She stared at me for a minute. “All right. Wait here.”
I turned and found Roman sitting on the bench outside the principal’s office. Staring at me.
“What are you doing, Juliet?” he asked in a low voice when I approached.
“Someone needs to tell the truth about what happened.”
He stared at me as if no one had ever offered to stand up for him before. “Don’t get in trouble over me. I’m not worth it.”
My fingers nudged his chin, trying to angle his head back so I could see his eyes. Roman was stubborn though. “You’re wrong.”
Behind us, the door opened and the secretary spoke to Mr. W.
“Juliet, come on inside.”
I felt the weight of Roman’s stare with every step I took toward the open door.
Chapter Four
Roman
Juliet stunned me. Not only was she beautiful on the outside, she was pure beauty on the inside.
I glanced down at my bruised knuckles, already covered in a life’s worth of scars.
No one had ever stood up for me before. Not my parents before they died, not my grandmother when the state took me away from her, not my teachers who saw the bruises on me from my first set of foster parents, not my “good” foster parents that I prayed would adopt me, not the social workers or the lawyers appointed to me by the system. No one.
Juliet barely knew me, yet she’d done more for me in one day than anyone else in my entire life.
The door opened, and Juliet stepped out, a whole lot more confident than when she went inside.
The principal spoke quietly to his secretary for a second then motioned me over.
“Miss Hayworth explained that you were defending yourself and that the other student almost hurt her as well.” His eyes scanned my face to see if I was surprised. If Juliet lied.
“Yes, sir.”
“No more trouble from you, Roman. It’s only your first day.”
“I’ll do my best.”
That didn’t seem to reassure him, but he dismissed me anyway.
Juliet waited in the hallway for me. Smiled when she saw me.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked, falling into step beside her. “Where’s your next class?”
“AP English.”
I pulled out my schedule. “That’s where I’m headed too.”
She raised an eyebrow as if it surprised her that I had been placed in an advanced class.
“What’s wrong? I don’t look like someone who’d take advanced anything, do I?”
She shrugged. “That’s not what I was going to say, but since you said it, yes.”
Feeling fired up after the fight and narrowly escaping trouble, I gave her a cocky wink. “I’m full of surprises, sweetheart.”
Her lips curled into a playful smile. “I’m sure you are.”
“It is.”
“Let’s go.”
She handed me her backpack and I slung it over my shoulder, marveling that she managed to lug it around all day. “You smuggling a body in this thing? It must weigh as much as you,” I teased.
“Usually I don’t like stopping at my locker during the day.” She blushed and looked away. “Never had a good reason to before,” she said in a softer voice.
It says a lot about how gone I was over this girl that it took me a minute to realize she was talking about me.