I nod. As much as I want to work toward step 8 and be a good friend by helping Breck out, I also understand Lin’s concerns. She’s really put her heart in this over the last two years.
“I can find out,” I offer.
She raises an eyebrow, skeptical. “Yeah?”
I shrug. How hard can it be? Breck is pretty transparent.
Ten minutes before the bell rings, the halls become more congested. We’ve successfully hung three dozen flyers down three different hallways. I’m putting the extras in Lin’s binder as she collapses the step stool.
“Hey, Alex!”
I turn to see Lin waving at him from across the hall. My pulse sputters for a quarter of a second. We have algebra together and have already been through the polite,Hi! Hey! You’re back for good? Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, it is,routine. This is the first time I’ll voluntarily be in his presence, and my stomach is all nerves.
You need to talk to him.
He waves before changing direction and walking toward us, but I shake step 7 and the entire list out of my head. It’s not the right time.
His text pops back into my head.i know my timing is off—
Lin’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Do you have tech first period?”
“Yup,” Alex replies. He’s not wearing his beanie today, but he is wearing a navy deadCenter Film Festival T-shirt with a long sleeve black tee underneath. The double shirts are typical Alex Ramos attire. His hair is slightly damp and curling at the ends, as if he rushed out of the shower to get here in time.
Lin holds out the step stool to him. “Would you mind running this back with you? I have to deliver the extra flyers to Mrs. Dwight’s room before the bell rings.”
“No problem.” He takes it from her, then glances at me. “Are you rejoining Earth Club this year?”
His tone is friendly. If he’s holding a grudge against the whole text thing, I can’t tell. But it’s his smile that throws me off kilter. It’s a sincere smile, something I didn’t expect.
I find I can’t look away.
“Yeah, I am.”
“Cool.” He looks back at Lin. “See you guys later.”
I watch him head down the hall, adjusting his backpack as he goes. I never told anyone about the text—not even Lin. My friends knew about Alex’s obvious crush on me in middle school, but since we’d gone our separate ways freshman year I’m sure they assumed those feelings evaporated.
As I watch him disappear down the hall, a strange feeling of loneliness lingers in the corners of my heart. But as fast as it comes, it fades just as quickly when I turn away.
I’m in a surprisingly good mood when I walk into Algebra II after lunch. Raegan had a Leadership meeting and Whitney had a dentist appointment, so it was only Breck, Colton, Lin, Jay, and me at the table—which meant Jay made eye contact with me on more than one occasion. He even offered me some of his cheese fries without doing that weird jaw-clenching thing he does when he feels uncomfortable. It was as if we were both relieved Whitney wasn’t the barrier between us having a friendly conversation.
On the flip side, I feel guilty that I spent all lunch feeling relaxed without her there. I felt even guiltier when Jay pulled his notebook out in AP US History and drew us up a hangman game to play as Mr. Densick explained today’s Data Based Question. Even though we stuck to movie titles, I couldn’t help overthinking it. I mean, thiswasour way of flirting with each other before he officially asked me out. But he has Whitney, so this definitely isn’t flirting. Or is it sub-flirting?
Then I’d caught him staring at Jana Nelson’s cleavage while thinking of a letter to guess in the puzzle and decided that I wassurelyoverthinking it. Did he do that when we were dating? Stare at other girls? No. I mean, I would have noticed. At least, that’s what I tell myself.
But a tiny part of me questioned how much he’d changed since I’ve been gone.
The warning bell rings just as Alex flops into his assigned desk next to me. My eyes catch his profile. He looks tired, as if he didn’t sleep well last night. I didn’t notice it this morning, but there are dark circles under his eyes. Alex has never been one to party. I guess the stress of this week has caught up with him.
When he catches me staring, he pulls his beanie out from his back pocket and tugs it over his hair. He rests his head on his arms, then pulls the beanie over his eyes. Well. Okay then. I grab my spiral and flip it open to a fresh page.
Mrs. Donaldson walks into the room and begins scrawling something on the board. I hate math even more because of Mrs. Donaldson. She never slows her pace, which makes it hard for me to keep up, and she hates when students ask too many questions. Whitney and I had her freshman year for Algebra I, and I barely passed with a low C. I don’t know what I did to disturb the karmic gods to have heragain.
“Good afternoon, class.” She taps her dry erase marker on the board where a sequence of numbers is written. “Today we’re talking about radical numbers and square roots.”
Riveting.
I open my textbook and do my best to pay attention to the formulas she scribbles, but my mind wanders back to Jay and Whitney. This week she made it very clear that they’re already planning on going to homecoming together. It’s obvious that she wants my past with Jay to have nothing to do with her present relationship. I guess I can’t blame her, but I wish it were easier to get my head around.
