Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 58871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58871 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 294(@200wpm)___ 235(@250wpm)___ 196(@300wpm)
“Actually, Mr. Feeny,” I said, taking pity on Banks. “We already did that one today. You have the answer right there on the other side of the room.”
The room itself was set up college style with the front walls covered in dry erase boards. We’d taken over an old lecture room for the time being since our room had black mold in the walls.
We really had solved that problem already.
Or I had.
Yesterday.
Because I was the only one who would voluntarily get up and solve any of the equations in front of the class.
Mr. Feeny turned to survey the problem he’d been about to have Banks solve, and I saw Banks flash to the answer.
I saw the wheels turning in his head as he stared at the problem.
Feeny erased the problem, then gestured for Banks to come up and solve that one anyway.
Banks had enough time, though.
See, Banks had a picture-perfect memory. He could see something once and memorize it, and never have to look at it again.
That was why he was so good at science when I wasn’t.
All he had to do was see the teacher write it onto the board, or read it in the text, and he’d know it—forever.
Me? Not so much. I’d have to study for hours to accomplish the same thing. And I’d forget it all by the next period.
Banks walked up to the front of the room and solved the problem. Though, solving it would be the wrong word. More like he wrote it down, number for number, line by line, like I’d solved it yesterday.
He even added the little curlicue to the seven that I had.
Though, that was for my benefit, I could tell, and not anybody else’s.
When he was done he walked back to his seat and kept his eyes directly on me the entire way.
The expression on his face was one that I couldn’t quite distinguish.
Gratefulness?
But it was gone half a second later, and he sneered.
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms.
I didn’t let the hot boy see me cringe.
No. Nope. Nuh-uh.
Chapter 3
I’m too busy fighting my own immune system to be dealing with your immature ass.
-Candy to Banks
Candy
“I’ll bet you fifty bucks that he’ll say yes,” Mack Culpepper said to me.
Mack and I were friends.
Not best friends, and not even good friends.
More like acquaintances.
Outcasts. Like attracted to like.
We sat at the same lunch table and ate lunch together when the weather didn’t permit us to be outside—which was where we both preferred.
“I’m not asking him.” I shook my head.
“I bet he’d say yes,” he repeated.
“He wouldn’t,” I promised.
“It would be the best revenge ever,” Mack pushed.
It would.
It so would.
I could ask him to be my date, then he’d be forced to dance with me. Banks, the most popular boy in school, if he said yes, would be subjected to dancing with me—Candy Ray Sunshine. The resident goth girl who nobody liked.
That was when I narrowed my eyes.
Banks was sitting in the middle of the cafeteria. He had all his football buddies, and his twin Callum, sitting next to him.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll go do it.”
I stood up.
“Now?” Mack squeaked. “You’re going to do it now in front of all of his friends?”
I shrugged.
What did it matter when I did it?
I marched right up to Banks, stared him in the eye, and said, “Will you go to the dance with me?”
I never in a million years expected him to say yes.
But he did.
Chapter 4
Having thick thighs means you can hold more puppies in your lap. Who’s winning now?
-Candy to Banks
Candy
I got dressed up.
I had my dad drop me off at the school after making sure that everything was just so.
I walked inside of the gymnasium where the dance was being held, my hair a long, slick sheet of black straight down my back, swishing with each step that I took.
And my eyes found him.
He was standing next to the punch bowl with a cup in his hand.
He had a white cowboy hat on his head, and he had a blue starched chambray shirt tucked into skin-tight dark-washed Wrangler jeans. He was even wearing his good boots. Not the ones that he wore to school with cow shit on them, but the ones that he wore to church on Sundays when he attended with his mother.
I smiled and started walking toward him.
Which was when Casey Danae walked up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed his cheek.
I didn’t let Casey’s actions deter me, though.
Banks was my date to this dance.
I’d asked him.
He’d said yes in front of the whole school.
Casey knew that he was my date.
Even if they’d been dating on and off again for the last year.
I walked slowly, carefully since I was unused to the heels that I was wearing, toward where Banks was standing with his friends.