

I have the words ready. I’ve had them ready for years. I’ve rehearsed this in the shower and on the bus and in the dark with my eyes open, a million times, until I knew exactly where I’d pause and which word I’d lean on. I know where it would land, because I know where he’s soft. I’ve always known. I could poison him with it. Make it unforgettable. Push until something in that perfect face finally bled.

For one stupid moment, I want to so badly that my hands go hot.

But then I’d be him.

That’s the trouble with knowing where someone is soft. It isn’t a weapon until you decide it is. And I’ve spent my whole life being the thing other people decided to break, and I won’t do that to anyone. Not even him. Not even now, when he’d deserve every word.

The thing about privileged assholes like Rafferty Waleska is that they’re allowed to talk freely without consequence, and for someone like me, there’s always a price. Rafe has always made it very clear that he will make me pay it.

He towers over me. “You think this is a game, Tess?”

His voice has gone deep and low, and the shortened name lifts the hair on the back of my neck. Tess is what my grandma calls me. What the few people who love me call me. In his mouth, it sounds like something he’s taken off me and put in his own pocket.

“You’re going to withdraw your Woodbury application.” He looks down at me like I’m dirt. “Since when did you get brave, little Tessa?”

The words at the tip of my tongue are brutal. They have claws, and they’re begging to be let out, to tear down his fragile ego one strip at a time. But as I look into his eyes, they start to lighten.

They’re doing the opposite of what they normally do.

I’ve always known how to read people. A person tells you exactly who they are by the words they choose and how they say them, and by what their face does half a second after. I know this because Rafe isn’t my first bully. But he’s my favorite one, because at least while he talks down to me, I have a devastating face to look at.

In four years, I’ve seen green and dark green and almost brown. I’ve never seen this. It’s like watching a storm change its mind, and I don’t know what it means, and not knowing frightens me more than anything he’s said.

So I suck the venom back in and keep my words to myself.

Then he leans in and whispers, “I never want to see you again. Do you understand that, little Tessa? Soon we’re graduating from this place, and I never want to see you again.”