Chapter 2 Mouse and the Cards..

THREE MONTHS LATER

Lisa

There are memories you never really forget. They don’t disappear with time the way people promise they will.

They simply settle somewhere deep inside you, quiet enough that you almost believe you’ve healed, until something insignificant, a laugh drifting through a hallway, the smell of fresh paint in a classroom, the distant growl of a motorcycle somewhere outside, pulls them right back to the surface.

Sometimes all it took was hearing someone absentmindedly say the word Mouse. Three months had passed since Tobias Thomas looked me in the eye and asked who I was.

Three months since he told me I made him sick. Three months since the boy who had once kissed me like I was something precious had forgotten every reason he’d ever loved me.

The strange thing about heartbreak was that it made your memories selective. The good moments disappeared first. The quiet smiles. The whispered promises. The stolen kisses. The late-night phone calls that always ended with him refusing to hang up first.

Those memories blurred around the edges no matter how desperately I tried to hold onto them. The bad ones, though… they stayed. They dug their claws into you and refused to leave. Especially when they had happened in front of an audience.

The first time Tobias called me Mouse, I convinced myself it was just another nickname. By the end of the week, people had almost forgotten I answered to Lisa at all. I wish I could say that was the worst thing he’d ever done to me, but it wasn’t. Not even close.

A week later, Mrs. Keller announced that everyone in history class would be presenting the research projects we’d spent the last several days working on.

History had always been one of my better subjects, which meant presentations terrified me only slightly less than everyone else. I had rewritten my project three separate times until every paragraph sounded exactly the way I wanted it to.

I’d even copied my cue cards onto fresh index cards the night before because I hated how untidy my handwriting looked on the first set.

Every card had been carefully numbered in the corner so I wouldn’t lose my place if my nerves got the better of me. If I couldn’t be confident standing in front of an entire classroom, I could at least be prepared.

By the time Wednesday morning arrived, I’d almost managed to convince myself everything would be fine.

Then I heard the motorcycle.

The low, familiar growl rolled across the school grounds before first period had properly settled, loud enough to pull half the classroom toward the windows without anyone saying a word. Everyone at Clever High knew that sound.

Tobias Thomas had been riding the same black motorcycle to school since he’d gotten his licence, and somehow it had become just another part of his reputation. You heard him before you saw him. People smiled before he even walked through the door.

Almost a minute later, the classroom door swung open.

Tobias stepped inside carrying his helmet loosely between two fingers, his backpack hanging carelessly from one shoulder, looking as though the fact he’d interrupted an entire class wasn’t worth apologising for.

He wasn’t even out of breath. Mrs. Keller looked up from her desk and sighed the exhausted sigh of someone who had already rehearsed this conversation a hundred times.

“Late again, Mr. Thomas.”

“My bike stalled.”

She folded her arms, completely unconvinced. “It seems your motorcycle develops mechanical issues every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”

One corner of his mouth lifted.

“She’s dramatic.”

The room dissolved into laughter.

Mrs. Keller pinched the bridge of her nose before pointing toward the empty desk at the back. “Go sit down before your motorcycle earns detention too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He flashed her the smile that seemed capable of getting him out of almost anything before making his way between the rows of desks.

Unfortunately…

His seat was directly in front of mine.

I lowered my eyes to my cue cards, silently praying that for once he’d pretend I didn’t exist. That was all I wanted. Five uninterrupted minutes. Five minutes where Tobias Thomas forgot I occupied the same classroom as him.

Mrs. Keller smiled encouragingly from the front of the room.

“Whenever you’re ready, Lisa.”

I nodded, swallowing around the knot that had settled in my throat before stepping away from my desk.

My fingers tightened around the stack of cue cards I’d spent the better part of the previous evening rewriting, every sentence carefully condensed into short prompts because I knew the moment thirty pairs of eyes landed on me, my mind would go completely blank.

Public speaking had never been my strength, but preparation was. If I rehearsed enough, if I memorized enough, if I controlled every tiny detail, then maybe I could survive five minutes at the front of the classroom without embarrassing myself.

Taking one slow breath, I looked up.

“The Boston Tea Party became one of the defining events that eventually led to—”

The cue cards slipped from my fingers.

For a split second, I simply watched them scatter across the floor before panic jolted me back to life. They slid beneath desks, spun into chair legs and disappeared beneath rows of shoes, each one somehow travelling farther than the last.

