I look down at my tank top and fiddle with the edge of it, not sure what to say. What exactly is he asking me, here?
He clears his throat. “I didn’t see anyone either. If that helps any.”
Instantly I look up, and I know we’re thinking the same thing. It’s like how in movies there’s this music clip when the truth is being revealed so you justknow, without anyone saying anything. Like someone in the corner of this auditorium is playing our theme song. Which, by the way, is “Fly Me to the Moon” by Frank Sinatra. Rob really loves old music.
“Anyway,” I say, looking away, “new year.” I’m convinced my heart is visibly beating out of my chest.
“Absolutely,” he says. But he’s smiling. A different smile. A funny little smile like he’s going to laugh. Like he’s telling himself a joke and the punch line is coming.
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks.
“Dunno. Homework?”
“Want to go to dinner?”
“Yeah, sure. Come over.”
“No, I mean gooutto dinner.”
I know what Charlie would say here. Charlie would toss her hair over one shoulder and singsong, “Are you asking me out, Mr. Monteg?” But I don’t have the nerve. Or the talent for such games. Instead I say, “Umm, sure.” Rob opens his mouth to say something, but Mr. Johnson, our principal, comes onto the stage, and everyone stops talking.
“Good morning!” Mr. Johnson says in this fake boomy voice he uses for every single assembly. I know it’s fake because when you go in to meet with him for office hours or to tell him we’re out of sparkling waters in the PL (which, because of Charlie, we always are), he’s actually superquiet. Also, he looks a little like a rodent. Half-bald, pointy nose, and tiny beady eyes that look perpetually frightened. But who am I to judge? If I were a principal, I’d probably look the same way most of the time.
“Good morning!” a few sophomore girls yell back. Mr. Johnson looks delighted, and does it again. This time a few more people join in on the return call but obviously not enough to warrant a third time, because he just holds his hands up like,Silence.
“It’s a new year,” he begins, “and over the course of the summer I have been thinking about changes I can make here at San Bellaro so that we can continue to grow in the directions that we want to. I have thought about the way we structure our days here, how we fill our time…”
And then, just as I’m about to completely zone out, something spectacular happens. Rob’s knee brushes mine and he doesn’t move it. He just leaves it there, against mine, so thatour knees are touching. My face has already turned the color of a tomato, so I keep my eyes fixed on Mr. Johnson, but I can feel Rob glance at me.
Then Rob’s hand moves across the back of my chair.Our knees are touching and Rob’s hand is on the back of my chair.
I try to remember what my mom’s yoga app is always saying about hyperventilating. That it can be prevented by deep breathing. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.
“I see you as a forest,” Mr. Johnson is saying. “We are all trees, and we compose a large wooded area. Without us, there would be no life.”
Jake yawns next to us. Then he crosses his arms and closes his eyes. In two seconds he’s breathing loudly, his mouth open.
Rob’s knee has been next to mine for a full minute, I think. So long that my leg is starting to sweat. I wiggle in my chair, careful to keep my knee steady. I don’t want Rob to think I’mpurposefully ending our contact. The whole thing reminds me of the staring contests we used to have in middle school, seeing who could go the longest without blinking. Except I don’t want to win this one. I want to lose. I want Rob to keep his knee there forever. But just then Jake snores next to us, and Rob jabs him, breaking us apart.
Jake sits up, startled, and wipes some drool from his mouth. It’s a good thing Charlie isn’t back here right now. 7:59—they’d definitely be off.
Mr. Johnson finishes, and the students start clapping, although it’s mostly freshmen and a few very eager juniors who are quickly silenced by their friends. And Len, of course. He claps a few times, steadily, from the corner. Charlie and Olivia and a few other girls turn to look at him, but he doesn’t seem the least bit fazed. Then the auditorium erupts into a sonic boom of sound as everyone gathers their backpacks and heads off to first period.
Charlie is waving her arms at me and pointing to her watch. Rob has gotten lost in the shuffle, and he gives me a quick, apologetic wave, following Jake out the side entrance.
“He’s so cute,” Charlie says when I reach her. “We should totally double date.”
I’m still sort of reeling from such close contact with Rob, and I don’t tell Charlie about our date tonight. I wantto keep it my secret for just a little bit longer. Ben is tickling Olivia next to us, and she’s laughing. It’s actually cute. Charlie looks over at them and then declares, loudly, “I’m already over this,” before tugging me, arm first, out through the double doors.
Scene Four
We all meet in thecourtyard at lunch. Olivia and I are coming from calc, where I’m pretty sure she was flirting with Mr. Stetzler. I mean shewasflirting, definitely, but the part I’m not sure of is why. Mr. Stetzler is old. Like, forty. I mean, when she flirts with Mr. Davis, I understand, because he teaches PE and he’s just young enough to still wear his hair long. But Mr. Stetzler? Really?
“You’re super,” she says to him before we leave class, tossing her hair over her shoulder. I don’t even know what that is supposed to mean, and apparently neither does Mr. Stetzler because he just takes off his glasses and kind of blinks a few times in rapid succession. I grab Olivia’s arm and drag her out, and she waves and wiggles her shoulders the way she does with Ben. The way she used to do with the Belgian.
The Belgian is this kid in our class who moved here from Brussels. This happened sometime around September of last year, and he and Olivia spent the entire fall together. She started eating a lot of brussels sprouts and eating Belgian waffles whenever we went out. She even chose them over bagels, which Charlie was not okay with. It was when Olivia and Taylor were on a break, so she never called the Belgian her boyfriend. She never even called him Jhone, which is his real name. He was just “the Belgian.” It’s still crazy to me that Olivia has managed to date three guys—Taylor, the Belgian, and now Ben—and not go too far with any of them. I think part of the reason I ended things with Jason is that I was scared that if he ever successfully unhooked my bra, we’d have to keep going. It’s not that I think you have to sleep with whomever you’re seeing. It just seems kind of difficult, after a while, to explain why you’re not. Especially if you don’t really know the reason yourself.
“You are seriously disturbed,” I say to Olivia.
