“So, what’s wrong with you?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where’s your screen? Your device? Your fancy, newfangled technology?”
“What are you talking about?” A smile tugs at the corner of my lips, but I chase it away with a drink of water.
“You’re the only person in this room not staring at a screen right now.”
“That’s not true,” I say, but a quick glance around the room tells me he’s right. Even the kids who are not technically staring at a screen at this exact moment are clutching their phones in their hands or spinning them on top of the table while talking to friends.
He watches me watch the room and flashes a satisfied smirk. “I told you.”
I lean toward him on my elbows. “Why are you sitting with me?” Poppy’s voice fills my head, warning me not to act like a jerk to strangers. Instead of looking offended, however, he steals another chip before I have the chance to stop him. It is not abnormal for someone I don’t know to touch me or my stuff, but it is strange for me to let him.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you. Everyone else is busy.”
“I’m busy.” I hold up my book as proof.
“Know Your Onions—Graphic Design: How to Think Like a Creative, Act like a Businessman and Design Like a God. Sounds . . . fascinating.” The amusement in his voice is unmistakable.
“Gender-specific terminology aside, it is, actually. So, if you’ll leave me to it.” I do my best impression of a Person Interested in the Book They’re Reading. My vision closes in on the black lines without comprehension as my pulse works overtime. I simply don’t have the bandwidth to converse with cute strangers. When is he going to take the hint?
He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t leave either. I sneak a glance over the top of my book. He folds his arms across his chest and smiles. “Are you a genius or something?”
My head snaps up as heat rushes to my cheeks. “No!” It’s been a long time since anyone’s been impressed by my hobby.
“Are you one of those Girls Who Code?”
I shake my head and let the book fall closed. “No. I mean, I’m a girl.” His smile widens at this. I cringe but forge ahead anyway. “And I code, but I still have a lot to learn. I’ve taught myself CSS and HTML, and I’m working on JavaScript, which is essential for front-end develop—” My mouth snaps shut as I’m struck by the realization that I don’t know this guy at all and I should really stop talking. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“CSS? HTML? Ironic T-shirts I don’t understand?”
I look down at my T-shirt, which says ALL ROADS LEAD TO 127.0.0.1.
“It’s a loopback IP address that always takes you back to your home computer.”
“Sounds like genius speak to me.”
“Really, really not.” Anyone can learn basic web design if they’re interested enough. Not everyone teaches themselves at age thirteen, but then again, not everyone was raised on the internet, either. The way I see it, web design is basically my birthright.
“How’d you get into this stuff?” He gestures to my book.
I don’t feel like talking about my mom, so I ignore the question. “What’s your name?”
“Rafael Alejandro Luna.” He extends his hand with a broad grin. I shake it, because apparently, we’re doing this.
“What can I call you?”
I raise my eyebrows, caught off guard by his question. At the risk of sounding like the most conceited person in the history of the world, I’d assumed he knew who I was.
Poppy and I basically have two categories of fans. First, are the middle-aged women who got hooked on my mom’s famous fashion blog way back when. Her fans got invested in her pregnancy, so after we were born, she wrote a post about us every week called Twin Tuesday. She chronicled our first steps, dance recitals, lost teeth, and everything in between.
People ate it up. They loved seeing pictures of us. As we outgrew the cute baby phase and social media changed, Mom moved most of her fashion posts to Instagram and started an online video channel for Poppy and me. Enter stage two of people who know who we are—teenagers who watch our videos for hair, makeup, and fashion tips. It seems like that should be the end of it, but for reasons I don’t understand, Mom refuses to let the “Mommy Blog” part of her brand die. She still does a Twin Tuesday post every week, resulting in the occasional stranger who wants to talk to us about when we were potty trained.
The internet is so bizarre.
Gilbert, Arizona, is a fishbowl, magnifying our fame far beyond what it would be anywhere else offline. It’s rare to be recognized when we travel, especially out of the country, but school is a different story. Our videos are big enough that people know us, even if they don’t watch. But Rafael must be new, so it’s entirely possible he has no idea who I am, or what Mom does for a living. Then again, he still has a goofy grin plastered across his face, so maybe he’s messing with me.
“You can call me the same thing everyone else calls me.”
“Which is . . .?” He gestures for me to continue.
“Claire.”
“Just Claire?”
I sit up straighter in my chair. “I’m not just anyone.”
His eyes spark with amusement. “Do tell.”
I’m tempted to rattle off our stats: subscribers and downloads and likes and follows. But those things don’t mean anything, really. If he’s not teasing me, if he really doesn’t have a clue who I am, I can be “just Claire,” normal girl in a normal town. And maybe that’s a good thing. Lately, I’ve been craving freedom and anonymity more than ever.
“You asked my name, I told you.” I shrug. “Claire is all you’re going to get.”
“Fair enough. But if you ever change your mind, I’m here.” He eats another chip, completely unflustered by this completely flustering conversation. For the first time since he sat down, I wish Poppy were here. She’d be able to tell me if he’s flirting with me. I honestly can’t tell. Believe it or not, being the child star of a Fashion/Mommy Blog hybrid doesn’t exactly make the boys come running.
