My silence piqued Javier's curiosity. "You're going, right?"
"On the student council trip?" I asked to which he nodded. I then shook my head and tried to hide my disappointment. "No."
"But you said you were," he said, the disbelief evident in his voice. I raised an eyebrow at him, I had never told him that. He explained, "You and your friends are pretty loud. I've heard you guys talking about it in class and at lunch."
He wasn't wrong, my friends and I usually spoke pretty loudly. When I still had hope that I was going on the trip we talked about it often. It was ridiculous of me to have even had hopes in the first place. I was basically hoping that money would start growing on the damn trees.
I broke the news to my friends that I wouldn't be able to go on the trip about a week ago. Everyone besides Justin was upset.
I never realized that people listened to our conversations. Sure, we never whispered, but I thought that other people would be too into their own conversations to listen to us. If we were Javier and his group of friends then I could believe it. But us? No one cared about us the way they cared about Javier.
"I wanted to go," I said with a sigh. "But I already missed the deadline to pay, so it doesn't matter."
Javier was about to say something, but his mother's voice stopped him. She was calling us down for dinner. Yes,us. I wasn't really planning on staying for dinner. His parents were welcoming and I was sure the food would be amazing, but I didn’t believe that Javier would want me to stay.
"She's going to insist you stay," Javier said as he stood up and pushed the chair under his desk. "Save us all of the trouble and have dinner with us."
I checked my phone. It was 6:00 PM. My aunt didn't have work, so I had to be home before 8:00 otherwise she'd throw a fit just for the hell of it.
Javier’s eyes darted to the floor and then back to me. “Please?”
How could I say no to a ‘please?’
I had his mother'ssopa de fideoand it was the best thing I had ever tasted. It was a rich noodle soup with creamy tomato broth that was comfortingly warm. I had never heard of this dish before, but now that I had it once I knew I couldn’t go without itagain. My aunt never cooked those types of savory meals for us, so it was a great change of meal for me.
Javier’s mom’s face lit up when she saw the happiness on my face after trying her food. She insisted that I take some home even after I declined, and then she told me that I was welcome to come back anytime for more. Mrs. Cortez didn’t do much, but she did manage to make me feel wanted. Even if it was only for that short amount of time.
I couldn’t believe it. I had just spent multiple hours in Javier’s house and enjoyed it. If I would have been asked a month ago if I thought that was possible, I would have answered when pigs fly.
When I stepped outside, there were no flying pigs in the sky.
Fourteen
Eli
Ihad just finished telling Kailey every detail about my evening at Javier's house after she wouldn’t quit badgering me about it. We were waiting for the student council meeting to start, so I had time to kill.
"Oh my God, so does this mean that you guys are friends?" Kailey asked way too loudly.
I shushed her. Javier was in the same room as we were, just on the opposite side. He had already mentioned to me that my friends and I could be loud at times. I didn't need Kailey to prove his point further or let him know that we were talking about him
"No, it doesn't mean that we're friends. Why do you want us to be friends so badly?" I asked with an eye roll.
Before she could answer, Mr. Rowe entered the room. Everyone in the room immediately began to quiet down as he walked toward his desk. Our club leader could be pretty strict at times so us students were quick to listen to him.
People were constantly interrupting me at the worst times. If our teacher would have waited ten more seconds before coming into the classroom, Kailey could have answered me. Whatever, it just meant that I had to remember to ask her again.
Though, over the past couple months I had started to realize that I was forgetting a lot more than usual. I mean, it wasn’tanything drastic. It was small errors like losing my phone even though I had it a few minutes before and forgetting things that I wanted to say to people. I was also forgetting parts of conversations that had happened not that long ago. It was okay, though, because I ended up remembering eventually, I just had to think really hard about it.
Honestly, I had no idea what was said during the meeting. The truth was that now that I wasn’t the class president, I did not have a lot of want to be in the student council. I had stuck it out for three full years in hope that the next year would be my year to win. Clearly that year never came.
Student council was a bit of a bore. If you weren’t class president or at least one of the class officers then there was not much point in participating in it. Everyone else was just background characters that showed up to meetings and maybe a few events. It was just a bunch of straight-A, overachiever kids coming together and making the most insufferable group possible.
But that was just my opinion. Most people would say otherwise. Many of my club mates—mostly the irrelevant ones whose names I never bothered to learn—thought that it was meaningful even while not being president or secretary.
I was only at the meeting because I had committed to it and I wouldn’t bail on Kailey. She would be mad if I dropped out just because I didn’t get what I wanted. I was glad I had her to keep me grounded because I did want to finish my time in this club.
My eyes were wandering around the room and they kept matching with Javier’s. I wasn’t doing it on purpose and I didn’t think that he was either, it just kept happening. I kept meeting Diane’s eyes, too. She didn’t seem as pissed at me as last time, but her stare wasn’t letting up. I couldn’t quite figure out the look that she was giving me.
