The hall itself looked like something from a medieval king’s court: three long oaken tables with benches on either side took up most of the room, and a huge fireplace that smelled of evergreens and hazelnuts covered half a wall. Theseating style was meant to “prevent cliques” and “encourage peer conversation,” but Andrew suspected it had been specifically designed to torment introverts.
Thomas had detoured to the bathroom, so Andrew decided to catch Dove in the serving line. He slid into place behind her and resisted the urge to slump his forehead on her shoulder and moan.
“I hate everything.” He pressed his fingertips to his temples. “Have you talked to Thomas?”
“I haven’t seen him.” Dove crossed her arms over her stomach. “It’s roast chicken and apple turnovers. They’re giving us false hope before the weeks of meat loaf start.” She inched toward the serving table stacked with plates and passed Andrew one.
“So,” he said, “are you and Thomas going to fight the whole year or…?”
Dove huffed. She looked worn after the long day, wisps of hair escaping her tight ponytail. “He can talk tome.”
Sometimes Andrew thought Dove and Thomas were in the midst of their own three-act play: first friends, then enemies, and then—
Lovers. That would inevitably come next.
Andrew was sure of one bitter truth: He’d rather have his lungs punctured than watch Dove and Thomas fall in love.
Sometimes he’d lie awake at night and unpack all his feelings about this boy-shaped hurricane named Thomas Rye. He didn’t know if he wanted tobeThomas—reckless and uncontainable—or if he wanted to kiss him. He could imagine Thomas’s soft lips on his for approximately five seconds before the entireconstruction crumpled like wet paper. Because there was alwaysafter. There was alwaysmore. People didn’t just kiss and continue on with their lives. They undid buttons and touched mouths to hot skin and lost themselves within each other.
And Andrew didn’t want to think about any of that. At all. Ever. He didn’t have crushes and didn’t think celebrities were hot and, honestly, the whole thing was stressful and overwhelming and better left boxed up in the back of his head. He was just this… thismesswho felt things about Thomas but couldn’t shape them into coherent sentences. And he was almost definitely certain Thomas liked Dove.
Dove reached the front of the line and tried chatting with the servers, though they ignored her, more interested in the line moving faster. A few students had begun staring at Andrew, but he kept his eyes on the ground as he trailed after his sister and had his plate filled with a heaping serving of roast chicken, peas, and a roll.
At the condiments table, Andrew fussed with the butter while Hyder, who sat behind him in history, helped himself to gravy.
“Hey,” he said. “Glad you’re back. Sorry about… everything. You doing okay?”
Andrew’s scarred fingers clenched around his plate. “I’m fine.”
Any more of this and he would ask the walls to devour him.
He cast about for somewhere to sit while Dove got cutlery, then followed her to the crowded tables. “It’s just I don’t know what you and Thomas fought about. And I don’t know why everyone keeps looking at us.”
Dove sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know what reality you live in.”
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But then Dove nodded to where the boy with a mess of auburn hair was slipping out of the dining hall in an illegal escape.
“Do you need me to stay with you, or should I chase him?” Dove said.
It felt like a trick question. Eating alone would be hell, but of course she had to go after Thomas. Fix this. Andrew had to stop being such a coward about being left by himself.
“Go make up.” He hoped she didn’t interpret that asmake out, too.
Dove vanished and Andrew walked slowly down the long rows of benches that had turned into hostile territory. No one would notice if he tossed his food in the trash and escaped. But when he turned, Lana Lang stood there with one hand on her hip.
She was Chinese American, wore deep mauve combat boots despite school regulations, kept her hair pulled back in a jagged ponytail, and had an expression flat as a severed heartbeat. To be scared of Lana was common sense: Fake smiles and false fronts melted before her. You had to be real or she took you apart.
She flicked a glance up and down Andrew, her mouth a thin line. “You’re wandering around like a lost puppy. Did Thomas misplace you?”
Andrew never knew whether to be meek or defensive with Lana. Their paths didn’t cross often—she was firmly Dove’s friend, not his. “He’s busy.”
“And yet all the seniors are required to be at dinner. I swear he has a compulsion to do the opposite of what he’s told. C’mon. Sit with me.”
Panic set in. “It’s fine. I’ll sit—”
Lana stalked toward a mostly empty section at the farthest table. “I won’t make you sit with my loud friends, Perrault. It’ll be just us.”
