We’ll probably have time to talk over lunch, so I’ll tell her then. But not in the library, screw that, we’re going to sit at our usual table because why should we let those boys scare us away? It’s time for us to fight back, and Maya must feel that way too because why would she have told Principal Scott about it if she didn’t? I mean, she must want him expelled because she went to the school administration—not to her parents, or to his parents, or to the police.
In between classes, I imagine Hiram’s pills rattling around in my backpack—I wasn’t about to leave them at home where Mom might come across them—but I don’t worry that any of my classmates suspect what’s in there. Hiram gave me twice as many red ones as blue so I can take a second red one this afternoon if the one I took this morning wears off. In physics, Mr. Chapnick isn’t mad, and my hands are still—I don’t drum them against my thighs or shove them into my pockets or anything.
When the bell rings for lunch, I practically march down the hallway. One foot in front of the other. Left, right, left. Those boys may be a foot taller than me and twice my weight, but I don’t care. I’m going to sit at that table and they’re going to be the ones to leave, and if anyone stares, it’ll be to cheer me on.
“Hey, Juniper,” Tess calls my name from somewhere behind me. I have to concentrate on slowing my pace so she can catch up, but I don’t stop walking. (That must be another side effect, along with a false sense of well-being—an urge to move quickly.) Who the heck designed our single-story school anyway? It’s stretched out like a snake, and it takes forever to get from one end to the other.
“Hey,” I say when Tess falls into step behind me.
“I thought we might work through lunch. Iron out some of the details for Sunday.”
“I can’t right now.” I pick up the pace again because it feels more natural to walk fast. Even with her long legs, Tess has to rush to keep up with me. “After school?”
Tess slides her fingers up my arm, gently grabbing hold and tugging me to stop walking. “I just wanted to make sure—it’s just, I know I already told you how sorry I am, but—”
I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.” A false sense of well-being makes it easy to let these things go.
“It wasn’t right of me to end things like that. Out here, in front of everyone.” She gestures at the crowd around us.
“Don’t worry about it,” I repeat. I lean in, standing on my tiptoes to kiss her. I don’t hesitate to consider all the different ways she might interpret the kiss before I do it. I don’t worry that I won’t seem cool and aloof kissing her after she dumped me. After all, she only dumped me because of a misunderstanding, right? She looks surprised—even when we were together, I always waited for her to initiate affection, but right now, I’m not scared she’s going to reject me. Across the hall, some idiot boy calls out whoo-hoo. I don’t flinch. I don’t even roll my eyes. I don’t wonder how that sound will make me feel later, in bed, unable to sleep, because now I have blue pills for that.
“I gotta go,” I say, pulling away. “I’ll see you later.”
I notice Anil and Kyle up ahead. They’re so tall and athletic, it’s like they take up the entire hallway. Or maybe they spread themselves out on purpose, silently communicating that they think they deserve more space than the rest of us.
But I’m going to get ahead of them, going to get to our table before they do.
Just then, Maya walks into the hallway from a classroom in front of me. She falls into step behind the boys. I rush toward her and link my arm with hers, pulling out her earbuds.
“It’s just me,” I say, excited. I tug her toward the south exit, trying to get her to walk faster. “Come on. I mean, we’ve been sitting there as long as they have, right?”
The boys make it out the door before we do, but they aren’t sitting down yet. They look up at the sunlight, and I think they look like lions, basking in the sun’s glow, as though god (or whoever) put the light there expressly for their enjoyment. I wonder how I’ve been sitting beside them all this time without noticing what jerks they were.
I pull Maya toward our table. “I mean, we have just as much right to that table as they do, right?”
Maya pulls her arm from mine and starts walking away.
I pause, then follow.
Thirteen
The Cool Girl
Okay, maybe I made too big of a deal about the table.
The table doesn’t have to be the symbol of the fight between Mike and Maya. It’s not like he wins the instant Maya decides to sit somewhere else.
