Free Unraveling by Elizabeth Norris Page B

tragic secret, and for some ridiculous reason I wonder what it is.
    He might hide behind the dark, brooding stoner thing, but his face is actually just as perfect as Nick’s or Kevin’s. I can’t help wondering if he gets the same kind of play.
    I squelch that thought down. It’s none of my business what Ben Michaels does on his own time, so I try to look away and decide what I’m going to say, but I can’t seem to concentrate on my computer anymore. I want to keep staring—like if I look at him long enough, I’ll unravel the enigma that is Ben Michaels.
    Then I see his computer.
    He has the school mainframe open and my schedule on the screen. A few keyboard shortcuts, and it’s completely wiped. A blank slate.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Changing your schedule,” he answers, as if accessing the mainframe couldn’t get him expelled.
    “But you can’t—how’d you—”
    He shrugs. “I stole the password off Florentine as a freshman. I’ve been fixing schedules for a couple years now.”
    I look around the library. No one’s paying attention to us, but we aren’t exactly hidden from sight, either. Anyone could glance this way and see the screen.
    “Janelle,” he says, and just the way he says my name—like I matter—makes me turn back to him. There’s no tension lining his eyes; now they look like they could be smiling. “What classes do you want?”
    Junior year is supposed to be the most important year for applying to colleges. And I did follow all the rules—I submitted my class requests on time, I got the paperwork signed off on. It’s not my fault the schedule is all messed up.
    So I tell him.
    Ben clearly knows his way around the software, deftly searching for the course titles. I point to the teachers and class periods I want—and effectively match my schedule with Alex’s.
    When I pick Poblete’s third-period class, Ben cracks a half smile. But I have a moment of panic when he tries to insert me into the class and an error message pops up to declare the class is too full.
    Ben chuckles beside me—I must have gasped or something—and I realized how close we are, how much I’m leaning into him. Close enough that I can feel his body heat next to me. Close enough that I can smell the faint mixture of what I’m coming to know as pure Ben—mint, soap, and gasoline. Despite the fact that we’re not actually touching, I’m leaning over his shoulder, my mouth dangerously close to his ear.
    If he turned his head just a few more inches in my direction, he could kiss me.
    I have no idea where that thought came from.
    I lean back, shifting in my seat.
    “Don’t worry, I got this,” Ben says, gesturing to the computer. “You think you’re the first person who I needed to override to get them into Poblete’s class?”
    Obviously not. He enters an override code, and a class roster pops up.
    “Wait,” I say, reaching for him. “Don’t take anyone out. That isn’t fair.”
    “I won’t,” he says, but he’s looking at my hand on his arm, and I pull it back, my face heating up. “I just need to manually add you in, see?” He copies and pastes my student ID into the class roster.
    Which is when it hits me that he has access to EVERYTHING—even grades.
    “It’s so wrong, right?” he asks, as if he can read my mind. “That it’s this easy to hack into the system. To steal a password?”
    “How often do you do this?”
    He shrugs. “I’ve changed schedules for a few people who were freaking out about shit, but mostly I just change a couple of friends’ schedules at the beginning of each semester. Avoid the counseling office.”
    “Have you ever changed … more than schedules?”
    “Like grades?” he says with a laugh. “Of course not.”
    I’m so relieved, I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
    “Although I think you’re the first person to recognize it’s the same program,” he adds. “None of my friends have put that together.”
    “If they