I leaned forward on the table, resting my breasts on my folded arms, my hidden fingers gripping the table's edge as I fought to ignore the irrational urges that were working on me. I didn't look at him, afraid that if he was looking, it would only make self-control that much harder. I sincerely tried to watch the movie—it was about dolphins and as far as I knew, and I loved dolphins—but at the end of the hour I had no idea what I'd just seen. I sighed in relief again when Mr. Banner turned the lights on, finally glancing at Fredward; he was staring at me, his eyes smoldering in their ambivalence.
He rose in silence and then stood still, waiting for me to catch up. We walked toward the gym in silence, like yesterday. And, also like yesterday, he touched my face wordlessly—this time with the back of his cool hand, stroking once from my temple to my jaw—before he turned and ran away.
Jim on Gym passed quickly as I watched Mike's one-man badminton show. He didn't speak to me today, either in response to my vacant expression or because he was still angry about our little squabble yesterday. Somewhere, in a corner of my mind, I felt bad about it. After all, he couldn't help it if he looked like a horse, was in denial about his sexuality and had a dad who ran a paralympics outfitters store in a town whose only actual cripple was my dad.
I hurried to change afterward, ill at ease, knowing the faster I moved, the sooner I would be with Fredward. The pressure made me more clumsy than usual, but eventually I made it out the door, feeling the same release when I saw him standing there, a wide smile automatically stretching across my face.259 He smiled in reaction before launching into more cross-examination.
His questions were different now, though, not as easily answered. He wanted to know what I missed about home, insisting on descriptions of anything he wasn't familiar
259. Technology-assisted smiles.