For a second, I wonder what it would be like to have somebody’s eyes fixed on me like that—or to look at someone the same way.
Soon enough, though, I fall back into dispassion at the idiocy of it all. It horrifies me that kids our age spend so much effort on this stuff. I thought we were all aware that the vast majority of high school relationships are fleeting and meaningless, but apparently not. People spend a huge percentage of their lives playing into this perpetual cycle of interdependence. They’re all wasting their time, and on something with zero long-term benefits. God knows why.
“Hey, wait up!” A boy, sprinting to catch the swimmers, barges into my shoulder and spins me off balance. My periodic table water bottle bounces out of my backpack and away under the front of a car, toppling xenon over helium. I right myself, waiting for an apology, but the boy doesn’t glance back.
I hate people. I crouch, swatting under the fender to grab my bottle, but it rolls out of reach. A hand grabs it from under the driver’s door. “Got it,” says the voice attached to the hand.
I straighten up. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” the girl says. “Did that guy not even apologize? Jeez.”
I start, taking half a step back. That voice . . .
“You must’ve had this for a while,” she says, peering at the bottle. “Copernicium isn’t named.”
Staring at the ground, I nod. “You, um. Like chemistry?”
“I love it,” she says, and the girl’s voice in my head says, I love you.
It’s her.
Sudden pressure clamps down on my skull. I look her in the eyes and know so much about this girl, all of a sudden; I picture her standing in the darkness of the faculty break room, staring up at a nameless face, promising that nobody will ever know—and I suddenly wish I could unknow this. It’s too much to hold. I could ruin her life.
She tilts her head. Her eyes are beautiful, clear, and piercing. They dig into me.
I don’t know her name. That’s something. A tiny protection from this responsibility.
She holds out the bottle, and I snatch it. “I have to go.”
I hurry down the green toward the school, not looking back.
FRIDAY’S LUNCHTIME ANNOUNCEMENTS BLARE OUT, proving me right: people wrote fake responses on the fifth-period questionnaires. Enough people that Principal Turner spends a good five minutes chastising the school through the loudspeaker.
“Lastly,” she says after concluding her rant, “these sheets are still available outside the guidance office if, at any point, anybody does wish to come forward. And as always, the submission form on our website remains open. Thank you, and have a good day.”
“No, thank you, dear leader,” Olivia says, brandishing her juice at the speaker in a Capri Sun salute. Around us, the cafeteria conversations rumble back to life. “Also, happy weekend already,” Olivia adds to me and Juni.
“Thank God,” I say. “Was it just me, or did this week last forever?”
“Definitely not just you,” Juniper says, stirring her yogurt. Olivia and I exchange a worried glance. She looks even more exhausted than she did yesterday.
“Hey, Juni,” I say carefully. “You okay?”
“What? Yeah.” She looks up with a determined smile. “I was up until, like, three last night. Two essays due today, and . . . well, you know. Paganini calls.” She glances at Olivia. “By the way, did your unwanted attention blow over?”
The subject switch doesn’t escape me, but I’m curious. “Unwanted attention?”
“Bleh.” Olivia blows her hair out of her eyes. “Daniel.”
“Why’s his attention unwanted?”
Juni and Olivia swap a knowing look that makes me feel instantly excluded. “Sure you want to know?” Olivia says.
“Duh, nerd. Spill.”
“He sort of sent me a dick pic, and now things are awkward because, like . . . penises.”
I choke on my sandwich. “He what? When was this?”
“Monday.”
“How dare you conceal this incredibly important information?” I say in a voice laden with sarcasm. The joke lands—Olivia grins—but part of my heart has clenched up. It’s not that Dan Silverstein’s junk is in any way interesting, but Olivia told Juni already. So, what, because of our not-fight Monday, I’m not allowed to be in the know anymore? And with Juni’s excuses and deflections . . . is this the new normal, them keeping things from me?
“My deepest apologies,” Olivia says. She lifts her hands in praise to the heavens. “But at last, we greet the weekend! A joyous miracle! Time to sleep in. And marathon Parks and Rec. And rage with my favorite people.” She gives me and Juni a winning smile.
“Rage, right,” Juni says wryly. “You and your nonalcoholic self.”
“Hey, sassy, I can rage without dousing myself in Miller Lite.” Olivia slurps her Capri Sun. “So, what’s our move?”
“Hate to burst the raging bubble,” I say, “but nothing’s happening this weekend. Like, zero things. Dan’s sister is having a birthday party, but if he’s persona non grata now, I’m guessing that’s not your first choice.”
“Nothing at all?” Olivia visibly deflates, chewing her straw. “Damn. There’s this one super-handsome guy on baseball I was talking to last week. Thought maybe I could ‘run into him’ this weekend.”
“How about we hang out, the three of us?” Juniper suggests.
Olivia brightens. “Ooh, yes, excellent.”
“My afternoon’s open,” I say.
“I actually can’t do afternoon,” Olivia says. She tosses her hair, looking off into the middle distance. “I have a clandestine meeting with a gentleman.”
Sharp disapproval runs through me. God, how many guys is she juggling at one time? Hasn’t she ever heard of restraint?
I clasp my hands tight. Stop, Claire. She can go on dates. She can do what she wants. Who cares if she has eighty boys falling at her feet?
I take a deliberate bite of my apple as Juniper says, “Do tell.”
“Well, where do I begin?” Olivia says. “It’ll be an incredibly romantic rendezvous, where we will make a poster about Dante’s Inferno.” As she gives her eyelashes an exaggerated flutter, I let out a sigh, feeling like an asshole. It’s a class project, not a date. Of course. The day Olivia goes on a real date instead of just hooking up with guys at parties, the sun will probably explode.
