Hayden had a flashback of walking in on her mom making out with Natalie Washington’s dad. Actually, the flashback was of Hayden, Natalie, and Mrs. Washington walking in on them.
Best friend no more.
Unsurprisingly, Hayden had never been invited over to Natalie’s house again. Not after she had to flee it with Mom hastily shrugging back into her clothes and Mrs. Washington screaming behind them.
Hayden had cried in the car as they drove away. Great snotty tears had rolled down her face, knowing she’d lost her friend. Mom had just laughed, her unbuttoned shirt gaping open as she drove. You don’t need that stuck-up bitch or her daughter. You can do better, Hayden.
She never did better.
Sometimes she spotted Natalie in the hall.
Whenever their eyes met, Hayden saw that Natalie still remembered and she felt the same shame and embarrassment all over again.
Nat was a cheerleader now. Pretty and popular, with lots of friends. That was her life. Hayden’s life was different. No escaping that. At least not while she was still in high school and living with Mom.
Soon though. Soon.
The teacher stopped before her. “You’re late.”
“Yes, I realize—”
“Office. Now,” she cut in, without giving Hayden a chance to even say anything. It was grossly unfair. What if she had something important to say? Something life-and-death important?
That was the thing that sucked most about being a teenager. So many adults thought they didn’t have to listen. They thought they didn’t need to listen, that youth negated one’s voice. Made them “less than.”
In Hayden’s situation, she was also poor. Poor and female and without anyone to stick up for her. That made it easy for grownups to trample over her. No outraged parent was ever going to bat on her behalf. Sure, this woman didn’t know all those details about her, but Hayden knew. Hayden knew herself and was aware of the obstacles.
“I just came from Ms. Mendez’s class. I forgot to get a pass.”
Yeah, it was a lie, but it was also her only hope.
The teacher stared with pinched lips, considering Hayden’s explanation.
Hayden jerked a thumb behind her in the direction of the art room. “I can go get a pass now to show—”
“Yeah, I’ll go with you.” The lady nodded with sudden resolution, looking a little smug, as though she knew she was going to bust Hayden in a lie.
Great.
It wouldn’t be the first time some self-righteous adult nailed her for a real or imagined infraction.
Heaving an internal sigh, Hayden forced a bright smile. “Okay.”
They turned and walked toward the art room. She knew she should probably be nervous. As close as she was to her art teacher, it was a lot to ask her to cover for her.
Ms. Mendez was about to confirm this woman’s suspicions that Hayden was tardy. Then Hayden would probably be sent to the assistant principal’s office, because it wouldn’t just be about a tardy anymore. She’d lied to this teacher and the teacher knew it. Hayden could feel the woman’s righteousness vibrating from her in waves. She wanted Hayden punished.
The teacher stepped ahead of her and rapped sharply on Ms. Mendez’s door before pushing it open.
“Ms. Mendez, I found this girl loitering in the halls—” Hayden rolled her eyes at the use of the word loitering. She’d been marching very quickly and very purposefully. “She claims you forgot to write her a pass.”
Ms. Mendez paused at the front of the room, where she had presumably been giving instruction before the other teacher interrupted her.
Mr. Mendez’s gaze flitted back and forth between Hayden and the woman. The art teacher’s bright purple glasses did nothing to take away from the look in her wide dark eyes. Those sharp eyes missed nothing.
Hayden gazed at her in silent entreaty. She was the one teacher who got her . . . the one person in this building who cared about her and took any interest in her and her future.
“Ahhh,” Ms. Mendez began. “Yes, yes, of course. I forgot.” She moved to her cluttered desk. “I’ll do that right now.”
The other teacher huffed and sent a suspicious glance between the two of them. Clearly she did not buy the story. It probably didn’t help that Ms. Mendez looked so young. She was actually thirty years old, but other teachers mistook her for a student. She once told Hayden that she got stopped in the hall during her off period on the regular and was often asked if she had a pass.
Ms. Mendez finished scrawling on the pass and held up an orange slip of paper with a flourish. “Here you go, Hayden. Hurry on to class.” Her gaze settled meaningfully on Hayden. She would want an explanation later. She might be in Hayden’s corner, but she wasn’t a pushover.
Hayden smiled her thanks and slipped from the room, leaving Ms. Mendez to deal with the dragon.
She felt bad about that, but she was relieved she wasn’t being dragged into the office. By seventh period, she was especially glad she hadn’t been smacked with a detention. Hayden was so hungry, she was feeling faintly ill and her concentration was off. She was counting down the final minutes until the bell rang, anxious to get home and grab something to eat before she headed to work. She tried to take notes on what Mrs. Burke was copying onto the board, hardly noticing the girl who walked into the room with a slip of paper in her hand for the teacher.
Mrs. Burke looked out, scanning the classroom until her gaze landed on her. “Ms. Vargas. You’re wanted in the principal’s office.”
Hayden snapped to attention.
The boy behind her made an ooooh sound. “What’d you do?” he taunted.
She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know any of their names. She only knew that he always picked his ears with the end of his pen.
“More like who did she do,” the kid behind him whispered, inciting a chorus of laughter. Ear-picker turned to high-five him.
