Chapter 2: First Session in the Library
984 Words
The St. Jude Academy library at 3:30 p.m. was usually a sanctuary of quiet ticking clocks, dust motes dancing in sunbeams, and the faint smell of old paper. Today, for Lydia, it felt more like an execution chamber.
She sat at a secluded wooden table in the back corner, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Spread out in front of her were two heavy calculus textbooks, two fresh highlighters, a mechanical pencil, and a neatly organized spiral notebook.
Her watch ticked over to 3:35 p.m.
Five minutes late.
Lydia tapped her pencil against the table, her jaw set tight. Of course George would be late. He was probably doing it on purpose, trying to test her patience so she’d run back to Principal Hayes and throw in the towel.
Not a chance, she thought fiercely. My scholarship is on the line. I am not letting him ruin this.
Just as she pulled out her phone to check the time again, the heavy oak doors of the library creaked open. Heavy, unhurried footsteps echoed against the hardwood floor.
George walked into the aisle, throwing his leather jacket onto the back of the empty chair opposite her. He pulled out the chair with a loud scrape that earned a sharp "Shh!" from the librarian three aisles over.
George ignored the librarian completely, dropping into the seat and slouched back, resting his ankle over his knee. His dark hair was wind-mussed, his necktie completely missing now, revealing the unbuttoned collar of his white shirt.
"You're late," Lydia said, her voice a low, disciplined whisper.
George leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes. "I had things to do, Vance."
"Things like getting into another fight or skipping track practice?" Lydia snapped, opening the calculus textbook to chapter four. "We have two hours. I'm not wasting a single minute of my time because you can't manage a clock."
George opened one eye, his dark grey gaze locking onto hers with an unnerving, lazy intensity. "Always so high and mighty, aren't you? Tell me, Lydia, do you ever pull that stick out of your spine, or do you sleep in a color-coded binder too?"
Lydia felt her cheeks burn with a sudden flash of heat. She leaned across the table, maintaining eye contact. "I am here because my entire college education depends on this grant. You are here because if you fail, your father stops paying your allowance and you don't graduate. So sit up, grab a pencil, and look at page seventy-two."
For a long, tense moment, neither of them moved. The air between them crackled with three years of unspoken resentment, anger, and memories of a childhood friendship that had burned to ashes.
Slowly, almost reluctantly, George sat forward. He rested his forearms on the table, bringing his face dangerously close to hers across the narrow wooden surface. Up close, she could see the tiny faint scar near his left eyebrow—a reminder of a summer afternoon years ago when he’d fallen out of her backyard oak tree trying to catch a stray cat for her.
Her heart did an involuntary, traitorous flutter. She forced herself to look down at the page.
"Limits and derivatives," George read off the top of the page, his voice dripping with boredom. "Thrilling."
"It's basic calculus, George. You failed the mid-term because you didn't show your work on question three," Lydia said, sliding the notebook toward him along with a blue pen. "Solve the first problem."
George looked at the paper, then tapped the pen against his chin. He picked up the pen, spun it effortlessly between his fingers, and scribbled down a three-digit number at the bottom of the page without writing a single step.
"Done," he murmured, tossing the pen back onto the desk.
Lydia blinked, looking at the number. She quickly double-checked her answer key.
It was correct.
She looked up at him in genuine surprise. "How did you... you didn't write down the formula."
George smirked, a real, arrogant, infuriating smirk that made her stomach do a weird flip. "I'm bad at attending class, Vance. I didn't say I was stupid."
Lydia narrowed her eyes, suddenly realizing something. "You know how to do this. You've known how to do this the entire semester!"
"Calculus is just logic," George said, leaning back again, watching her face carefully. "It's easy. It's people that are complicated."
"If you know the material, why are you failing?!" Lydia demanded, her voice rising slightly before she remembered where they were and lowered it. "Why are you letting Hayes threaten your graduation?"
George’s smirk faded, replaced instantly by that cold, unreadable mask he’d worn ever since the start of senior year. He looked away, gazing toward the dark stained-glass windows of the library.
"Because sometimes, Lydia," George said quietly, his baritone voice sending a chill down her neck, "failing is the only way to get people to stop expecting things from you."
Lydia stared at him, the harsh words she’d prepared dying in her throat. For a split second, the cold, rebellious bad boy vanished, and she caught a glimpse of the broken, lonely boy who had lost his mother three years ago—the exact summer he had stopped talking to her.
She reached out, her fingers hovering just inches from his hand on the wooden table before she caught herself and pulled back.
"Well," Lydia said softly, her tone softer than before. "I expect you to pass. Because my future depends on it."
George turned his head back to look at her. His grey eyes softened just a fraction, holding her gaze in the quiet afternoon light.
"Then I guess I'd better not fail," he whispered
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