Either I’m slowing down—when did that happen?—or Maya’s moving faster, blending into the crowd ahead of us. She heads away from the school and toward the track where the protest is supposed to take place in a couple days, not that Maya knows that.
I pick up my pace.
Fourteen
The Anxious Girl
Oh my god, what was I thinking kissing Tess like that before? She probably thinks I want to get back together. Maybe she’s sitting with her friends and laughing as she tells them all about her pathetic little ex right now. Maybe she’s trying to figure out how to confront me about kissing her without messing up the march on Sunday. She’s probably figured out I’m too much of a basket case to handle a (second) breakup and plan a demonstration at the same time.
My hands are starting to shake. I stuff them into my pockets and follow Maya across the track and toward the parking lot. I’m not the only one following her. Or is that my imagination, thinking that everyone’s watching me, watching her, watching us?
Apparently, the red pills don’t wear off gradually. This feels more like a switch has been flipped, and my usual endless inner monologue of questions and concerns are back and every bit as loud and distracting as they ever were.
Okay, so that means now I know about how long the false sense of well-being lasts. Which means I need to do some math to make sure Hiram gave me enough to make it through the weekend. I need enough to sleep tonight, study tomorrow, and rally hard on Sunday.
But then maybe I’ll need some for Monday too. It’ll be stressful while we wait for the board to make its decision about Mike. And then I’ll need to talk to Tess once all this is over, to tell her I’m sorry and I understand and I’m fine and it’s okay and I apologize for kissing her like that. I shake my head. I definitely don’t have enough to get me through next week.
I’ll need more.
Across the parking lot, Hiram gets out of his car, like he knows I’m headed straight for him.
I shake my head. Not now, I think, as if he might be able to read my mind. Not in front of everyone.
Heavy footsteps come up behind me. A hand lands on my shoulder, like someone wants to move me out of the way. I look up and see Mike rushing past me.
“Maya,” he says. He doesn’t raise his voice. He sounds exactly the same as he does when he speaks up in class, makes a joke at lunch, says hey when you bump into him at the movies on a Friday night. Like all of this is normal, no big deal. Or at least, like he wants it to sound that way.
Fifteen
The Best Friend
I drop my bag to rush up ahead of Mike and take Maya’s hand in mine. “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” I say.
“This isn’t really any of your business, Juniper.” His voice stays low and even. But I’ve watched enough of his races to know the look on his face before he takes off.
At once, I realize that Mike never actually liked me. He only tolerated my presence because I was Maya’s best friend.
I turn to Maya. “Do you want to talk to him?” I ask. She shakes her head. Or maybe she’s just shaking.
“Let’s get out of here.” I pull her toward my car, then freeze as I remember my keys are in my locker.
But there’s Hiram, still standing beside his ugly brown car. He waves, inviting me to come closer.
>
I look around. It’s not my imagination, everyone is definitely watching us. I’ll play this moment over and over in my head next time I can’t sleep, wondering if I made the right decision, cursing myself for not having my keys with me at all times. But I really think the right thing to do right now is to get my best friend out of here. I hope I’m right.
So I take Maya’s hand and lead her toward the back of the parking lot. I don’t break into a run. I know enough to know we couldn’t outrun Mike if we tried.
I glance sideways at Maya’s face. Her eyes are focused like lasers on Hiram’s car ahead of us. I know she can hear Mike’s footfalls following us as clearly as I can.
Part Three
The Girls
Friday, April 14
One
Maya
The hand that takes mine isn’t cool and calloused but smooth and warm. I turn and see Junie standing beside me.
“Maya doesn’t want to talk to you,” she says. She sounds so calm. Can she feel my heart racing?
“This isn’t really any of your business, Juniper.”
