Trapped in a Room with the Top Student for Better Scores Chapter 05

Trapped in a Room with the Top Student for Better Scores Chapter 05

I was screwed.

I couldn’t fall asleep.

I lay in bed for what felt like hours, psyching myself up, and finally knocked myself out by reciting a Shakespeare sonnet ten times over.

When I opened my eyes, I was back in the “Improve Your Grades or You Can’t Leave” room.

Declan materialized mid-sip again, a glass of milk in hand.

He wasn’t in his usual school clothes this time. His hair was still damp, and something about seeing him outside of a school setting felt different in a way I couldn’t pin down.

He was holding two glasses.

“Yours.” He set it on the desk.

I mumbled thanks and picked at the label on the glass, needing somewhere to look.

“Give me your number,” he said. “Text me before you go to sleep next time.”

I looked up. “Why?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“What if I’m in the shower when it pulls me in?”

We swapped numbers, and Declan went back to walking me through problems.

Neither of us brought up what happened at the assembly.

He acted like it never happened. Or maybe, to him, it hadn’t.

Fine.

I was mid-thought when Declan, still scrawling conic section formulas, said without looking up,

“The guy sitting in front of you today. That the one you like?”

I choked on air and started coughing.

He watched me the entire time, waiting.

“Why are you asking?”

“No reason.”

“Then why did you do the reward instead of just taking the punishment?”

He looked away, and his voice went so flat I wanted to hit him. “I don’t like grinding problem sets.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

Declan set the pen down and looked at me.

“If holding hands made you uncomfortable, I’m sorry.”

“It didn’t mean anything. I was just dealing with the system.”

“Don’t talk to me at school. I don’t want the guy you like getting the wrong idea.”

He leaned back in his chair, voice flat.

“Outside this room, we’re just classmates. That’s it.”

The question came out before I could stop it.

“What if the rewards get worse?”

He’d been looking at my eyes. But when I said that, his gaze dropped, slowly, deliberately, to my

mouth.

It stayed there for one sharp second before he pulled it back.

“I trust myself.”

“I trust myself,” he said, his voice low. “I’m not going to catch feelings for you.”

{“Get your scores up fast so I can get my life back.”

I nodded.

Whatever had been building in my chest pulled back, quick and clean, like a tide going out.

“Okay. Got it.”

That night I tore through problem sets, one after another.

I didn’t think about anything else. My pen moved faster. My head was clearer.

Two weeks passed like that. Every night in the room, I kept my head down and worked.

We didn’t say a single word that wasn’t about the problems.

I got used to it.

Then one day at lunch, I was standing in line at the cafeteria and realized he was right behind me.

Second time we’d run into each other at school.

It was the second time we’d crossed paths on campus.

He was talking to Gavin Brooks, one of the guys from the AP track, right behind me.

“Dude, you’ve already got your Ivy League spot locked down. Why do you even still show up?”

“Call it the high school experience. Gotta see it through.”

Declan’s voice sounded sleepy, lazy and rough around the edges.

“Shut up,” Gavin laughed and shoved him. “Hey, that girl who asked for your number yesterday, did you ever text her back?”

I shuffled forward. Almost my turn.

Declan didn’t seem to realize I was the one standing in front of him.

Good.

I just needed to grab my food and go.

“Nah, I didn’t.”

“Why not? You into someone?”

Right on cue, the cafeteria worker handed me my tray and pointed me toward the register.

The card reader beeped, flashing a red [Insufficient Funds] across the screen.

I froze.

I’d forgotten to ask my mom to put money on my lunch account.

The conversation behind me went dead. I could feel eyes on the back of my head.

The cafeteria worker frowned. “You got cash? Come on, there’s a line.”

I shook my head. Not a single person I knew anywhere in sight.

Except Declan, right behind me.

I made myself turn around. Sure enough, those sharp, arrogant eyes were already on me, looking down with something dangerously close to amusement.

One eyebrow lifted. He was waiting for me to say his name.

The bastard was enjoying this.

Before I could say anything, he pulled out his student ID.

But his words from that night came back to me. We were just classmates. That’s it.

So I turned to the guy at the next register, a complete stranger.

“Hey, I’m so sorry. Could you cover me? I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

The guy didn’t even hesitate. He swiped his ID without a word.

“Thank you so much.” I pulled out my phone. “What’s your number? I’ll Venmo you right now.”

I sent the money and saved his number.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Declan’s hand, the one holding his student ID, still raised in the

air. It fell back to his side.

The same hand that had held mine a few days ago.

I picked up my tray and walked away.

After that, every time I saw him at school, I left first.

I dodged his eyes, ducked around corners, made myself disappear.

Once, I spotted him in the stairwell and turned so fast I nearly slammed into the person ahead of
Declan caught my arm from behind-just a loose, one-handed grip to keep me from crashing.

He let go. I kept walking and didn’t look back.

I just didn’t understand why the harder I avoided him, the angrier he seemed to get.

And it didn’t matter anyway. No matter how far I ran during the day, I still ended up locked in a

room with him every night.