Just Like That - Cole McCade Page 0,24

didn’t matter a single bit if he wasn’t a trust fund baby, if he couldn’t pay his tuition with his weekend allowance.

He’d known what he was to them.

The legacy, free tuition, sad thing who only got into such an elite academy—hell, passing Iseya’s psych classes had been his first AP college credit—because his father had worked here, instead of because his father had had money.

He wasn’t that boy anymore, he told himself.

But his silent tongue and locked legs and shaking knees couldn’t seem to remember that.

“I... I...” He cleared his throat, but it didn’t really help; just made him feel like he was swallowing his fear in little spiky balls. His pulse jumped, his heart racketing up into an awful twitching rapid beat, fluttering like a cornered rabbit’s breaths. “My...my name is Summer Hemlock—”

“For real?” came from the back of the class, followed by a chorus of sniggers. “That’s not a real name.”

“Maybe it’s an anime name,” someone else said. “Maybe he’s a weeb. You a weeb, new guy?”

Laughter erupted. Summer darted his gaze left to right, searching for the speakers, but all he saw was grinning faces, glittering eyes, contempt.

He threw a helpless glance over his shoulder at Iseya, but Iseya was impassive, unmoving, just watching him with one brow slightly arched.

Waiting.

He was on his own.

He was supposed to control the class, and he was on his own if he was going to do this thing he’d said he was going to do.

He swung his gaze back to the class. “Y-yes. Yes, th-that’s...that’s my name, and I-I’m... I’m your new TA, and t-today we’ll...we’ll be going...over...”

His voice didn’t want to work.

His voice didn’t want to work, trailing off into a faintness that wasn’t even a whisper, just this thready thing crawling out of his mouth and falling limply off his lips.

He couldn’t feel his body, but he felt everything at the same time, every hair standing up in a fine prickle and panic running through him like water, this spike of awfulness bolting right down the center of his chest and screaming at him to run.

It didn’t make sense.

It never made sense.

Rationally he knew there was nothing threatening him, right now.

Just a bunch of kids being little assholes, because that’s what kids did.

But when his brain latched on to that little panic-rabbit breathing fast and swift and terrified in the center of his heart, nothing he knew could make its thumping stop.

“What was that?” one of the students jeered. “C’mon, Winter Crabapple or whatever. Rain. Storm. Hey, maybe I’ll call you Stormy like Stormy Daniels. You wanna talk a little louder?”

Summer barely heard it.

Everything was receding away, falling down this long dark tunnel that made him feel like he was rising up into the sky, and the world was somewhere below, the noises distant and growing farther and farther away. Even his own body, far down below, like he was having an out-of-body experience and staring down at his own petrified face, the frozen grimace that was trying to be a smile, the way his fingers clutched the syllabus in his hands until the pages crumpled into deep creases.

And then the moment when he broke, and gave in to the voice in his head screaming that he was in danger and he needed to run.

He twisted on his heel, and suddenly the squeak of his dress shoes on the floor was too real, too loud, shrieking up that wind tunnel separating him from the world. Everything was blurry, his vision wavering and strange, but the door was close enough—close enough that it only took three steps before he was flinging it open, bursting out into the hall, skittering several clumsy steps before he just leaned over and grasped his knees and breathed.

Deep, harsh, he sucked in breaths as fast as he could, but he never seemed to get enough air, his head spinning and his heartbeat turning erratic and hot and twisted and heavy and he just—he just—

“If a single one of you,” Iseya said from inside the classroom, his voice drifting out the door, “moves so much as a fingertip while I am absent, everyone has detention on grounds cleanup for a week. Be still. Be silent. And open your textbooks to chapter fourteen, Jungian psychology. There will be a pop quiz when I return.”

Not a single peep rose.

Not even a groan.

No one disobeyed the tyrant.

Not even Summer.

But still he wasn’t expecting the soft tread of footsteps behind him, the door pulling closed, latching.

And then strong arms around