Had he done that on purpose? Her heart skipped a few beats.
“That’s every school.” He slouched lower, his long legs sprawled so that one knee loomed even closer to her.
He smelled good, like shampoo or soap, maybe. Thisclose, she could see a fresh cut just under his chin, a tiny red slash that might have been a shaving mishap.
Overhead, an old institutional clock hummed away the minutes.
“Where did you go before this?” Was it okay to ask that? She didn’t know how long he’d been in the foster system, so maybe he’d just left his real home. Or maybe he’d gotten transferred from one foster family to another.
Either way, it couldn’t have been easy. But it was too late to take the question back without another awkward moment.
“Memphis. Three schools in two years. And they’re all alike.” He shifted toward her to tick off items on his fingers, the angle making the thin gold chain around his neck glimmer dully. “Same athlete pricks. Same entitled rich kids. Virtually identical cliques.”
“Really?” She couldn’t imagine any student body being as mean-spirited as this one. She tried not to envy him the opportunity to try out other places, knowing his life couldn’t have been easy.
Then again, she wondered if his mother was in jail the way hers was. That had to even the score a little.
“Definitely.” Straightening in his chair, he peered over at her. “Who’s your clique, Bailey?”
Something about the way he said it sounded like a challenge. As if he already assumed she would be in one of his predictable groups? She saw no point in denying where she stood in the social pecking order. He’d find out soon enough once he enrolled.
“Currently, I’ve been abandoned by all my former friends except for Megan—the girl you met who babysits with me. So I guess I don’t have a clique these days.” Sheavoided his eyes, wishing they could have gone on talking for a while before this subject came up.
“Been there.” He nodded, his expression remaining neutral. If he thought she was a giant loser, he didn’t show it. “But you know what? Better to have one real friend than ten bogus ones.”
Out in the hallway, a woman’s shrill voice rose to a shout.
“I know my son’s rights! You can’t deny J.D. access to his education. He is as entitled to be here as those girls?—”
“Oh God.” Bailey stood, her reprieve from her real life effectively over. She did not want to face J.D.’s mother. And what if J.D. himself were out there in the front office? “I need to get out of here.”
“Why?” Dawson stood, instantly alert. “What’s wrong?”
He looked ready to bolt, too. Together? The notion calmed her a little.
“Nothing.” She shook her head, still feeling jittery and scared. Why had she let herself get separated from Megan? “I mean, there’s a lady out front who will be really—and I mean really—unhappy with me. You can stay. I just... I have to go.”
Hurrying over to the door of the testing center, she gripped her backpack under one arm and peered toward the front office. It was around a corner, though, so her view was blocked.
She strained to hear the lowered voices speaking nearby.
“...there is no restraining order in effect,” J.D.’s mother, the social-studies teacher, was telling someone.
“But perhaps the young ladies didn’t expect him to beout of jail...” That sounded like the vice principal, Mr. Cornish.
“He was never in jail!” Mrs. Covington insisted. “He’s just a boy who got caught up in his father’s mistakes?—”
She was shushed again, and the rest of the conversation became more garbled, as if they’d stepped deeper into one of the offices off the reception area.
Bailey’s stomach knotted.
“You want a ride home?” Dawson’s soft voice in her ear was an oddly pleasant sensation in the midst of a firestorm of scary shit.
Bailey wanted to cling to it with both hands.
She really didn’t want to be here. She needed to speak to her father about what to do now that J.D. was back in school. And even though her car was out in the student parking lot, she was already shaking in her shoes at the idea of walking through the front office to leave. Her old Volvo would be wrapped around a tree if she tried driving herself anywhere.
So no matter that she knew it was selfish to rope this boy into her problems, she nodded.
