“Posters to advertise it,” Alexander adds.
One by one, people call things out, until they’ve got a list and start fleshing it out. Under decorations, we add streamers, balloons, signs, and a disco ball—that last one is Forrest’s. Apparently he just happens to have a mechanical disco ball on hand. Under snacks, he writescupcakes, chips, fruit,andjuice.I don’t know where it’s all going to come from, but it’s out of my hands now. Maybe that’s the silver lining, if there is one; if it fails, it won’t be on me.
“I’ll make a collaborative playlist so we can all add to it,” Alexander volunteers, and takes everyone’s numbers so he can send the link in a group chat later.
When the bell rings, Forrest stays to help put chairs away instead of darting out like he has the past few meetings. I avoid eye contact with him, straightening a row of desks on the opposite side of the room. In my periphery, I can see him, his head turning toward me sometimes as if he wants me to look at him, but I don’t. Maybe he’s trying to get in my good graces by staying, maybe he’s doing it because he really does care like he claims to. It’s hard to tell, and I don’t like that.
Anna comes up to me, ready to go, and I grab my stuff, following her out. A group of seniors plows down the center of the hallway toward us, Anna and I parting on either side of them, coming back together in their wake. She links her arm through mine, and the connection anchors me.
“That was ...intense,” she says as soon as we round the corner.
“Yeah.”
“How are you feeling?”
I shrug.
“I know you weren’t really fine with that,” she says.
“No, I wasn’t.” I look over at her. “He basically admitted he set me up. He came to me acting like he wanted to talk it out, and meanwhile he was going around to everyone to get them on his side.”
“He didn’t talk to me,” she says. “Or Jayden and Makayla. I’m sure they would have said something if he had.”
The thought warms me. He knew my friends had my back, that they wouldn’t go along with him.
“So why did you agree to it?” she asks.
Our arms unlink as we approach the stairs to the math wing, and I pull ahead of her as we climb to the next floor. My breath comes a little harder in my lungs. I still think a party is a waste of time. I still don’t trust Forrest not to run the club into the ground. But he wasn’t backing down.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I say. “If I said no, we would have been locked in conflict for another week.”
“I guess,” she says. When we get to the top, I wait for her, and we link our arms again. “But now...” She smirks, eyes sparkling with mischief. “...you have leverage.”
Something sparks in my mind. Jayden, telling me maybe I can get what I want if I give Forrest something he wants. I didn’t give in today on purpose, and I’d prefer to avoid talking to Forrest as much as possible, but maybe I can use this. I’ll meet with him again like he suggested, and this time, I’ll be ready. It’s my turn to get my way.
When Makayla’s dad swings their door open Saturday morning and sees me, he grins, eyes crinkling. “Sid the Kid!”
Unlike Makayla and Jayden, he’s as white as the doorframe, and he fills it completely. He’s a former football player who met their mom, a tiny Black woman, in college, and he still looks like he should be out crushing yards on a field somewhere.
I give him two thumbs-ups. He’s been calling me Sid the Kid ever since I started hanging out with Makayla and Jayden, but it’s not just me; he has nicknames for all of us. Jayden is Jay Is the Way, because he loves the Mandalorian and all things Star Wars; Anna is, of course, Anna Banana; and Makayla is—
“Mack Attack!” he bellows into the house. “Sid’s here!” He’s like my dad, if my dad had an age-appropriate sense of humor and an actual presence in his kid’s life.
Makayla appears at the end of the hallway. “What’s up, study buddy?”
“Oh yes, my other rhyming nickname,” I say dryly. She smirks.
“I’ll be in the backyard ripping out the blackberry bushes,” Makayla’s dad says, still grinning. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen himnotgrinning. “Holler if you need anything, all right?”
She nods, he disappears, and she raises her eyebrows at me. “Shall we?”
“If we must.” I kick off my shoes and follow her down the hallway, through the living room toward the kitchen. “Where’s Jayden?”
“He said he was meeting a friend,” she says, scrunching her face up in a very skeptical way.
“He has friends besides us?” I drop my backpack on their dining table with a thump.
“That’s what I said!” She laughs, rummaging in the kitchen cabinets. “Do you want anything? Snacks? Tea? Chocolate?” She pulls out a bag of chips and waves it at me.
