You wish you could take it back. You know Brody’s a good guy. He’s your best friend.
But what Marshall said keeps running through your head. To try to do better.
And you think about what Farshid said, too. That you’ve never stood up to Brody, even when he’s gone too far.
You are now.
Brody’s face turns even redder. “Whatever. If I’m so bad, then go tell on me. Tell on both of us. Pick Farshid and Cooper over me. What have they ever done for you? Oh, that’s right, ignore you and make you feel like crap. I can’t believe you.”
He shoves you away, not hard enough to move you, but you step back anyway as he stalks past, even though his class is the other way.
You’re breathing hard, like you just did a warm-up in conditioning. You look back toward the hall where Reggie was doing his work, but you don’t go check. You don’t know what to do.
Brody’s your friend.
But he’s wrong.
And Reggie’s not even your friend. He’s just a jerk.
Farshid’s not your friend, either. But you can’t stop thinking about how small and scared he sounded. He doesn’t deserve this.
No one does.
You hear footsteps—sharp, clicky ones, like a teacher wearingheels, so you get moving again, heading back to German. You return the weird spiky helmet hall pass. Take your seat in the front row. Keep your head down. You can’t hear a single thing Frau is saying about dative case, even though you know it’s certain to be on the next quiz, and you still want to be gut in Deutsch.
Your head is buzzing. Not from caffeine this time but from your thoughts bouncing around like a swarm of bumblebees, all bonking against the glass panes of everything you thought you knew about Brody.
Yeah, he makes gross jokes sometimes. Yeah, he doesn’t always know when to keep his mouth shut.
He makes mistakes sometimes, but who doesn’t? You’ve made your share.
That doesn’t make him bad. That doesn’t makeyoubad. Does it?
You’re trying to do better.
Brody’s not, though. He’s out there, covering for Reggie, acting like you’re the jerk for telling them to stop.
He’s your friend. Your best friend.
You don’t want him to get in trouble.
But this is wrong. He is wrong. He’s not a bad guy. But he’s doing a bad thing.
You can’t breathe. And you still feel hot all over. And sick to your stomach.
You don’t know, you don’t know, you don’t know—
“Dayton?” Frau asks, and though her voice is soft and round, it cracks like a whip. You sit up straight.
You’re still shaking, and you don’t know if it’s fear or that horrible coffee anymore, but you clear your throat.
“I need to go to the office.”
26FARSHID
You’re halfway through your quiz in bio when Mx. Lee’s walkie-talkie beeps, and even though they keep the volume low so you can all focus on filling out the little grids of how dominant and recessive traits might be applied to an imaginary person, you’re pretty sure you make out your name.
You look up, but then you look right back down, because you don’t want to seem like you’re cheating, trying to crib off anyone else’s quiz. But it feels like a spider’s crawling up your neck, the way your skin prickles, wondering if you reallydidhear your name, and whether everyone else did, too, and what’s happening.
