Freshman Just Wanted Dinner — Until Three Bullies Made a Mistake That Cost Them Everything
Chapter 6
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Tyler watched her. "You should probably be more careful," he said. "With your things. You know how it is. Some people work really hard to be here, and then one little accident and everything falls apart."He let the sentence hang.Claire stopped blotting. She looked at Tyler Weston—not with anger, but with something more settled than anger: the way a person looks at something when they have already understood it completely and are simply confirming what they knew. She looked at him for a long moment."You always do this?" she said.Tyler raised his eyebrows. "Do what?""This," Claire said. "What you just did.""I knocked over a glass," Tyler said. "I said I was sorry.""You did," Claire said. "You said it."She picked up her water-damaged notebook and set it in her bag. She sat back down. She reached for her coffee, which had been far enough from the spill to survive.Tyler watched her with an expression that was hard to read. He'd expected something different: he'd expected tears, maybe; or an apology for being in the way; or a flustered retreat. He had not expected her to just sit back down and pick up her coffee.Marcus posted the photo. The caption he wrote said something about scholarship students who studied in public being a whole mood. He tagged the Hartwell student forum page. Claire did not know about this yet; she would find out later. For now, she just drank her coffee.Dot appeared. She collected the wet napkins from the edge of Claire's table. She did not say anything about the spill. She set down a fresh glass of water and a small stack of extra napkins. She looked at Claire. Claire gave her the smallest nod, just a slight dip of the chin. Dot moved away.The three men finished their food. They talked among themselves. They were louder now, in the way that people get louder when they feel they have won something. The energy around them was different: looser, satisfied.Tyler ordered a piece of pie. He ate it slowly. He watched Claire from the corner of his eye. She read from her phone now, since the notebook was unusable. She was reading what looked like a PDF of a court case; she highlighted something with her thumb. Tyler did not understand this. It bothered him in a way he would not have admitted.At 9:40, Tyler slid out of the booth. He pulled a twenty from his wallet and dropped it on the table; he did not leave a tip. He looked at Claire one more time."Good luck with the rest of the semester," he said. He said it pleasantly, cheerfully—the way someone says it when they do not mean it.Claire did not look up from her phone. "Drive safe," she said.Tyler paused for half a second. Then he smiled. He turned and walked toward the door. Brandon followed. Marcus followed.