Hayden rolled her eyes and gathered her things. As she stood, she bent down toward the boys and said in the most seductive voice she could manage, “Well, it’s never going to be you, is it?”
The boys around the kid laughed.
One slapped the desk. “Oh, she burned you, man.”
The deliverer of the oh-so-clever sexist quips suddenly didn’t look nearly so proud of himself, if his red face was any indication.
Hayden advanced to the front of the room, pausing when she noticed that the girl who had come to fetch her to the principal was none other than Emmaline Martin. The Bambi girl from the party the other night.
Chalking it up to coincidence, she pressed on and followed her from the room.
The moment they stepped out into the hall and the door shut behind them, Emmaline grabbed Hayden by the arm like they were old friends. “Hope you don’t mind me getting you out of class.”
“Wait. You got me out of class?”
She nodded cheerfully. She wore her hair in twin braids. They bounced over her shoulder, making her look more like a middle-schooler than someone in high school. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
She shook her head, her hunger pangs suddenly resurfacing. “Look, I’m kind of in a mood. I haven’t eaten all day and—”
“Oh, I’ve got some snacks in my locker. C’mon. You can have them.”
Emmaline skipped ahead down the hall and Hayden followed, the temptation of food too much to resist.
Once at her locker, Emmaline pulled out her lunch bag and then glanced around. “Where should we go?”
Hayden plucked the bag from her hands. “It was your idea to bust me out of science. You didn’t have a plan?”
She shook her head. “I just really wanted to talk to you. Thought we might go to the bathroom, but that’s kind of a gross place to eat . . .”
Agreed. “You always have to have a plan. C’mon, amateur,” she said teasingly. “I know where we can go.”
This time, it was her turn to lead Emmaline through the halls. They
crossed the campus and exited the doors toward the athletic fields. Hayden led her toward the bleachers, keeping an eye out for teachers.
When they were close enough, she cast one furtive look over her shoulder and ducked underneath the stands.
It was a universal truth that nothing good ever happened under the bleachers.
The administration and staff knew this, too, which is why they did regular checks, but that didn’t stop kids from risking it and going under there to skip out on a test, vape, get high, or make out. Lots of firsts happened under those bleachers.
She’d spent her fair share of time there during her tenure at Travis High School, but she never thought she’d have the likes of someone as innocent as Emmaline for company.
From the way the girl looked around, Hayden could tell she had never been under the bleachers before.
There was an almost hushed quality to the shadowed space, like when you entered a church. Not that she had much experience with churches, but Mom’s friend Claudia had been a lapsed Catholic.
Once, after a night of partying with her mom, she took Hayden with her on a run to the grocery store to get them some food, pulling over on the way at a church. Hayden had settled into a wooden pew in the far back, watching the solemn scene of Claudia genuflecting before the altar and then slipping inside a confessional to talk to a priest, presumably hoping to exorcise her ghosts.
It mustn’t have helped. Claudia had died less than a year later. Mom didn’t say much about it except that Claudia got in over her head. Hayden could imagine what that meant. She could imagine all kinds of things, but she tried not to.
Strips of sunlight landed on the ground, marking the breaks in the bleachers. They walked along the ribbons of light until they found a place to sit. Somewhere far enough down where they would have a chance to run away if a teacher decided to look under the bleachers.
They sat side by side. An unlikely duo. There was a reason for that. They weren’t friends.
It was windy and brisk. Snow was even rumored in the forecast for the coming weekend. Snow was a rarity, so when it happened the entire city shut down.
Hayden stretched her legs out in front of her. A breeze ruffled the loose threads edging the holes of her jeans. “What did you want to talk about?”
Emmaline eyed the food wrappers and bits of trash littering the ground, tucking her knees close to her chest. “Lots of kids come here?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
Hayden nodded. It felt as though she were putting something off. The thing that she wanted to tell her. The thing she’d gotten her out of class to discuss.
“Emmaline. What did you want to talk about?”
“Yeah. Um.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “So I’ve been thinking since we talked the other night. By the way, thanks for that.”
“Thanks?”
“I wasn’t having the best night and it was really nice to talk to you.”
Hayden nodded, still wondering what she had done or said to make this girl’s night better in any way. She couldn’t imagine having the words to make anyone feel better.
There was a scuffing of loose gravel, and she jerked her gaze off Emmaline, ready to bolt at the sight of an advancing teacher.
It wasn’t a teacher.
Beau Sanders approached, sweaty in his gym clothes, but still hot. How was it guys could look good after working out?
Shaking off his surprise, he approached, loose gravel scuffing under his sneakers. “Hey there, Pigeon,” he said to Emmaline. “Vargas.” He nodded to her.
Emmaline’s head jerked up, her expression startled. She almost looked . . . guilty. “Beau.”
She was definitely up to something. Whatever she wanted to tell Hayden, she didn’t want him to hear.
His gaze tracked over Emmaline, in her sweater and hole-free jeans.
Beau looked unaffected by the cold. His blood was probably pumping hot from his workout. They had to look as chilled as they felt huddled on the ground. The tip of Emmaline’s nose was bright pink.
“What are you guys doing out here?” he asked.
