Read Break Your Heart for Free Online Page B

back, draw him into a conversation.
    I stared at his message for a moment, my flesh prickling with anticipation and a tinge of fear. I took a moment to wipe my damp palms on my thighs. Then I typed out a reply.
     
    How long have you been teaching here? And where did you go to undergrad? Yes, I know I’m nosy, by the way. Let’s blame it on senioritis, shall we? ;-) I’m looking forward to graduating.
     
    The pause after I hit send was much longer. A full twenty minutes ticked by. Maybe I’d interrupted him when he was trying to get work done. Maybe he didn’t want to talk to a student. Maybe I was too pushy and bugged him. After all, this was his free time.
    Then again, he was the one responding to my emails. Or had been until now.
    Finally, my in-box dinged. I was pretty sure my heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. He wrote back, my brain yelled at me . My traitorous fingers trembled as I opened his message.
     
    I went to undergrad and grad here, at Smythe-Davis. I graduated high school early and with several college credits under my belt, so I got my bachelor’s at age 19, my master’s at 21 and my PhD at 24. I taught at another college for a year, but when a position opened up in the S-D math dept, I applied.
    Are you going to grad school? If not, you should think about it. I believe you’d do well in that environment.
     
    A warm flush stole over my face, down my throat. I knew it was goofy to read into the fact that he’d been thinking about me, about my goals and future. But so be it. My hands were a bit steadier this time when I replied.
     
    Yes, I’m actually going here in the fall—I’ve already been accepted. I’m looking forward to it.
     
    My fingers hovered over the keys as I debated what to type next.
     
    Do you like math jokes? I’ve been gathering them since I was a kid. Here’s one: Why do they never serve beer at a math party?
     
    I sent the message. It was another fifteen minutes or so before I got a reply. I stared at his email blankly—it was just a jumble of letters.
    Uh, did he have a cat that had jumped on the keyboard or something?
    I eyed it again. Wait, there was something in this. It wasn’t random—it was a pattern. My brain whirred as I tried to figure it out. Was he sending me some kind of a code? A small smile broke out on my face. Interesting.
    It took me a good ten minutes to identify the code. The letters he’d typed were two off from the originals, so A was C, B was D, and so on. I grabbed a piece of paper and translated.
     
    Hah. I love that joke—because you can’t drink and derive.
     
    I couldn’t help it—I burst into laughter.
    Casey’s voice called out from in the living room. “Hey, Megan. You want some ice cream? And we’re going to watch Teen Witch— come join us . I’m pretty sure you could recite this movie by heart now.”
    “Girl, you know I can,” I replied as I shut my email down. I joined Casey and Daniel on the couch, and we fired up the amazingly funny and bad eighties film we’d stumbled across on accident over winter break. She and I had watched it a few times already, cracking up at the horrible rapping and the eighties-tacular clothing.
    Even as I laughed and talked with them, the email exchange lingered in the back of my mind. I couldn’t help the faint secret grin that wouldn’t leave my face.

Chapter 5
    I slicked the soft pink lip gloss across my lips and eyed myself in the mirror. My hair was wild and fun tonight—I’d let it loose with a swirl of puffy curls around my head. My top was tiny, my jeans were slim and my black boots were high.
    I was so looking forward to a fun night out.
    Not that school was going badly or anything. It was the end of January, and my classes were moving along at a steady pace. I’d done well on the papers and assignments I’d turned in. Work had even bumped up my hours; another employee, a sophomore, had quit to move out of state.
    I grabbed my clutch, tossed on my coat and left