“Wow, you didn’t scare the shit out of me this time,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m trying not to give people concussions lately? It’s a new thing.” He grins.
“Personal growth! Impressive.” I snort, then stop myself. No friendly banter with the enemy. I grab the last book out of my locker and shut it. “What do you want?”
“I was thinking we could talk about club stuff today?” He shifts from one foot to the other. “Maybe we could actually sit down and have a conversation like normal people this time.”
I give him the side-eye. “What are you, like, allergic to standing?”
“I just think it’s more professional if we sit,” he says. “We are the presidents, after all, and this is serious business, according to you.”
“OK,” I say. “Fine. I will meet you in the library at lunch.”
“Excellent.” He puts his hands together like an evil scientist, just as the bell rings. We look at each other, and I can tell when we both realize we’re going to the same class. I take a step forward, then another, and he follows.
Forrest and I are walking to class together.
“Soooooo...” he says. “How are ...you ...?”
I think of Dad, dropping me off at home on Sunday, how he hugged me for way too long before I climbed out of the car. How I stood at the window, waving as he drove away, and it felt like I was a kid again, watching him go to work, looking forward to when he’d come home and we’d watch cartoons.
“I’m fine,” I say. “And ...you?”
“Pretty good,” he says.
The classroom appears ahead of us, a shining beacon of hope in this horrifyingly awkward moment. I speed up, heading inside, and Forrest peels away to talk to his friends on the couch at the back of the room.
The second bell rings, and everyone scrambles to their seats. Ms. Lundahl brings out a stack of packets and starts passing them out. One lands on my desk with a thump that hits me like a stone.
“I’m working on reading your short essay assignments right now,” she says. “As I mentioned at the start of the year, these were a warm-up for the main event of our first two quarters: your long essay and presentation.”
Groans echo around the classroom. “Love the enthusiasm,” she says cheerily, heading back to the front and grabbing the remote. With the projector on, she walks us through the assignment step by step. With every section, the cloak of dread that settled over my shoulders the moment she said the words “long essay and presentation” gets heavier. This time, instead of writing about one of the three excerpts we read at the start of the year, we have to compare, contrast, and analyze all of them. There’s a deadline for an outline, and for a first draft, and for the final draft. Our presentations will happen in January, and we’ll have to give our argument to the class.
“No visual assistance,” Ms. Lundahl says. “It’ll just be you up here, and I’ll be grading on public speaking elements alone. I know that was a core component of tenth-grade curriculum for you all, and this will be a level up.”
“Fuuuuuck,” Stef mutters behind me. Beside me, Alexander murmurs in agreement. I chance a look over, and he widens his eyes at me. I grimace in response, and the impulse startles me. I don’t dislike Forrest’s friends, exactly; I’ve just never r eally associated with them. But that felt ...friendly, almost. I didn’t even second-guess the reaction before I had it.
As Ms. Lundahl keeps talking, I pull my phone out, opening the group chat under my desk.
I can’t join for lunch today, I’m meeting with Forrest to talk about club stuff,I tell them.
We’ll miss you!Anna says.
Text if you need us to rescue you,Makayla says.
Don’t tempt me,I say. I put my phone back in my pocket and try to focus on the board. I can do this. The assignment, and the meeting with Forrest. It will be fine.
When I walk into the library later that day, I spot Forrest right away: in the back, eyes on his phone as he shovels pasta into his mouth.
“What are you looking at?” I ask when I get close, and he jumps, noodles falling off his fork into his lap.
“Fuck!” He sets the phone down, laughing. “You scared the shit out of me.”
I shrug. “I guess now we’re even.”
He rolls his eyes, picking food out of his lap. “And it’s queer stuff, dance trends and politics.”
“What?”
