I furrow my brow at that. “They can have her. Now, quit acting weird. Have a cookie," I say, shoving another one in my mouth and handing the last one to her. “Let’s get out of here. And you better get your butt to school tomorrow. I’ll bet you five dollars no one even notices the braces, and if they have something to say…” I move over to reach for her door handle, twisting once and opening it wide. The cool air from the hall hits me, and I’m thankful for its reprieve. “They can say it to my face instead.”
She glances at me for another moment before spinning, grabbing her tennis shoes from the floor. I avert my eyes again when she bends over in her tiny shorts and keep them glued to the ceiling until she passes by me, a hand playfully coming to slap my chest. “Let’s get going, Hart. Can’t keep our friends waiting.”
CHAPTER 2
Lukas
SIXTEEN YEARS OLD
The second bell rings for fourth period, and my eyes stay glued to the empty chair next to me. Magnolia is never late for class. She’s usually the first one in, being sure to save the back lab table for us because she knows I hate to sit in the front row. Looking around the room, I notice that the seat of her best friend, McKenna, is empty, and when I catch the eye of McKenna’s lab partner, she just shrugs.
Mags was fine this morning. We had government together first period; then she went off to French and geometry, while I had shop and gym. Science is where we meet back together, and then it’s lunch. My stomach twists, and while I know she’s safe somewhere inside these school walls, and that there is likely a perfectly reasonable explanation for why she’s now seven minutes late to class, Mags is never late. She’s a people-pleaser, a perfectionist, the type of person that goes out of her way to make things okay, so the idea of something being wrong with her doesn’t sit right with me. Before I can talk myself out of it, my hand is thrown in the air, and Mr. Benolio rolls his eyes when I ask for a hall pass.
I roam the empty halls, bypassing the art room and music hall, taking a left down the hall that holds row after row oflockers. Mags and I have lockers on the far end; mine is one row past hers. The closer I get to that end of the hall, I can tell that something is taped on the front of hers. My brow furrows with each long stride down the tile, and the closer I get to her locker door, and the more I can make out the image, the tighter I clench my fists.
Blood roars through my veins, coursing toward my heart, causing it to thump a distracting beat. My ears ring, and I look around, ready to throw hands with anyone that might be standing by.
Because taped to the front of Magnolia’s locker is her school picture from last year, except blown up. Her smile is wide and beautiful, showing off her braces, because after nearly two years of me promising her she looks fine, she’s finally becoming comfortable in her skin again.
There’s what looks like a pad, or something girls use for their period, stuck to the picture, and in bright red ink, someone wrote, “shark week for brace face.” I rip the picture and pad from her locker, tearing it into what feels like hundreds of tiny shreds, before I gather it in a ball and toss the remains into the trash can. My chest heaves, hands propped on my hips as I scan down the hall to the left, and then the right, wondering who has the balls to do something like this to someone like her.
Then I take off, weaving up and down each hallway, looking for something, anything, that might be out of place. Anyone left lingering with guilty eyes. Or anyone that would know where Mags is.
I turn down the hallway that parallels the cafeteria, and I spot McKenna standing outside the women's bathroom, with her arms crossed around her waist. She watches out the front windows that give a view of the parking lot, her gaze so focused she doesn’t see me until I’m standing right at her side. She tilts her head to me; her eyes widening once she takes me in.
“Where is she?” I bark.
A faint sob comes from the women’s bathroom behind McKenna, and her hands come up to stop me just as I’m about to push past her to enter.
“You can’t go in there!” she squeals, grabbing at my arm. She pulls me out into the hallway, a few feet away from the door, and hisses at me under her breath. “I’ve got it under control, Lukas. She’s fine.”
“What the hell happened?” I grit out.
She stares at me, and I plant my feet shoulder width apart, crossing my arms over my chest. “I’m not leaving until I know she’s okay.”
She rolls her eyes, crossing her own arms over her chest. “She’s fine, Lukas. It’s just a girl issue. We’re waiting for her mom to bring her more clothes.”
Oh. A relieved breath wooshes out of me. My mom has supplies for all that stuff in the bathroom, and she’s starting to have talks with my little sister, Harper. I grew up on a farm for Christ’s sake. I've watched calves being born my entire life. A little blood doesn’t weird me out.
But then I hear another muffled sob coming from the bathroom, and my previous calmness vanishes. “Her period hurts that bad?” I know she gets bad cramps, but Magnolia is used to a little pain. She’s a life-long ballerina, I’ve seen what she puts her body through, how bruised and sore her feet get. After a long day of practice or a straining performance, I’ve seen that girl stick her feet in a cooler of ice without even flinching. I have a hard time believing she’s crying this hard over period cramps.
McKenna pulls me down the hall another few feet, looking to make sure we are alone before she speaks, her voice low and slow. “Last class, she was called to the front to work on a problem on the board.” I nod along, waiting for her to continue. But instead of going on, she rolls her eyes, mumbling under herbreath about how I’m such a boy. “She got her period … had to walk to the front of the class.” She waves her hand forward, as if expecting me to catch on.
“Ohhhh, did she leak through her pants?” Yikes, that’d be embarrassing to stand in front of the class with blood on your clothes. Even though all of the girls likely have theirs, or will get them soon, I’ll bet the whispers started immediately.
“It wouldn’t have been so bad, but Billy had to make a scene over it.”
My jaw clenches together, my back molars hitting with an almost audible crunch. Billy is nothing short of an asshole. He’s had a crush on Mags since we were in seventh grade, and when she made it known she wasn’t interested, he didn’t take it well. Since then, he’s been a dick, picking on her and taunting her every chance he gets. “What. Did. He. Do?”
I’m trying to keep my cool and pretend like it’s genuine curiosity that has me questioning her, but McKenna sees right through it. She steps back as her eyes look me up and down. “Don’t you dare make a scene about this, Lukas. You’ll make it worse.”
“What. Did. He. Do?” I repeat.
She sighs, looking to the side as she worries her bottom lip back and forth. “He started laughing, pointing. Magnolia didn’t know what was going on, then he went on to loudly make jokes about his Aunt Flo coming for the weekend. He asked if it was shark week on TV, those kinds of things. Almost the entire class was laughing before Magnolia realized it was about her.”
Shark Week for Brace Face. The picture I ripped off her locker. He’s so dead.
I push past McKenna, crossing the forbidden threshold that is the women's bathroom. I bend over as I walk, looking underneath all the stalls for a set of shoes I recognize. “Mags?” I whisper, and I hear a gasp, followed by a throat clearing.
