I laugh. “Not in my room, they’re not.”
“Consider yourself lucky. The things I’ve heard…” He shudders.
We cross the street with a growing horde of students decked out in cardinal red and navy blue. We meet up with three girls I don’t recognize, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that West and I are the odd ones out, and without anything else to talk about while we wait in the security line, I find myself asking, “How’s Dr.B’s class? Any ‘heartsick’ appearances yet?”
Hands still in his pockets, West looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “Oh,nowshe’s in the mood to joke about it.”
Last semester we had a classmate who was fixated on the wordheartsick. Her characters were overwrought with emotion, all of them weeping and fainting and perpetually lovelorn. Every time she used the word, West caught my eye with a meaningful glance and held up his fingers under the table. One for each flagrant abuse of the word. By November, he’d lost count and would clutch my knee while our shoulders shook from silent laughter.
“In my defense, I’m a sore loser.” I cross my arms.
“That’s your defense?”
“I don’t like failing. Is that so bad?”
“Ah yes, the abject failure known as second place.” His tone is dry enough to catch fire.
“Second isn’t—”
“I voted for you,” he says as we come to an abrupt halt in one of the security lines. The rest of our group gets swallowed up by the crowd.
“Youdid?” I don’t bother to hide my shock.
“Obviously. Why? Who did you vote for?”
“Myself!”
He shakes his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I don’t know why I asked.”
“Whatever. Second place or last, it’s all the same.”
“Which story do you think came in last?” He leans in, crowding me, his voice low in my ear. I stare up into his eyes, slightly hypnotized by the strange ring of amber around his pupils.
“Heartsick,” we say at the same time.
West finally cracks a smile and ushers me toward the student section. “We can talk about it now? No hard feelings?”
“As long as you don’t lie to me.”
The crowd presses us closer together, and I’m in front of West now, his hand on my shoulder so we don’t get separated. I crane my neck all the way back to look up at him when he scoffs. “When did I ever lie to you?”
“When you said you weren’t entering the competition because it wasn’t ‘your thing.’ ”
His eyes narrow as he looks down at me, his gaze nearly as heavy as his palm on my shoulder. “People are allowed to change their minds, Mars.” His voice curls pleasantly around my name.
“Why did you?” I’m knocked back into him, shoulder blades slamming flush against his chest.
He steadies me, keeping me pressed against him in a way that I definitely don’t hate until space opens around us. When I move, he clears his throat and finally answers my question. “Lots of reasons. You, for one.”
“Me?” I’m incredulous.
“Seeing how much you love writing made me want to love it, too.” He looks away. “Whatever. It’s mostly because Dr.B encouraged me to enter. Told me I had a good shot.”
He points to our group in the student section, and we squeeze our way through the crowd. I stand on my tiptoes and shout so he can hear me over the roar as the Wildcats’ starting lineup is announced. “Is that why you didn’t tell me? Because Dr.B put you up to it?”
“No,” he shouts back, his attention now on the game. He cups his hands around his mouth and cheers for our star player. He nudges me with his elbow, motioning for me to join in, but I have a one-track mind. Obsessive, some people have said. Focused. Determined. A buzzkill.
I put my hand on my hip, annoyed. I thought West and I were friends. He’s the one who would kick my foot under the table when the pocket egg made its daily appearance. He’d doodle cartoons for me on the corners of his notebook when he was bored. He readTwilightbecause I told him to. West Emerson knew how much I wanted to win that contest, and he couldn’t even give me the heads-up that he was competing against me.
