And now she watches as he folds his fingers through the hand of another girl: Clementine Morris… who is surely the last person Olive would have imagined stealing her high school boyfriend. Shy, demure, unassuming Clementine has never been a threat.
Until today.
But Tobias touches Clementine only for a moment before Mac barrels into him, slamming his chest with both hands and shoving him back. The crowd gasps, and someone yells—I think it’s Olive. And in an instant Tobias and Mac are in a full brawl. A punch is thrown, countered by another. Tobias knocks Mac to the ground and kicks him in the gut. But then Mac is up, ramming him into a row of lockers with a loud, vibrating thud. The crowd moves back, away, not wanting to get caught in the tussle. But before Tobias can land another blow against Mac’s ribs, there is a loud, commanding shout from down the hall, then another. Coach Lopez shoves his way through the crowd and yanks Mac away from Tobias, bracing him around the chest to keep him from lunging forward again.
Principal Lee appears, eyeglasses slid down his narrow nose, and he grabs Tobias. “Get to class!” he shouts as he ushers Tobias toward the admin office.
Coach Lopez is already pulling Mac away, up the hall and outthrough the double doors to the football field. Separating him from Tobias.
“I want you all in first period,” Principal Lee adds. But when no one moves, he yells, “Now!”
The crowd drifts apart, scattering to their lockers and classrooms, murmuring, whispering about what just happened, and why the hell ithappened at all. But I stay pressed to a locker that isn’t mine, my thoughts shuttling back and forth.
The door into my first-period class hasn’t closed yet—students are still meandering inside—and I slip through unnoticed, pass down the outer edge of the room, and sink into a seat near the back window.
But it doesn’t make a difference.
My classmates murmur to one another, pass notes scribbled hastily onto torn pages of their notebooks, then glance over their shoulders to stare at me—but they don’t snicker; they don’t make jokes at my expense. It’s another thing entirely in their expression.
Their eyes give them away, the soft lift of their mouths, the rose-stained tint of their cheeks. They’re falling in love.
“Renna!” Mr. Loon barks. “Hand it over.”
My gaze lifts briefly to see Mr. Loon marching down the row of desks, stopping beside Renna McPhee’s chair and holding out his hand.
“Now,” he instructs.
Renna rolls her eyes and places a small piece of paper in Mr. Loon’s hand. But when Mr. Loon walks back to the front of theroom, I can tell that the thing in his hand has more weight and substance, not paper at all, but I can’t make it out. Not fully.
He opens a drawer in his desk and drops the thing inside: just one of many worthless items he confiscates throughout the day. But before he pushes the drawer closed, his eyes stall a moment, staring down into the drawer, and a strange expression curls at the edge of his mouth—disgust, maybe? Something else? Eyes watering.
Someone giggles from the front row, the whole class watching him, and his eyes snap back up as he shuts the drawer quickly. Clearing his throat, he begins his lesson on the fall of Rome, and I keep my head down until the bell finally rings. I bolt up from my chair, desperate to be free of this room, and dart for the door.
But Titha Roberts is there, holding the door open for me, her lovely black hair braided perfectly across her scalp, draped over one shoulder, full lips parted into a gentle, one-sided smile. “You look pretty today, Lark,” she says, peering at me with her deep brown eyes. Titha Roberts is one of the elite at Cutwater High—she’s captain of varsity volleyball, she’s dated every quarterback on our football team, and she’s president of the school’s Theater Club. AndIam not someone she’d normally hold a door for. Or waste her time talking to—during any other season.
I slip through the doorway into the hall without meeting her eyes, without saying a word. Because I know she doesn’t mean it: I know it’s the scent of fresh flowers on my skin that confuses her thoughts, beckons her close.
In the hall, Randy Ashspring is waiting a few paces ahead of me, and he holds a hand toward me. “I can carry your books for you, if you want?” His eyes are all doughy and strange, and I shake my headat him, turning sharply toward the bathrooms located on the far side of the hallway.
“Hey, Lark!” a voice says to my left. I barely glance in its direction and see Cole Campbell smiling at me, his charming soccer-star grin enough to make me slow my pace. Cole plays on a state team—since Cutwater High doesn’t have a soccer club—and his shaggy blond hair sways into his eyes as he moves toward me. “I was wondering if you’re doing anything after school?” The left side of his mouth lifts, the freckles puckering along his cheeks. “I could pick you up. We could drive to Favorville, see a movie, maybe?” He pauses, like he can’t believe his own words, like he can’t believe he’s asking Lark Goode out on a date. But still, he continues. “Or just watch the sunset from Cutwater Ridge.” His eyes sway over me, lost in a dream, a heady, lovesick reverie, but I snap my gaze away—severing his stare before it gets any worse.
“Sorry, Cole,” I answer quickly. “I can’t.” And I slip into the bathroom.
I should have told him,Hell no.Told him tofuck off.I’ve found that it’s better to be blunt, to the point. The hard edge of rejection sometimes breaks the stupor of infatuation. Even if they still feel overcome by a dreadful sense of longing—a lovelorn sickness festering in their chest—their need to avoid embarrassment can sometimes override any future confessions of their feelings for me.
But right now I feel bad for them—I always do in the beginning—I know it’s not their fault, I know their feelings aren’t their own.
I lock myself in the far stall, listening to the sound of girls entering the bathroom, lingering a little too long at the sinks, their headsdizzy with a feeling they can’t explain—a spirituous scent that causes a prick at the back of the neck, a desire they can’t pinpoint—before finally retreating out into the halls. The bell rings for second period, but I stay right where I am.
The echo of footsteps and voices in the hall slowly fades, then falls quiet. My heart settles in my chest, a dulled, temporary feeling of calm.
My second-period class is American Lit, and I know Mrs. Garrison plans to have us sit in groups and discuss our favorite writers from the nineteenth century—Whitman and Poe, Emerson and Thoreau, John Muir and Ida B. Wells. A way to sum up our last year of studies. But I can’t possibly sit in a tiny circle of my classmates, their thoughts unable to focus, their eyes unblinking.
I consider leaving the bathroom, grabbing my bag from my locker, and running home. This is exactly why Archer stays away from school once the tulips have bloomed, because it’s almost unbearable. But last week Principal Lee made an announcement over the loudspeaker, warning us that anyone who missed a single day of our last week of school wouldn’t graduate.
So I stay put.
I’ll wait out second period, until lunch.