Heat flooded my face as a few students laughed softly, and I dropped to my knees almost immediately, muttering a mortified apology that wasn’t really directed at anyone.

“I’m so sorry…”

My hands scrambled across the floor, reaching beneath the nearest desk for the first card I could find.

Another hand appeared beside mine.

I looked up.

Tobias.

Without saying a word, he bent down and began picking up the scattered cards with surprising patience, reaching beneath chairs I couldn’t get to and gathering them into one neat stack. Another student nudged a card toward him with the toe of his shoe, and Tobias picked that one up too before dusting the edges lightly against his palm.

For one ridiculous moment, relief loosened the tightness in my chest.

Maybe…

Maybe he was just helping.

“You missed one,” he said, leaning farther beneath the next row before pulling another card into view.

“Oh.." I let out a shaky breath. "Thank you.”

He didn’t answer.

He simply placed the last few cards on top of the pile before holding them out to me.

“Here.”

I accepted them gratefully, too flustered to notice the tiny smile that touched the corner of his mouth before he turned and walked back to his seat.

Mrs. Keller cleared her throat gently.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

I nodded again, forcing myself to ignore the heat creeping up my neck as I returned to the front of the classroom.

“It’s okay,” she said kindly. “Take your time.”

I straightened the stack against the podium, inhaled slowly and tried again.

“The Boston Tea Party became one of the defining events that eventually led to the American Revolution…”

This time the words came easier.

One sentence flowed into the next.

Then another.

Gradually, my breathing settled, and for the first time since walking to the front of the room, I thought maybe I was going to make it through after all.

I turned to the next cue card.

“The economic consequences of…”

I blinked.

That wasn’t right.

Frowning, I checked the card beneath it.

Then the next.

My heartbeat stumbled.

The paragraph I needed wasn’t there.

Confused, I flipped through the remaining cards more quickly.

Nothing.

The next section of my presentation had simply… disappeared.

My mouth went dry.

“I…” My voice caught in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

Silence settled over the classroom.

Thirty faces stared back at me.

Mrs. Keller tilted her head slightly.

“Is something wrong?”

“I…” I looked through the cards again, more desperately this time. “I had another card.”

A quiet laugh drifted from somewhere near the back of the room.

“I wrote everything down.” Another laugh answered it.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my fingers trembling as I searched through the stack for a card that wasn’t there. “I know I had it.”

Mrs. Keller walked over, her expression soft with concern rather than annoyance.

“Take a breath.”

“I can’t find it.”

“Perhaps you left it at home?”

“I didn’t.” The words escaped before I could stop them. “I checked them this morning. They were all here.”

She offered me a sympathetic smile.

“It’s alright. Why don’t you continue without the cards?”

Continue? I couldn’t.

The missing card contained almost half the presentation I’d spent the entire week memorizing.

The classroom had already begun to fill with whispers.

Someone snorted.

Another person laughed outright.

I stood there staring helplessly at the incomplete stack in my hands while every ounce of confidence I’d walked into class with slipped away piece by piece.

“I…”

Nothing came.

Mrs. Keller rested a gentle hand against my shoulder.

“Why don’t we move on for now?”

I nodded because it was the only thing I could do.

Keeping my head lowered, I walked back to my seat as quietly as possible, but the whispers followed me anyway.

By lunchtime, the entire school knew.

Mouse had frozen in the middle of her history presentation.

Nobody remembered the cue cards.

Nobody remembered that Tobias had helped pick them up.

Nobody questioned why one had mysteriously vanished.

They only remembered that I’d stood in front of the class looking like I didn’t know what I was talking about.

It wasn’t until the final bell rang that day that I found out where the missing card had gone.

I had just stepped into the nearly empty hallway when something brushed against my shoulder before fluttering to the floor.

One of my cue cards.

I stared at it for a second before bending down to pick it up.

“The economic consequences…”

My missing section.

A motorcycle helmet swung lazily from two fingers as Tobias stopped beside me without bothering to look down.

“Huh,” he said lightly, slipping one hand into his pocket. “Looks like you really did drop it.”

His grey eyes met mine for the briefest second. That smile returned. The one that never reached his eyes.

“You should be more careful, Mouse.”

Then he walked away.

Leaving me standing in the middle of the hallway with the proof clenched tightly in my hand…

And absolutely no way to prove he’d had it all along.