Emmaline’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Nothing.” The defensiveness was there, plain to hear.
Hayden smirked.
“You need a ride home today, Pigeon?” Beau asked her, using that stupid nickname again.
“Hayden here is giving me a ride home,” she quickly supplied.
Hayden blinked, glancing at her in surprise for a split second before she masked it. “Um. Yeah. I got her covered, Sanders.”
“I didn’t know you two were friends.”
This time Hayden narrowed her eyes on him. “Why so shocked?”
“Did I say I was shocked?”
“You’re sure acting like it,” she accused. “What’s the matter? Afraid I will be a bad influence?”
Clearly he was. Because yeah. She was.
Hayden might be only a year older than Emmaline, but she felt like she had miles on her, and Beau knew that.
Beau lived one street over from Hayden in Pleasant Ranch.
They had similar backgrounds, both being raised by single moms, living in crapped-out, shoebox-small ranch-style homes. Although her place was probably more run-down than his. Who was she kidding? It definitely was. She lived in a shithole.
Beau made obvious efforts. She’d spotted him mowing his yard over the years, cleaning the gutters and doing all manner of maintenance and upkeep on his house. She never worried about that kind of thing. Food, clothing, her future. That’s what she cared about.
Hayden had fooled around with Beau back in eighth grade. He was the first boy she French-kissed. They both took the school bus back then and got dropped off at the same stop. Two latchkey kids left to their own devices with stirring hormones. Making out was inevitable.
Once Beau started ninth grade and made varsity football, he never took the bus again. Upperclassmen with cars were always willing to give Beau a ride until he turned sixteen and got his own wheels.
After that, Beau and Hayden moved in different circles. They never hooked up again.
She used to see him drive past her as she waited at the bus stop. In the cold, in the rain, she’d wait for the bus and watch him drive past with one friend or another. Never a glance. Never a wave. She wasn’t spared taking the bus until she got her own car last year.
“You’re driving her home?” he asked again, needing that clarification.
Emmaline looked at him in exasperation. “Yes.”
“Sure your brother is okay with that?”
Okay with that? He meant okay with her being with Emmaline.
The moment he said the words, he looked nervous. Clearly he knew he’d overstepped.
Emmaline pushed to her feet, her hands balled up into tiny fists at her sides. “Nolan is not my keeper. He’s not my father. My father is buried in a cemetery across town.”
Hayden whistled between her teeth and shook her head. “Nice, Sanders.”
Still glaring at him, Emmaline addressed Hayden. “You want to skip the rest of seventh period, Hayden? I need to get out of here.”
“Skip class?” Beau looked incredulous, like she’d just suggested they go kick a bunch of puppies or make out with a bunch of bikers. “Whoa. Hold on. Wait a second.” He held up a hand as though the gesture might get her to stay.
Emmaline shook her head, her lips pressed into a mutinous line. “No, you hold on,” she snapped. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Beau Sanders.”
Hayden pushed to her feet, dusting off the back of her jeans. “Let’s go then.” Before things got ugly and Emmaline really went after Beau.
Emmaline cast him one last fulminating glare and fell in beside Hayden. “Can you believe that guy?” she asked as they marched away. “Acting like he’s my brother.”
Hayden shrugged, keeping an eye out for teachers. She’d avoided detention earlier today by the skin of her teeth. She didn’t want to get in trouble now. “I wouldn’t know. I don’t have a brother.”
“Well, I have one in my life already and I don’t need another one. Especially not Beau. The nerve of that guy, judging what I do! Do you know his reputation? He’s far from a saint.”
“No, he’s definitely not a saint.” His exploits were more infamous than Hayden’s. Except no one called him names for anything he did. Such was the sorry dichotomy of life. Girls were sluts and guys were merely players. “So, Emmaline. Are you ever going to tell me what you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Uh, yeah. Let’s get out of here first.” She cast another glance behind her, as though she feared Beau was following them.
Even though she really didn’t have time for this—she needed to be at work soon—her interest was piqued. Emmaline Martin not only got her out of class, but she wouldn’t dare say what she wanted in front of someone else.
As though the reason was too scandalous. Or criminal. Or embarrassing.
Hayden was dying to find out.
Lesson #8
There’s nothing wrong with avoiding conflict. It’s called survival.
x Nolan x
Nolan was walking out to the parking lot with Priscilla, keeping one eye out for his sister, when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He pulled it out to see that it was a text from Emmaline.
“What’s wrong?” Priscilla asked.
He didn’t even notice he was frowning until she repeated the question.
“Nol? What’s wrong?”
He shook his head and started typing back, staring down at the screen as he answered, “Emmaline already left. She got a ride home.”
“But the bell just rang.” Priscilla peered out at the parking lot. “She already left then? Did she skip out early?”
“That’s what I’m finding out.”
He and Priscilla had seventh period in the east wing, right beside the parking lot they stood in now. His sister was an office aide last period and had to hike it all the way from the west side of campus to reach the parking lot. They usually had to wait a good fifteen minutes in the car before she made it out to them. If his sister had already left with someone, that meant she took off well before the bell.
It meant she skipped.
Kissing Lessons Page 5