“We’ll get back to the name later. For now, tell me something else about yourself.” He brushes chip dust from his fingers and leans forward. I get the distinct impression I’m about to be buried under a deluge of questions. “What movies do you like, Just Claire? What books do you read when you’re not studying web design?”
A smile forces its way onto my lips. Under the table, my legs jump like a startled cricket. I tuck the right one behind the left to calm the fidgeting. “I’m not that interesting. I promise.”
“I don’t believe you. At least tell me what you do for fun.”
Once again, the question surprises me; it’s been so long since anyone asked. Strangers stop me in the aisles of Target to ask for fashion advice or critique my outfit. No one ever asks what I like to do, because everyone who cares thinks they already know.
But not Rafael. He doesn’t know who I am, and the thrill is intoxicating. I open my mouth to respond but no words come out.
On Mom’s blog, I’m Claire Dixon: Poppy’s twin. Ashley’s daughter. A decent swimmer, but slower than my sister. The short one. The one with freckles and cankles and big teeth. On my vlog, I’m the one who prefers messy buns to mermaid braids, “natural makeup” to Poppy’s evening looks. If I’m not that, then who am I?
That’s when I realize I can tell him whatever I want and he will believe me.
“Um . . . you’ve been quiet for like, a minute and a half. Sorry I stumped you with such a tough question, Just Claire.”
I roll my eyes. “You didn’t. I was just trying to decide if I want to tell you what I like to do for fun.”
Rafael leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “No pressure. Take your time. It’s a very serious question.” His voice is cool and mocking, and I’m overcome by the urge to say something completely unexpected.
“I rock climb!”
> “You do?” Surprise is etched across every inch of his face, and I revel in the satisfaction of putting it there.
“All the time. Every weekend, in fact. I use a harness and those . . . those things you shove in the rocks . . .” I flail about for any rock climbing term and come up short. “You know what, it’s not important.” We lock eyes and my stomach falters.
“Where do you climb? Who do you climb with? What’s your favorite mountain?” He places his elbow on the table and rests his chin on his palm without breaking eye contact.
“And I play chess, constantly. I’m a chess master, in fact. One of the youngest in the country.”
Rafael raises his eyebrows. “A rock climbing chess master. Really? You don’t look—”
“Rethink that sentence.”
His hands go up in a gesture of surrender. “My bad.”
“It’s not cool to judge people based on their looks.” It’s basically the story of my entire life, but he doesn’t know that. “How would you like it if I looked at you and assumed . . .” My eyes search his faux-messy hair, big grin, and dark eyes, for something to say, but I come up blank.
“Assume away! Or better yet, ask me a question and I’ll answer it. No assumptions necessary.”
“Okay, here’s one, how long does it take to make your hair look like that?”
“Six minutes. Usually four, but today I was nervous. New kid, new school, and all that. So that’s what you assume when you look at me? That I spend an obnoxious amount of time on my hair?” He shrugs off the implied insult like it’s no big deal. Like these are the kinds of conversations he has every day of his life.
I don’t know what to say, so I do the next best thing. “I should go.”
Rafael reaches out his hand and touches me on the arm. “Hey! Don’t go anywhere; I’m sorry I offended you. It was supposed to be a compliment about how pretty you are, but it was a dumb thing to imply pretty girls aren’t smart enough to play chess or tough enough to climb.”
If I’m a spinning top, his compliment nudges me just enough to disrupt my balance. I stare at his hand on my skin, and he quickly pulls it away. His eyebrows are drawn, and for the first time since I’ve met him, there isn’t a smile in sight. His face looks wrong without it.
“Right. Well, thanks, I guess. . .” I stammer, looking around the room for something to say.
“Don’t worry about it. We’re officially changing the subject, starting now.”
“Okay.”
I look at him. He looks at me. After five seconds, this becomes so unbearable that I tear my gaze away and focus on the ceiling. When he doesn’t say anything for several more seconds, I look back down at him, exasperated. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“I thought you were going to change the subject.”
A short burst of laughter escapes him. Eyes shining, he gestures across the table to the space between us. “What I actually said was we were going to change the subject. But I figured I would let you have the honors, considering how well things went when I was asking questions.”
I’m relieved to see him smiling again, but I still can’t keep the eye contact he’s so insistent on maintaining. My fingers itch for my phone. I need something, anything, to distract myself from his dark brown eyes, which haven’t left my face once since he sat down.
“Stop doing that!” I poke my bean and cheese burrito with a fork, just to give my fingers something to do.
He glances around the cafeteria with a frown. “Doing what?”
“Looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like . . . I don’t know. Like, right at me.”
He scratches his cheek, looking baffled. “We’re having a conversation. Where else would I look?”
I gesture to the room around us, which is full of teenagers who have their heads bent over screens. “Ask one of them.”
“I don’t have a cell phone.” His tone is matter-of-fact, as if he just said Arizona is hot, or Poppy loves the camera. It does not sound like he just casually admitted the one thing that makes him different from every other person in our class.
