“She’s my ex-girlfriend.”
My ears perk up. “Oh? Does she go here?”
“No. We dated in high school. I think she wants to get back together.”
“Why do you think that?”
He flips over onto his stomach and avoids my eyes as he pulls out a marker and fills in his bare nails. “Her text said that she wants to get back together.”
I squirm, my shoulder blades itchy from the prickly grass. I hold my hand up to shield my eyes from the too-bright sun. “That’s a good clue.”
“You already knowit’s good, I already told you it’s good, so stop fishing for compliments!” West laughs.
“But what would you say if we were in Dr.B’s class?” I hop onto the edge of the fountain and train my eyes on my feet as I walk around it.
“Why do you wanna know?” He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Because I care about your opinion!”
“Why?”
“Because your paragraph was good.”
He looks like he’d rather jump off a cliff than talk about himself. “There’s no plot. Nothing ever happens in my stories. Let’s change the subject.”
“West—I’m begging! If I’m going to be published before I graduate, I need feedback, and people aren’t exactly lining up to read my weirdo magic books. I read a page to Amber, and shefell asleep. With snoring! I emailed my brothers my last story, and they never replied. Even my high school English teacher had to clarify that she only had time to read my assigned essays and not the sixty pages of fiction I left on her desk.”
“Do you think Amber was faking?” West asks.
“Well, now I do!” I groan and drag my foot through the fountain.
Water splashes his hair, and he quickly smooths it with his fingers. Like the wicked witch, West and his hair. “What’s the rush to get published?” he asks.
“Why wait?”
He rolls his eyes and holds his hand up to help me down from the slippery ledge of the fountain. “Fine, don’t tell me. Need brain fuel?”
“I could eat.”
“Frog & Firkin is right there.” He nods to a popular bar a few hundred yards away. “Or Bison Witches on Fourth?”
The sandwich shop is in the funky, artsy historic district a mile away, and since I’m in the mood to procrastinate as long as possible, I choose the long route, and we make our way toward Fourth Avenue.
His elbow bumps mine while we walk, and when I look up at him, I find myself wanting to explain. “I didn’t really have friends growing up.” He tips his head, indicating that I should continue. “I was weird and introverted, and my brothers both played travel baseball. My parents dragged me all over the state every weekend, and all over the Southwest on every break from school. The number of hours I’ve clocked in the bleacherswatching parents yell at umpires is enough to make anyone a little crazy. I spent all those years with my nose in a book, and then in a notebook, and finally a computer. It’s pathetic, but book characters were myonlyfriends.”
“That sounds lonely.”
My cheeks flush, and I realize I didn’t have to tell him any of that in order to answer his question. “My brothers both went to school on baseball scholarships. Nothing crazy. Small schools with okay baseball programs but good degrees. One now works in tech in Silicon Valley; the other makes airplane parts in Seattle. My parents told me I needed to get a scholarship, too, but my grades weren’t good enough, and I can’t throw a fastball, so.”
It’s actually infuriating, as if they didn’t pour thousands into their attempts to turn my brothers into the next A-Rod.
“I needed my parents to help with my tuition, but they wanted me to study something ‘practical.’ The only way they’d agree to creative writing is if I start paying them back the day after graduation.”
“That’s why you’re in such a rush?”
I scoff. “No. I’ll be a barista, whatever. I’m in a hurry to be published because I want to show them that they’re wrong for not believing in me. It’s my spite goal.”
He looks at me sideways. “Hmm.”
