In Waves | ✔️

26 | impulse

"What's your problem?"

It's the first thing I say to Nate when I get to his locker. He's rifling around in there, not even giving so much as a blink at my presence.

"I don't have a problem." He shrugs, smoothing out a rumpled sheet of paper.

"Yeah? Then why did you just say all of that in front of Matt? Throwing all those hints!"

"No idea what you're referring to, DeMarco."

"God, you are such a smartass." I glance at his overstuffed locker that makes my hair stand on end. "E il tuo armadietto è ridicolo! Come è già così disordinato?!"

His face whips to mine. "You speak Italian?"

"What? No."

"Pretty sure you just did."

"I—I did?" My knotted brows tighten. "I mean, I barely know it. Sometimes it just comes out if I'm angry enough."

He smirks. "That's kinda hot. If you're gonna keep yelling at me then can you stick to Italian? Regular yelling isn't such a turn on."

I'm about to blow my top before I realize how many people are in this hallway, and how many of them are going to start looking at us if I can't keep my cool. But I'm too worked up to stay calm, so I shut Nate's locker and grab him by the arm, dragging him into the first empty room where I can confront him to my heart's content.

I push him in front of me and switch on the dim light. It's a small storeroom full of old desks and shelves of weathered textbooks. The reeking smell of mold stings my nostrils.

"You said you were okay with this, Nate!" I dig my nails in my palms, making sure I don't slip into Italian. "You said you were cool with us just being friends!"

"I am."

"Then why did you say that stuff?"

He hops up to sit on a desk, gripping the edge. "Maybe I like making you sweat."

Unlike at the carnival, his eyes stay on mine this time. Burning me from a far, making me feel as thin and flimsy as paper. Setting me alight to see through.

"Don't look at me like that," I say.

"Like what?"

"Like you know what I'm thinking. You don't."

He cocks his head. "Don't I?"

I wrench my eyes away. My anger is subsiding, fear taking its place. I'm suddenly scared of being in here with him. Not because I'm scared of him, but because I'm scared of the effect he seems to have on me. Scared of what I might do in a moment of impulse.

"All right, I admit I pushed it a bit far back there." He breaks the silence. "But this shit is clearly sending you on a guilt trip, so why don't you just tell him?"

"Tell him? Are you kidding?" I scoff.

"If he's into you then he'll get over it. And if he can't then he's not into you enough."

I shake my head so hard it hurts my skull. "You don't get it, Nate. It's not like Matt just randomly asked me out last week. We've been talking for over a month. He's liked me for that long, but I've liked him since I was in sixth grade. I've wanted to be his girlfriend forever, and now I am. If I tell him I was with you that night—when he already asked me out, when we were technically together—not only would it hurt him, but he'll never trust me. And he'd either dump me or he wouldn't want me hanging out with you, and I don't... I don't want that."

My words hang in the air, thickening until Nate lets out a sigh and blows them away. "I don't want that either. So I won't mess with you again, okay?"

"Don't say that if you don't mean it, because I swear to god if you throw hints in front of him again then that's it, we cut ties right now and the only DeMarco you'll be friends with is my idiot brother."