He’s looking at me.
Our eyes meet, and I glance away instantly. Why was he watching me?Washe watching me? Was it just a coincidence? Maybe he’s pissed after what went down on Friday, and he’s plotting my presidential demise. I very pointedly look anywhere but at him for the rest of class. I don’t want another confrontation, and I have no idea what’s going through his head.
My stomach is howling by the time the bell finally rings for lunch, and the trek to my locker is like swimming upstream in rapids. I fight my way out of the current and spin my combination, then rummage through for my lunch.
“Hey,” someone says, too loud, right behind me.
I straighten up, right into the top of my locker. “Ow!” I clutch my head, backing away a few steps.
“Oh shit! Are you OK?”
I know that voice. I turn, still rubbing the top of my skull, and there he is. Forrest, a few feet away, looking right at me with a concerned expression. Of course he’d be the one to startle me like this.
“I’ll survive,” I say flatly. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want a repeat of our last few interactions, not today, when I’m already on edge. I haven’t texted Dad back yet, and his message keeps popping up in my brain, all the ways I could respond and what he might say back.
“Sorry,” Forrest says.
“What do you want?” The words come out harsher than I intended, but I let them hang in the air between us.
He shifts from foot to foot. “So ...you know what happened in the meeting last week.”
“...Yeah.” All around us, people are jostling past, but we’re in our own awkward little bubble, one that feels far too small.
“I know we have different ideas about what the club should do,” he says. “But we have a limited amount of time every week, and I don’t wanna ruin it with us arguing and never getting anything done. I was thinking maybe youand I could meet up before the meetings and talk about our ideas, just so we can, I don’t know...” He shrugs. “Fight it out, or whatever, without fucking up club time.”
I stare at him. He stares back with a wary half smile, half grimace. Of all the things I expected him to say, this was not it. And I don’t exactly love the prospect of one-on-one hang time with the most annoying dude at Jefferson High every week. But ...it’s not a bad idea.
It’s actually a pretty good one.
It’s what Anna said: an effort to collaborate.
And I don’t want this Friday to be a repeat of what hapsa pened last week. I want to actually get things done this year. Cool things. Important things. I can’t do that unless I get Forrest to see that my ideas are better.
“It doesn’t have to be a long meeting,” he says. “Like, maybe fifteen minutes after school one day or at lunch or whatever.”
“OK,” I say.
“What?”
“OK,” I repeat. “I’ll do it.”
“Cool.” He grins. “Later this week? I’ll just come find you?”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
He nods. “Later, Co-President.” With the flash of a peace sign, he disappears into the swirling crowd.
It’s not like Imeanto ghost Dad. I just ...don’t reply right away, and then it’s Tuesday and I still haven’t figured out whether I should call or text him back; he offered eitherone, but I should probably call him, and then we can just have whatever conversation we’re going to have all at once instead of dragging it out, but texting would be so much easier, because then wecoulddrag it out. I wouldn’t have to hear his voice, and I can plan what I’m going to say instead of trying to keep up with whatever comes out of his mouth in the moment.
So I get stuck on deciding the method, and without that, I can’t get to the content, and then it’s Wednesday, and I’m sitting in the hallway with my friends eating lunch, going over the options in my head for the millionth time.
Jayden’s elbow nudges mine. “What did that sandwich ever do to you?”
“What?” I look up from the half-eaten BLT in my hands.
“You’re glaring at that thing like it’s Forrest arguing with you in Queer Alliance,” he says.
That makes me laugh, a little. “I was just...” I’m about to lie, tell him I’m spacing out like I did with Shar, but I hesitate. It’s hard to admit I’m anxious, even now that I know what it is and so do my friends. Even though I know they wouldn’t judge me.
