Mama’s eyes find mine and they are virtually expressionless but for a sheen that wasn't there before. It seems to take forever but finally, finally her lips curl into a big smile.
“Benji,mon amour!” she calls out as she drops the knife once more and rushes over to give me what I'm pretty sure is the best hug of my life.
I don't meanto be there when D— opens the card. I’d tucked it inside her locker, hoping she'd get it after the final lesson of the day, but for some reason she's already found it, and she's about to open it right in front of me.
Well, not exactly in front of me. Technically, I'm in front of her, sitting as I now normally do in the front row closest to the door. My tummy problems aren't getting better and I've had one too many close calls in recent weeks.
But I can hear in perfect clarity the conversation between D— and Raquelle behind me as we all sit waiting for Mlle Bonneville to arrive.
“Oh my God, it's a Valentine's card!” Raquelle exclaims in a whisper-hiss.
There's a snort of disdain and I just know it's come from D-.
“Then it's probably a joke,” she adds.
“Don't put yourself down. You're hot.”
“Jesus, I didn't say I wasn't hot,” D— says, and I can't help my smile. “It’s just that everybody here thinks I'm a queer weirdo who hates everyone, so nobody is going to be sending me a serious Valentine’s card.”
She's not wrong. That's a kinder summary of some of the comments I've heard uttered about her among some of the football guys.
“But you're my queer weirdo,” says Raquelle, and I think they embrace. “Anyway. Open it. Quickly, before Mademoiselle arrives.”
I hear the tearing of paper. I hold my breath and close my eyes like maybe that will transport me somewhere else.
And then I hear a soft gasp before Raquelle reads out the message my mum wrote, first in French then inEnglish. “My Valentine, I always wants to be close to you, your secret love.”
“It’s lame,” D— says and the words may as well be daggers thrown into my back.
“I don’t know,” Raquelle muses while I try and catch my breath and keep my composure. “I’m kind of digging the stalker vibe. Like, how nice that somebody just wants to be near you all the time.”
“It’s a joke,” D— says firmly, and I hear rustling like she’s stashing the card away in her bag. “If somebody wanted to be close to me, they would have the nerve to ask me out.”
Raquelle snorts. “I don’t know. You’re not exactly approachable.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s pretty easy to figure out who sent it.” Raquelle’s voice lowers, and I have to lean further back to hear properly. “They wrote it in French so it must be somebody in this class.”
A rush of heat floods my face, my neck and I’m pretty sure the tips of my ears.
“Nah.” D— is quick and seemingly confident in her dismissal. “Everybody knows I aced French at GCSE and got the best scores in the AS exams last year.”
I flinch.Second best, I add mentally and then want to face-palm myself for being so pedantic at a time when my world could come crashing around me.
“And even the stupidest people in this school can use an online translator or a dictionary to write French.”
“But the handwriting,” Raquelle says absently. I crane to listen to what she says next but Mlle Bonneville walks in, a coffee in one hand and a stack of papers in the other, andthe lesson begins.
Raquelle and D— don’t talk about the card again while I’m sitting in front of them and as soon as I can, I move to get paired with Greg so I don’t have to listen to them if they do. It’s a blessing from above that my stomach behaves enough that I can just sit in the back of the classroom and pray that some miracle will make me disappear into the ground.
NINE
DION
NOW
This can't be happening.
