Miles doesn't look up. "Mitochondria."
"See, I knew that. I just wanted to hear you say it." Jack beams. "You've got a great voice for science facts. Very authoritative. Very David Attenborough."
Miles' pen pauses on the page. He still doesn't look up, but the corner of his mouth does something that might be considered a smile one day. I’m about to correct Jack, though, saying it’sSirDavid Attenborough, as I know because my dad would fall asleep watching nature documentaries when I was a kid, but Miles says quietly:
"Ask me another one."
Jack's eyebrows shoot up. He looks at me, then at Ethan, then back at Miles, as if confirming that Miles has, in fact, voluntarily extended a conversation. I’m also pretty shocked, but pretty happy for Miles. He deserves to have at least one thing he likes in his life. "Uh. Okay. What's..." He squints at his textbook. "What's osmosis?"
"The movement of solvent molecules through a selectively permeable membrane from a region of lower solute concentration to a region of higher solute concentration." Miles says it the way other people say their own names, automatically.
Jack snorts, as if that was the funniest joke ever. They're cute together. Jack is like a hurricane, but Miles contains him. A little bit like Ethan and me, but with fewer threats.
Ethan sets his pen down and he looks like he’s trying not to go for our necks and strangle us.
"I'm going to count to three," he says, calmly, as if he’s talking to little kids. It’s scarier than if he were screaming. "And when I'm done, everyone at this table is going to be reading silently. One."
Jack opens his mouth.
"Two."
Jack closes his mouth. Opens it again.
"Jack, I swear to God…"
"Fine, fine, fine." Jack holds up his hands in surrender, but he's grinning. He hunches over his textbook with exaggeratedstudiousness, tracing the lines with his finger like a kindergartner learning to read.
I pull my own book closer, English Composition, a subject that would be okayish if they'd let me write about anything that actually matters instead of five-paragraph essays about themes in Shakespeare. I can't understand a shit fuck of Shakespeare. My leg bounces under the table, the ADHD humming through my blood, making the words swim. I read the same sentence three times before I quit.
But the silence isn't bad. Miles' writing, Jack's turning pages too fast because he's skimming instead of reading, Ethan's breathing, deeply focused. I'm happy. Stupidly happy. I've never had this before. Friends like this. And Ethan…
We keep quiet for a while. But when I’m about to die of boredom, Jack catches my eye and makes a face, crossed eyes, tongue out, the full repertoire of a five-year-old. I try not to laugh, but I can't, so I start to hold myself back as much as I can, but I can’t, and the effort makes me stop breathing, and then I laugh loud, startling kids around us. Jack is laughing more, and I'm pretty sure we're seconds away from a write-up.
"Marsal," Ethan says, voice low. "Quit that. Now. Study."
"I am studying," I say. "I'm studying Jack's face. It's very educational."
Ethan sighs the sigh of a man who has aged thirty years in the last hour. But I know he's happy too, because I spend more time than I want to admit looking at him. I turn the page and pretend to read, but I keep looking at him instead.
¦
After the library, Ethan lets me follow him around, which I don't hate, for sure.
"I need to grab something from my office first," he says as we pass the cafeteria. "Then gym."
“I love your office,” I tell him. He looks at me, a smirk on his lips, but he doesn't say anything.
The admin wing is the quietest part of the academy, the hallways wider and emptier than the rest of Aspire. Most of the offices belong to counselors, teachers, and administrative staff who clock out by five, so by this hour, the wing has an abandoned feel of a school after hours, which reminds me of Silent Hill. Scary. Hot. Our footsteps echo off linoleum that's cleaner here than anywhere else, probably because hardly anyone walks on it.
We're halfway down the corridor when I hear it.
It's a small sound. A hiccup of breath, like someone trying to cry without making noise. I know that sound. I've made that sound, many, many, many, countless times, pressed into pillows and bathroom stalls and the back seats of cars that smelled like cigarettes, and my room, actually every room that I’ve ever had, and everywhere.
Ethan hears it too. He slows, looks at me, and then his green eyes scan the hallway.
There’s someone tucked against the wall between a water fountain and a locked supply closet door, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around his shins. A kid, red hair copper wire style, skin so pale that his crying creates pink circles across his cheeks. He looks up at us, his eyes are green, all wet from tears, and he looks so terrified, they look like the eyes of a little deer on a highway.
He's small, his arms are thin, black academy sweatshirt looks like it's swallowing him. He can't be more than eighteen, and everything about him screamsrookie. The way he’s so fucking scared, poor little thing, flinching at us approaching. I'm so glad that it's not me anymore. At least, I think I'm settled in by now, after everything I’ve been through so far.
