“But I need to see him,” I ground out. “Please.”
Another sigh. “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe there’s a no-school day coming up. I’ll check it out.”
I nodded before I remembered she couldn’t see me. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
After dinner that night, I headed upstairs determined to catch up on schoolwork so that Maeve would let me start seeing Caleb during the week. Each of my teachers had handed me a manilla folder filled with worksheets and lists of makeup assignments. A week’s worth of lessons wouldn’t have been so bad, but I’d also missed the week before because Dad had some sort of conference that he’d taken me to because he didn’t trust me at home by myself.
I sighed as I looked at the thick stack of work. Well, it was only going to get worse once I got my missed assignments from my other classes the next day. I grabbed the Calculus folder, knowing the longer I put it off, the worse it would be.
The math problems on the first sheet took longer to fumble through than I’d ever admit. After slogging through the last problem and getting three different answers, I picked one and slammed the book shut, glaring at it. But a glare wasn’t satisfying enough. I swept the math book off the desk so I could hear the thud of it hitting the carpet.
I clenched and unclenched my hands and flexed my jaw. I needed something easy to do—something that wouldn’t make me want to set the dumb textbook on fire. That didn’t leave many choices; I was behind in every single subject. At least my English teacher said I didn’t have to make up any writing assignments, just catch up on the reading. Easy enough.
Reading Shakespeare this late guaranteed that I’d fall asleep within the next twenty minutes, so I prepped accordingly. As soon as I hopped into my pajamas, I heard a quick knock before Mickey popped his head in.
“Hey.” He grinned. “Nice PJs.”
I looked down. “Yeah, I didn’t even know they made Hello Kitty prints in my size.”
“And bright pink, too.”
“Well, at least they don’t make me look like a corpse. Bright colors, I can do. Kind of.”
“Can I come in?”
“What about the rules?” I crossed my arms.
“Well, they’re more like guidelines.”
“That you were enforcing not too long ago.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, his smile wavering. “Cut a guy a break?”
Mickey’s expression echoed the one he wore when talking about his girl. Feeling guilty, I waved him inside.
He threw me a smile before taking two large steps and plopping himself down on my bed.
“Hmm. You know that’s where I’m supposed to sleep, right?”
“Yep. They gave you the comfy mattress.” Mickey put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes.
“And you wanted in my room because…?”
“Homework,” he said. I lifted a brow. He angled toward me, propping his head up with an arm. “Irish. Remember, that class you have tomorrow that you’re gonna sink in without my help?”
I groaned as I sat on the floor, bringing my knees up and burying my head my arms.
“I don’t want to study Irish,” I said, my voice muffled. “Just let me read something easy and go to sleep.”
Mickey glanced over at my desk. “CliffsNotes for Macbeth? You’re not even reading the actual text?”
“Don’t judge me.” I lifted my head. “And anyway, Ms. Pendragon said I could use the CliffsNotes until I caught up to the rest of the class.”
“Fair enough, but you don’t have English tomorrow. Irish, on the other hand…”
“No. I want something easy,” I said, dropping my head back into my arms.
“Never fear, lass, ye got me,” Mickey said, pulling off a flawless Irish accent.
I peeked up at him. “You say that as if it’s a good thing.”
Mickey spent the next hour quizzing me on pronunciation while I slogged through an entire chapter written in Irish, clueless as to what I was reading.
“Again.” He waved his hand toward me, the other still tucked under his head.
I groaned. Mickey had turned out to be a language purist, correcting my accent after each and every word I butchered—which turned out to be most of them. For someone who had only started Irish three weeks ago, him acting the part of the language snob was a little much.
“If they didn’t want you to say the letters, then why’d they write them? The whole ‘when bhg is together, it’s silent’ thing is stupid. If they want people to learn Irish, they should chop their words in half and spell everything the way it sounds.”
“So says the native English speaker. Read.”
After stumbling through a freakishly long word, I glared at Mickey. “This word has over twenty letters.” I paused long enough to count. “Twenty-three!”
He chuckled. “That’s the name of a city. Most words aren’t that long.”
“How do you even know that? School started less than a month ago. Unless this Irish course is insane, shouldn’t we have only covered colors and careers at this point?”
Mickey shrugged. “We already covered this chapter in class for pronunciation practice.”
I shook my head. He didn’t answer my question. “What, did the teacher translate the entire chapter for the class?”
“No.” Mickey turned onto his side and grinned. “So, you already know I’m a bit of a—”
“Goober?” I supplied.
“No, overachiever.”
I narrowed my eyes, not liking where this was going. “Continue.”
“Well, I found out the classes I’d be taking in advance, so…” He shrugged, his grin sheepish.
“Un-be-lievable. You are a nerd. A complete, absolute, unrecoverable nerd.” I let out a huff and fell back into the cozy carpet, my hands splayed out to the sides. Ooooh, it was so comfy—as comfy as a bed. And I was so tired of studying Irish.
“They say it takes one to know one,” he said, his sheepish smile still there.
I closed my eyes, resting them. “Um,