“Why not?” The shock in my voice causes Rafael’s lips to twitch.
“I’ve been living in India for the past fourteen months.”
Who is this guy? Every time he opens his mouth, he surprises me. I didn’t realize how predictable all the other guys at school are until this exact moment. “What were you doing in India?” I scoot my chair closer to the table, grateful I’d decided to stay.
“My dad’s with Doctors Without Borders. We move around a lot. Sometimes I get a phone, but mostly the places we live are rural villages with no reception, so I don’t bother.” He shrugs.
“Wow. That’s . . . amazing.” And to think, my mom takes pictures of her own clothes for a living. For the millionth time today, I hope he doesn’t ask about her. “What’d you do with your time?” Surviving without a phone for one morning has been tough. I can’t imagine living that way for more than a year.
“Normal stuff. I did schoolwork with a tutor and played cricket with kids in the village. Of course, my schedule was pretty busy, what with all the time I spent styling my hair.” He grins, and the heat creeps up my face.
“What are you doing in Arizona?”
“Living with my abuela. My abuelo died a few months ago, and my dad didn’t want her to live alone, so we moved back.”
“Oh. I, uh, I’m sorry,” I stammer awkwardly, wondering why he shared that personal bit of information with a total stranger.
“Thanks. I didn’t know him well, but it’s still hard.”
“Right. Well . . .” I cast about for something to talk about other than his dead grandpa. “Are you going to get one?”
He quirks and eyebrow, clearly puzzled by my clumsy segue. “A phone? Probably. Eventually. I’m not too worried about it.” He runs his hand through his hair with a shrug.
I look at him for as long as I can stand it without breaking eye contact. “You’re officially unlike every other person I’ve ever met.”
He laughs. “Who do I need to call, anyway? I just moved here. I don’t have any friends. Yet.” His final word sounds like a promise.
I shake my head. If he thinks phones are about making calls, maybe he doesn’t need one after all.
He rests his arms on the table and leans toward me. “You never answered my first question.”
“Which was?”
“Why weren’t you staring at a screen when I first saw you?” He gets straight to the point, and it sounds like the answer is important to him.
I crumble a chip between my fingers. The obvious thing to do is tell him the truth, but I don’t want him to know how desperately I was wishing for my phone before he sat down. I use my legs as a napkin for the chip dust on my fingers and say “I prefer books.” After all, what’s one more lie on top of the pile of ones I’ve already told him?
Out of the corner of my eye I see Poppy charge toward our table. “You won’t believe what happened.” She collapses into the chair next to me with a heavy sigh. “Torres gave Olivia and me lunch detention. He only let me out now because it’s, like, against the law to deprive children of food.” She shakes her head and sighs again.
“What happened?” I ask.
“He thinks we were cheating on our exam. Olivia sent a text during the test so I was looking at my phone, and of course he thought I was sneaking answers. As if I need to cheat on his dumb exam.” Poppy may be a phone addict, but she’s not stupid enough to cheat. Plus, she’s smart enough she doesn’t need to. She’s never gotten less than an A in her life.
“Sorry, Pop. That’s harsh.”
“Tell me about it. Olivia and I both have lunch detention tomorrow, too.”
“Where is she now?”
“Calling her dad. She wanted to tell him before Torres had the chance. Anyway, sorry I left you alone. I sent you a text, but then
I remembered your phone is broken.”
Busted.
Rafael smirks at me from across the table.
“That’s okay. I wasn’t alone.” I nod in Rafael’s direction.
“I kept her company. Tough job, but someone had to do it.”
Poppy plasters on her camera smile. “Hi. I’m Poppy Dixon!”
He matches her smile. “Rafael Alejandro Luna.” They shake hands, and he shoots me a smug glance that seems to say “That’s how a proper introduction is made.” But whatever. Even hearing our last name and seeing the two of us together, his expression displays no hint of recognition.
He really, truly, has no idea who I am. This fact makes me absurdly happy.
“Rafael Luna . . . your name sounds familiar.” Poppy purses her lips and drums her fingers against her chin. It’s a rehearsed gesture, designed to make her most rabid fans believe she recognizes them from their social media profiles. As if she can distinguish their OMG SO CUTE! comments from the hundreds of others. No wonder she’s the favorite. I shake my head. She was born for this. And any second now, she’s going to give me away.
I grab her arm. “I need you to quiz me on my Spanish vocab.”
“I can help,” Rafael offers. Which, come on! Stop being so nice! I would love to stay and keep talking to him, but I’m not ready for him to discover the truth about me.
Not yet.
It’s nice to have a secret. For once, I get to decide what story to tell and when to tell it. Even if that story requires a few lies along the way.
Incoming Text Messages (currently lost in cyberspace)
Mom
9:04 AM
Page views are way down today. Please look
at the site when you have a chance!
9:44 AM
Call me on your lunch break! We need to fix this.
9:54 AM
Claire? This is important!
9:55 AM
Okay, focus on school. Talk when you get home.
Poppy
11:38 AM
Won’t be at lunch today because teachers are morons.
Just for Clicks Page 2