I try to remember if Mike has ever called Junie Junie or if it’s always been Juniper. Maybe it’s only me—and her parents—who call her Junie. Maybe she’d prefer if we called her Juniper because it sounds more grown-up than Junie, and right now she seems so grown-up, standing calmly beside me, even though she barely comes up to Mike’s chest. Her mom has that ability too. I’ve seen her during school meetings—she sounds calm even when talking about stressful topics. Nothing like my mother, who can get stressed even when talking about something relatively harmless.
Then again, Junie doesn’t know Mike’s voice as well as I do. Maybe she doesn’t realize there’s any reason not to be calm. She doesn’t know that when his voice gets all quiet and even, it means he’s angry. I imagine I can see the blood moving in his veins as his pulse quickens. Sometimes, when he talked like that, he was close enough to me that I could actually feel his heartbeat change. I wonder if he’s the only boy in the world whose voice gets calmer and softer when he’s upset or even when he’s turned on—that’s when I first noticed it, when we were messing around. He didn’t whisper sweet nothings like men in the movies, and he didn’t moan with pleasure either. He was always quiet, even, controlled. Except for his heartbeat. I loved—love?—that about him. I loved—love?—that I knew something about him that maybe no one else did.
Junie says something to me, but I’m too busy imagining the sound of Mike’s heartbeat to hear her. Then, she squeezes my hand and tugs at it gently. It’s enough to make me look at her and listen.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says.
Junie starts toward her car, a little blue hybrid, then turns abruptly toward Hiram instead. He’s still standing outside his brown car, but now he’s waving us closer.
I hear the rhythm of Mike’s steps behind us. Mike’s legs are so long that he doesn’t have to rush to catch up. His fingers wrap around my upper arm. Sometimes he held me there instead of holding hands, and I’d see extra flesh in between his fingers. I don’t remember if I noticed that before or after I started throwing up.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” he says. Junie and I don’t stop walking. Mike’s fingers are on my other arm, not the one attached to the hand that Junie’s still holding.
“Don’t you remember it was an accident?” he asks. Junie tightens her grip as if to say she’s not going to let him trick me into remembering things differently.
“I just want to talk to you, My,” Mike adds.
Then, “We can work this out.”
I stop then, dropping Junie’s hand. She stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans. Mike wants to work this out? Isn’t he furious with me for getting him into trouble? Or at least, potentially getting him into trouble, since the board of trustees isn’t meeting to discuss us until Monday. I turn to face him.
He looks calm. He loosens his grip on my upper arm. He moves his thumb up and down, rubbing the soft spot on my inner arm the way he knows I like.
And finally, softly as though he’s embarrassed Junie will hear—but loud enough to be sure Junie will hear—“I love you.”
I feel the words I love you too building up in my throat. I’ve always said it back. It’s like muscle memory, a reflex like when the doctor taps your knee with a hammer and your leg kicks out. It would be so easy to say the words, so easy to lean into his touch.
And yet, I also want him to let go of my arm. Maybe if he doesn’t let go, he’ll start to squeeze, and if he squeezes, it will start to hurt. I know he’d never hit me—not here, in front of all these people. He’d never be that careless. But he could still hurt me.
A crowd has gathered around us. Someone calls a teacher’s name—they think the adults will intervene, break this up. And of course, if any authority figure showed up now, Mike would do whatever he was told. Maybe both of us would be led to Principal Scott’s office with everyone watching.
I glance at Hiram. A few more steps and I could be inside his car. He could make me numb so I won’t feel anything: not the part of me that wants to stay, or the part of me that wants to hide, or the part of me who can’t stop feeling her flesh between Mike’s fingers.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know which part is right.
Hiram moves so quickly that I wonder if he might actually be faster than Mike. He slides his fingers up my arm and beneath Mike’s until Mike has no choice but to let go. Hiram plants himself between Mike and me. He’s nearly a head shorter than Mike, but his body looks so solid, like a wall between us. He puts his hands flat on Mike’s chest and shoves. Mike stumbles backward. I see a flash of something on Mike’s face—rage? frustration? surprise?—but then his features reset, as though he’d been wearing a mask that slipped, and now it’s back in place. It reminds me of the expression on his face at the start of a race; every meet is a chance for him to show the school, his coach, his parents, the opposing team, college scouts just how fast he can be.
