“It’s for a project,” I told her. The lies slipped out so easily. I omitted a lot of information with my parents to keep my dad out of my business, but I was usually pretty honest with Mai. She glanced at her wristwatch—it was nearing midnight—and gave me a suspicious look.
“All right but keep it down. I’m studying for a test I have tomorrow.”
She left, and when I looked at my phone, Seth was shaking his head with a mischievous grin. “So many secrets, Hiroku Hayashi.”
I sighed in relief. Confessing my sins to Seth made the weight of my deception a little less heavy.
“You have no idea.”
I was able to maintain my double life in part because Seth didn’t acknowledge me at school, not in an obvious way at least. No one knew we were…whatever we were. Not my parents, not my sister, and to some extent, not even Sabrina, so I was surprised when Seth sought me out at school a few days after our FaceTime exchange.
Ours was a fairly big public high school located between our suburb and downtown Austin—one of the oldest in fact—with a magnet program for the arts, which included music, visual and digital arts, recording, theater, and dance. Over the years the art kids had slowly been taking over, which meant our football team sucked, but the marching and symphonic bands were outstanding.
It was during lunch, and I was sitting with Sabrina and some of her band friends outside the orchestra room where there were a few picnic tables. The arts disciplines tended to be turfy like that—band geeks stuck together, as did the theater kids and the dancers. Technically, I should be hanging out with thearteestsas Sabrina and I called them, but I didn’t get along too well with my own crowd. As individuals, they were tolerable, but as a collective, they were a bunch of pompous, know-it-all assholes. Perhaps because art kids rarely had to work as a team, they were all super competitive with everyone hating on each others’ artwork behind their backs.
I saw Seth coming down the sidewalk that lined the front of the main building. He strutted up to us with confidence and introduced himself formally with, “Greetings, freshmen, my name is Seth Barrett, and I’d like a word with Hiroku Hayashi.”
“We’re sophomores,” Sabrina said—most of them were—and fixed her cold gaze on Seth. By this time she knew I’d been hanging out in Seth’s garage and watching his band practice. I hadn’t told her yet about the physical stuff, but she was protective nonetheless.
I unfolded myself from between Sabrina and a saxophonist name Rico.
“Bring your stuff.” Seth smiled when he said it, but I sensed from Sabrina’s face she didn’t like his tone.
I crammed the rest of my lunch into my backpack and threw it over my shoulder. At our school the freshman got the shittiest lockers, way up on the third floor, which was a major inconvenience, so most of us carried everything around with us like pack mules. It was even worse for the kids who had to lug their instruments to and from school every day. Regardless, it meant I had everything with me already.
“What’s going on?” I asked Seth when we were on the sidewalk heading in the opposite direction. I thought something bad had happened.
“Impromptu field trip. I want you to come with us.”
I didn’t know who “us” was or where they planned on going. I only knew that it meant I’d be skipping school. “They’ll call my dad’s cell. The school will, I mean.”
Seth shot me a confused look as though that hadn’t even factored into his decision. “Oh…right. Well, can’t you just make up something?”
There were things I left out when it came to my parents, but I tried not to deceive them outright. “Like what?” I asked. Nothing seemed plausible.
“How about this? Sabrina is having a bad day—she broke up with her boyfriend or got her period or something—and you went home with her to comfort her, and you ended up staying the night at her house.”
“This field trip is overnight?” I still hadn’t said no, even though it was sure to lead to trouble.
“I really want you to come with us. Please, Hiroku?” He actually batted his eyelashes at me. It actually worked.
“But…” I’d never skipped school before—that just wasn’t something I did. I might get into trouble—big trouble—with my dad, not to mention I still didn’t know where we were going. “I don’t have anything with me.”
“We’ve got everything packed already. You don’t need a thing.”
I hadn’t realized where he was leading me until we were at the edge of campus. Mitchell was idling on a side street in his maroon Chevy Malibu, and there were already four people in the car.
“There’s no room for me.” I gripped the shoulder straps of my backpack like it was the last parachute.
“You can sit on my lap. Come on before someone sees.”
I glanced around the campus and considered backing out, but this felt like a test. I had to prove to Seth I was one of them or risk him losing interest. Besides, it was just one afternoon, and Seth’s excuse did sound pretty believable. And it could be a lot of fun—definitely better than balancing algebraic equations.
“Okay, fine.” I handed him my backpack.
Seth squeezed into the back seat and shoved my backpack between his knees. He patted his lap.
“What about seat belts?” I asked as I wedged myself into the small space.
