Chapter 135

He knows.

I don’t know how he knows, I don’t know who in this building has a death wish severe enough to gossip to Elias Arden about my business, but he knows, and he’s sitting there with that barely-there smile like he’s already won something and we haven’t even been in this room for five minutes. I turn back to my notebook and write absolutely nothing on the clean page in front of me because I can’t remember what class this notebook is even for and my brain is too busy formulating ways to make the next two weeks survivable.

The proctor, whose name tag reads Ms. Finch and who has not looked up from her paperback once, clears her throat at the front of the room for no apparent reason and then goes back to reading. The fluorescent light buzzes faintly overhead. Someone two rows ahead is clicking a pen in a rhythm that I am going to need them to stop immediately.

“You’re not going to ask me how I know?” Elias says, without looking up from his book.

“I’m not g