“What?” It was like we jumped tracks. “Dress?”
“Yep, dress. We need to look hot and you need to flaunt that violet hair you’ve been hiding.” She stroked a hand—not the one she stole fries with—through my hair and curled some of the violet ends around a finger. “Do you want to retouch this beforehand? We could get some color conditioner to darken this section for the night. It would wash out and lighten back up after a couple of washes.”
A half-dozen responses presented themselves in all their single syllable glory, but I couldn’t quite formulate one.
With a slow smile, Rachel winked at me. “Right, you work tomorrow and Thursday. We have another week, so let’s go on Friday?”
“Sure?” Was I asking her or telling her?
Stealing another fry, Rachel waved it at me. “Good deal. It’s a date. I’ll pick you up at your apartment, and drive. I know quite a few excellent shops we can hit.”
With that, she bounced up and left the table. I blinked after her, tracking her path across the room. She paused just after passing Sharon’s table then backed up and leaned down to say something. The words didn’t carry, but Sharon’s shocked face went beet red. After Rachel left them with a careless wave, Sharon stormed out of the lunchroom.
I twisted to look at Bubba and Coop who stared at me with the same stuped look I was almost certain I was wearing. “What just happened?”
“I have no idea,” Bubba said slowly and Coop lifted his shoulders.
“Me either, except…” Coop cut his gaze back to the other table and I couldn’t help but steal a glance. Not a single one of them was looking at us. “I am going to make a policy of never pissing Manning off.”
“Ever.” Bubba sounded off.
I studied both of them, then picked up the least soggy fries from my plate and offered one to each of them. At their surprised looks, I managed a smile.
“Distracted you,” was my only explanation and that earned me actual smiles from both. I had no idea what I was radiating right now, but a part of me wished I could shut it all off.
It was all so damn confusing and I wasn’t even functioning at full battery. I was maybe at 17% and blinking red.
As weird as the day had been, it took a turn at the end when I swung by my locker to swap out books and leave the crap I didn’t need for homework there. Yes, that was an excuse—I usually took everything home—but I used it to see if I had another letter or rose.
I hadn’t heard from my secret friend in a while. I was still wrestling with the disappointment when Archie appeared beside me.
He didn’t say anything at first. Just leaned a shoulder against the next locker, all cool detachment on the outside even though his eyes were taking ineverything.He always did that—catalogued me. Like I was a problem to solve.
“You’re not okay,” he said finally, gently but without hesitation. Like he wasn’t dropping a grenade directly into my chest cavity.
“I’m fine,” I lied.
Archie’s mouth did a tiny twitch that wasn’t quite a smile.
Somehow, he always knew when I wasn’t telling him the truth. It was like he had the secret decoder to my moods.
He reached up, slowly, as if giving me space to step back if I wanted. When I didn’t, he tucked a strand of my violet hair behind my ear.
Everything in me went neon alert.
“You’re always doing that,” he murmured.
“What?”
“Trying to look put together while you’re breaking internally. And I always…” His jaw tightened. He looked away, then back. “I always want to fix it.”
Fix me.
Fixus.
Fix what he wasn’t saying.
My heart punched the inside of my ribs.
