Rider flipped on the light and then dropped my bag on the table. “So why did you change it to the library?” he asked before I could start harping on the college thing again.
Ainsley’s question from last night resurfaced and I shoved it away. I could tell him it was because of Paige, but I figured he didn’t want to hear that right now. “I thought...it would be easier.”
He nodded in response.
I watched him for a moment and then walked over to my bag and unzipped it. The tinny sound echoed in the cool, white-walled room. There was nothing in here except a round table and four chairs. A lone black Sharpie rested in the center of the table.
Rider sat and leaned back, tossing his arm along the back of the chair next to him. He looked over at me, a small grin teasing his lips. Our gazes collided and held. A flutter took flight deep in my chest. His grin spread and the flutter increased.
“Why are you looking...at me like that?” The moment the question left my lips I sort of wanted to shove it back in. It was a stupid question.
The dimple appeared. “I like staring at you.”
My brows rose.
He chuckled. “That kind of sounded creepy, didn’t it? What I meant is that... Well, yeah, I like staring at you. So it is as creepy as it sounds.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “It’s not...creepy. I just...”
“What?” he asked when I didn’t continue.
What could I say to him? That I didn’t get why he would enjoy staring at me? That there were much better options out there for him? That would sound terrible. It wasn’t like I thought I was the ugliest person in the world. I was...I guess, passably pretty. But I was realistic about the way I looked, and I didn’t look like Paige or Keira or Ainsley.
I shook my head, focusing on something else. “You want...to go first?” I offered, pulling out my notebook. I flipped it open, and pulled out the speech I had folded.
“Would love to.” Rider leaned forward with a grin. “But I haven’t written mine yet.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
“I’ll get to it.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go ahead.”
“But you’ve seriously only been drawing in class? Not working—”
“I’ll have it down, Mouse. Promise.” He lifted his hand, wiggling his pinky at me. “I’ll pinky promise.”
I sighed. “I don’t...need a pinky promise.”
Rider just grinned as he leaned back and crossed his arms. Taking a deep breath, I stared down at my speech. The words blurred a bit, as if there was something wrong with my vision. My heart rate kicked up. I drew in a deep breath that got caught.
“You can do this,” he said quietly.
I closed my eyes briefly. I could do this. “The United States of America...has th-three branches of the...”
I did it.
Well, I struggled through it, and I was pretty sure my first run did not come in under three minutes. More like ten as I got hung up on a word and then I started stuttering, because my eyes kept wanting to read ahead, so that didn’t help. At Rider’s suggestion, I tried it sitting down. Then standing again. I did it so many times there was a good chance I might be able to remember it by heart.
Rider was patient through the whole thing, which pretty much raised him to saint status, because who seriously wanted to listen to me pause and stutter through an informative speech about a dozen times. Someone could record it and Satan could play it over and over, on an endless loop, to torture people in hell.
“I...I hate that I have to think about every single word.” I sat down and dropped the paper on the table, my arms falling into my lap. “It’s embarrassing. People are going to make fun...of me.”
“People are assholes, Mouse. You already know that.” He paused as he scooped some of my hair back, gently tossing the strands over my shoulder. “And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”
I glanced over at him. Everything about his steady gaze and the serious press of his lips screamed earnest. But he was wrong. “It is...embarrassing.”
“Not if you don’t let it be.” His leg brushed mine as he turned in his seat, facing me. Our eyes met. “You have the power over that. People can say crap. They can think whatever they want, but you control how you feel about it.”
Damn.
That was deep and mature.
“You sound like Dr. Taft,” I blurted out.
His brows lifted. “Who’s that?”
“He was...” Oh. Hold up. Rider didn’t know I’d been seeing a therapist.
He tilted his head to the side and waited. “He was what?”
Oh no. I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Deep down, I knew that having received therapy wasn’t something to feel bad about. With my background—our background—it was, frankly, expected. But just like with not talking, there was an ugly and oftentimes brutal stigma attached to therapy.
And Rider? He appeared to come out of our childhood relatively unscathed. Hadn’t he? He wasn’t seeing a therapist. He talked normally. Was he really unscathed, though? I thought about all the classes he skipped and how he said no one really cared. Rider believed that, so did he expect nothing for himself?
“Mouse?” He tugged on a strand of my hair. “Who’s Dr. Taft?”
I looked away, focusing on the printed speech. What did it matter anyway? I knew Rider wasn’t going to disown me as a friend. I drew in a shallow breath. “Dr. Taft was my...therapist. I saw him for about three years. I stopped a little bit ago, because I...I felt like I was ready.”