And right now, here in the parking lot, Hiram has given Mike a chance to show everyone how good he can be.
Hiram pulls back his left hand and balls it into a fist. I never noticed he was left-handed before. He has to reach upward to hit Mike’s jaw.
Mike falls backward to the ground, but he has the wherewithal to bend his knees and put his hands down carefully so he doesn’t hurt himself when he lands. I don’t think Hiram punched Mike hard enough to make him fall. But I’m not sure anyone else realizes that.
The student calling the teacher’s name gets louder. I look up and see Eva Mercado with her hands over her mouth. Kyle and Anil stand at the edge of the crowd like they’re awaiting instructions. Hiram’s hand is still balled into a fist. He wants to hit Mike again, but he’s not going to do it while Mike is on the ground. Mike doesn’t get up. Why should he? He has more to gain by staying down.
“Let’s get out of here,” I say to Hiram, repeating the words that Junie said to me. I reach for him. I feel his muscles unclenching.
“You sure?” he asks, and I realize that if I wanted him to, he’d go on punching Mike, even with everyone watching, even with Mike down on the ground. He’d do it for me.
I shake my head and tug Hiram toward his car. He’s breathing hard, but he lets me push him into the driver’s seat. I walk around to the passenger side. Now, Kyle and Anil come forward. They help Mike off the ground. He stands with his hands on his knees like he’s winded. Hiram didn’t even punch him in the stomach.
“I’ll take you home,” Hiram offers, but I shake my head. I don’t want to go home.
“Just drive,” I say.
He drives.
Two
Junie
We drive in silence for so long that I don’t think Maya and Hiram even realize I’m in the back seat. But I wasn’t about to wait for an invitation. I mean, I couldn’t let M
aya just drive off with the (apparently) violent class burnout, even if the only violence I’d see him actually commit was against the guy who hurt Maya.
“You okay?” Hiram asks finally. He takes his eyes off the road to look at Maya.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Maya says.
“Yeah, I really did.” Hiram pauses. “Anyhow, I wanted to.”
Maya smiles. “I could tell.” She leans across the seat and takes Hiram’s left hand off the wheel. His knuckles are still pink.
Hiram takes his hand back. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“What question?”
“Are you okay?”
They’re talking like old friends. I can’t remember the last time Maya and I talked so easily. I tuck my hair behind my ears. It fell out of its ponytail when we were rushing across the school parking lot.
“I’m fine.”
“I’ll take you home.”
Maya shakes her head. “I don’t want to go home.”
“You want to go back to the beach?”
Back to the beach? That makes it sound like they’ve been to the beach. Together, I mean. But since when does Maya hang out with Hiram? I only pulled her toward his car because I didn’t have my keys, which made his car the closest available getaway.
I remember the way he asked how she was doing when he gave me the pills. He sounded so concerned, but I didn’t think much of it because everyone cares about Maya. I mean, even before all this happened. She’s the kind of person people care about even when they don’t know her well because she’s the kind of person everyone wants to know well.
I slide my hand into my pocket before remembering my phone isn’t there. It’s in my bag, which is in the school parking lot because I dropped it when I ran after Maya. Someone will pick it up for me, but what if that person looks inside and sees the pills? At least you can’t tell what they are and how I got them just from looking at them. I mean, we’re not supposed to bring medicine to school, but for all anyone knows they could be for allergies, or maybe my therapist did prescribe me real antianxiety pills. Not that I’d want anyone to guess that I have problems with anxiety. Crap. I really wish I had my bag because then I could take another pill so I wouldn’t be scared to be sitting in Hiram’s back seat. Better yet, I wish I had my bag and my car keys had been inside it instead of back in my locker, because then I wouldn’t be sitting in Hiram’s back seat at all.
What Kind of Girl Page 12