Hate to Love You novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Snow Day

"He's my friend," I said. "And you're wrong about him."

"Wrong how?"

"That's between me and him."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one you're getting."

The tall boy opened his mouth, and Jess's voice cut across the hall.

"I have video of this on my phone," she called.

"The principal's office is forty feet that way."

"Do you want to walk there with me, or do you want to walk there with the video?"

Nobody moved.

Then the tall boy took his hand off the lockers, and the other two stepped back.

"Whatever," he muttered.

They went down the hall in a clump, and I noticed that none of them looked back.

Shay dropped his shoulders.

"Thanks," he said, very low. "You didn't have to."

"I know."

That was Monday.

On Friday, the snow came.

It started in the morning as small dry flakes, and by second period the windows had gone white.

The principal announced an early dismissal over the loudspeaker.

An hour later, she announced that the winter formal was canceled until a date that did not exist.

Buses stopped running at noon.

My phone buzzed with a message from Dad.

Store closed. Plows haven't been down Ninth. Stay put, wherever you are. Wear socks.

Shay stood at the school's front doors with his hands in his pockets, watching snow pile up on the steps.

"My house is four blocks," he said. "My mom's on a double, but she'll be home at three. There's soup."

"Is there actual soup, or soup you plan to open from a can?"

"There's both."

I texted Dad that I was at a friend's, and that his mother was a nurse.

Good, he wrote back. Nurses know things. Socks.

We walked.

The snow came to the tops of my sneakers, and Shay gave me his gloves without being asked and put his hands up his sleeves.

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