Carter Ortese is Trouble - completed (The Boys #1)

Chapter 11: Carter

My desperation is stupid.

The plan had been to play it cool, act nonchalant, like the date was no big deal. I had wanted to make Emma sweat a little bit. Or at least, not let her know how much I care. Not right away.

But the second I saw her watering eye and her scowl from the headache, I wanted to fix it, do anything to make it better. At least, I didn't want to make it worse. Everything I had planned to say went out the window, and instead I started a normal conversation. Normal is not my style.

I slam my locker shut and sigh. Who am I kidding? I have no normal, and I have no game. I wear the assumptions that people make about me like armor. My fake reputation prevents me from getting involved. I shouldn't get involved--it makes things complicated.

But how is that different from anyone else?

I head into my Pre-Calculus class, kicking myself for asking Emma to the mall. I had no intention of actually taking her inside, but anywhere else would have sounded cooler. Heck, bowling would have sounded cooler. I start toward my seat in the back of the classroom, but stop as my teacher clears her throat.

"Carter." My name hangs from her lips as a standalone sentence, and I cringe.

All of my classmates' eyes swing to me. They stare at me like I'm a monster, like I'm nothing, like I'd be better off dead like my dad. Their gazes penetrate through me, leaving an unsettling feeling in my stomach. None of these people know me, but they judge me just the same.

"A word?" Her words are clipped and short.

I curl my hands into fists and keep them clenched at my sides. I nod, turning toward her. As the bell signaling the beginning of the period rings, she stands up from the desk and lumbers to the door. She opens it and gestures for me to go into the hallway. The class erupts in giggles, making Mrs. Everett give them all a tight-lipped glare. I enter the hall, skin crawling at the thought of what this conversation could possibly be about. While I don't like Pre-Calculus, I'm pretty sure I've been doing okay based on my past test scores.

She shuts the door behind us, and her jowls jiggle around her face as she cuts a scowl at me. She would laser straight through my heart if she could.

"Yes?" I ask.

"I need you to tell me what happened on your last exam."

"I failed?" I don't see how. I knew every answer. The test had been easy, and I intentionally wrote one answer incorrectly, so that it wouldn't seem suspicious. Now that I'm thinking about it, I did that for a lot of my classes. No one expects me to be smart, so I can't be smart.

She snorts. "Hardly, but you had the same exact answers as another person in class, someone who sits near you. Down to the same incorrect answer that you both got horribly wrong."

I narrow my eyes, understanding dawns on me. She thinks I cheated. Since I didn't, it means one of my other classmates did. But why would anyone copy off me?

I think about Lawrence Buchanan and how he sleeps his way through his lunch coma in the desk next to mine. I also think about how Meredith Keltz spends more time texting than anything else. Either one of them could have been desperate enough, and it's not like I covered my paper at all. I breezed through the questions, and anyone could have copied off me.

"I don't see why I'm getting blamed for this," I say, even though I know exactly why I'm getting blamed for this.

"None of the others have done as bad as you throughout the semester," she blubbers.

"So no one else has a B average? Everyone is above that?" I sneer, annoyance slowly boiling into anger.

She crosses her arms, and the skin on her biceps shakes like gelatin. "Don't get smart with me, Carter Ortese, I—"