HAZEL
"Fuck you," I said.
And then I sat down.
The gasp that followed was almost musical. Three separate sounds, three separate mouths, hitting the air at nearly the same pitch. One of the girls pressed her fingers to her lips. Another stared at me like I had just set the tablecloth on fire.
"Haven't you been told the rules?" the composed one said.
She said it like she couldn't believe it. Like I had just walked into a cathedral and urinated on the altar.
I froze.
Not because I was afraid. More because the weight of what I had just done landed slowly, the way cold water did when it seeped through a shoe. Gradual and then all at once.
The boy laughed. He started laughing and couldn't seem to stop, leaning back in his chair like the whole morning had paid off in this one moment.
"You broke two rules, too," he said, when he'd gathered himself enough to speak. "Two." He held up two fingers and looked delighted by them. "Imagine what I could do to you if I was a cruel bastard."
