All We Know Is Falling: Fall With Me: Volume One by Nicole Thorn

answer.
    “Nope. Something’s wrong and here I sit, uninformed and useless,” I half-shrugged.
    He looked down for a couple of seconds. His head stayed down but he looked up at me though his eyelashes. “I have no right asking, but what’s wrong?”
    Do I tell him? The person who’s refusing my concern for him. But who was I kidding? Of course I would tell him.
    “My little brother,” I said. “Something’s going on. He hasn’t called in I don’t even know how long. He finally texted me but it was cryptic. I called and someone I didn’t know answered and wouldn’t tell me what was going on.”
    He nodded. “Ah, little brother problems. I know about that.”
    “You have a brother?” I asked. Dumb question, since I heard a family member speaking on the phone before.
    “Yes. Two. An older one and one that’s fifteen. He’s a freshman here. Likes getting into trouble,” his face dropped. “He learned from his big brother.”
    I wondered if that had anything to do with his mood today. If I asked, he wouldn’t tell me.
    “You’re a troublemaker?” I smiled.
    The corner of his mouth twitched up. “I suppose that would be a name for it.”
    “What did you do that would make you think you’re a troublemaker?” It was probably typical teenage shit. Humans fancied themselves either good or bad. They weren’t always good at realizing just how much grey there is. They don’t know what it truly means to be evil. Not most of them.
      He smirked. “God you really are adorable. But I’m still not telling you.” The look on his face darkened. “I’d like to have at least one more conversation with you before you decide I’m too frightening to be around. And if I told you, you’d run now, as opposed to later.”
    I arched an eyebrow. “I’m not much of a runner.”
    “Aren’t you? You’ve been running from me since the second I sat beside you.”
    He had a point. But I wouldn’t be detoured so easily. “I’ll find out ya know.”
    The expression in his eyes broke my heart. “I know.”
    We remained locked in a stare until the bell rang and the students started coming into the room. They all took their seats and the conversation was over.
    I had dueling thoughts in my mind. One, was to just leave it alone. Not pursue the information that I wanted. Hale was convinced that it would send me running. I wasn’t. Mostly. There was some part of me that was scared to know what it was.
    The other side, the slightly stronger side, said that I was right. That I wouldn’t be scared simply because I wasn’t the type to be scared. And I really wanted to know what he was hiding. Not because I cared what he did. But because I cared about what was upsetting him.
    And that won.
    “Miss Flynn?” I heard as Mrs. Lore approached me.
    “Yeah?”
    She looked worried as she knit her fingers together. “Well…I seemed to have lost your painting from last week. That one you did of the desert.”
    “Hell.” I smiled. “It was Hell.”
    “Yes,” her nose crinkled. “Hell…”
    “How did you lose it?”
    She broke eye contact. “A man came by the other day…he said he was from the board. He told me that I needed to get him copies of all of your grades. I left to get the print outs and when I came back, he and the painting were gone.”
    Weird. “Just mine?”
    “Just yours.”
    Hale leaned over. “You let a man walk away with that masterpiece? How could you?” I thought he was making fun of me, but he sounded sincere enough.
    “He…was…” she smiled. “Distracting…”
    She was a married woman, so I wasn’t sure why she was so easily swayed. He couldn’t have been that charming.
    “Super,” I sighed. “Whatever. Hope whoever decided they needed to steal that thing enjoys it.”
    She was still smiling. “Maybe he’ll come back for more. You should get to work now,” she pointed to a paper in front of me and walked away.
    All I could do was roll my eyes and start working. I stayed quiet for