“How about evening, then?” Juniper suggests. “We can just chill. Watch a movie.”
Here we go. I’m busy tomorrow night, and I already know what’s going to happen. My absence makes less of a difference than Olivia’s, so they’ll meet up Saturday night and have an amazing time without me and send me a bunch of Snapchats that’ll make me feel left out, and I won’t say anything, because if I do, I’ll come off needy.
“I can’t at night,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Grace’s birthday. We’re going out to eat.”
“How about after?” Olivia says. “We could do, like, nine thirty or ten.”
“My tournament’s this Sunday, remember? I have to get up early.”
“Excuses, excuses, Lombardi,” Olivia says. “I’m picking you up, and you can’t stop me.”
“I’m serious. I gotta get up at six.” I gulp some Gatorade. “I mean, you could pick me up if you roll my sleeping body into the back of Juni’s car.”
They laugh. It fades into expectant silence, and I realize they’re waiting for me to give them some sort of weird blessing to hang out without me. I don’t want to say the words, but they come out anyway. “Well, whatever. Don’t have too much fun without me.”
I swear, their eyes brighten. I look down at my lunch, nibbling on my nails. Juni and Olivia drop the topic soon, but my mind sticks on the little things from this week. Juniper’s silences. Dan’s secret advances. The thought of the pair of them without me. As for Saturday, I already get the sense I’m missing out.
“KAT?” DR. NORMAN SAYS.
M
y head jerks up, my eyes snapping open.
“Do you know the answer?” Norman asks, the first words in seventh period I’ve listened to. There’s no question on the whiteboard. Not that I’d be able to answer it—chemistry is my worst subject—but knowing the type of question would make a guess sound less stupid, at least.
I glance at the boy sitting next to me. He shoots back a Don’t look at me sort of glare.
“Uh,” I say.
Dr. Norman sighs. “You know, as much as your attendance is appreciated today, Ms. Scott, I have to say, it would mean more if you were conscious.”
Snickers spark up around me. I imagine the sounds glancing off my skin, blow by tiny blow. “Kat,” Norman says, “I’m going to ask you to stay after class and clean up the lab equipment for the AP students.”
“I have rehearsal,” I say.
Dr. Norman gives me a feral smile. Not a good sign. He loves making examples out of students for laughs. It makes me think his ego is fragile beyond belief, because, seriously, what forty-five-year-old with any self-esteem gets his kicks by making fun of teenagers?
“Rehearsal?” he says. “That’s funny, because I was talking with Dave García the other day, and he was telling me that he gave the cast Friday off. So, if you could get him to explain, that’d be wonderful.” His smile stretches wider, scrunching lines up into his white, rubbery cheeks. “Otherwise, you’ll be staying afterward to clean up, thank you.”
Everyone goes, “Ooohhh,” in unison, the universally accepted sound of Somebody just got their ass handed to them. I shoot dirty glances around, the humiliation lingering against my skin like a too-close flame. Norman didn’t have to say it that way. I didn’t even mean to lie—I forgot García gave us today off.
Ten minutes later, the bell rings. I leave my backpack at my desk and head to the front of the room. Dr. Norman waits behind his desk with justice in his eyes. He probably thinks he’s fighting the good fight against juvenile delinquency, saying shit in front of the class like that, but all he’s doing is making me resent him.
After showing me what he wants cleaned, Norman bustles out of the room, leaving me alone. I trudge toward the black buckets by the sink, old and scratched, filled with graduated cylinders. I test the tap water and pick up the soap.
The door opens behind me. I glance over my shoulder.
A kid stands in the threshold, blonder than I am and barely taller. He has the physique of a stick insect, and his clothes don’t help the illusion: his skinny khakis make his legs look like pipe cleaners, and his black peacoat is so huge, it looks like it’s eating him alive.
“Need something?” I say.
“Yes, hello,” he says. “There must be a mistake. I’m supposed to clean the equipment.”
“Are you in AP?” I ask.
He nods.
“Well,” I say, “guess you’re off the hook, AP. Norman told me to do these buckets.”
“Oh.” The boy’s eyes fix on my hands, still stuck beneath the warm water. A patronizing look flits across his face, his eyes narrowing to slits.
“What?” I say.
“You’re not seriously washing graduated cylinders with tap water, are you?”
I’m almost impressed. That level of derision could flay a person with thinner skin than mine. I turn off the tap. “Yeah, what’s the problem?”
“Deionized. You have to use deionized water. You’re going to contaminate the—it’s over the—oh, just let me—” The kid strides toward the cabinets and throws them open one by one, muttering under his breath. He chucks his backpack to the ground. It slumps against the counter.
After a straight minute of muttering, the boy flings open the last cabinet. “Here.” He pulls down a pair of plastic squeeze bottles with thin nozzles attached to their lids. As he sets down the bottles by the sink, I catch his eyes. They’re sharp, an indeterminate bluish-greenish-grayish color. Chameleon eyes. He doesn’t hold my gaze long, though—his glance darts away to my hairline, my neck, the wall behind me.
I wait for him to leave, but he stands there as if he’s waiting for a gold star. After the most uncomfortable silence in recorded history, I clear my throat. “So, you gonna go, or what?”
“I’ll help.” He grabs a bottle of his special miracle water and starts rinsing out a graduated cylinder.
“Uh.” What’s the politest way to say, Like hell you will? “No,” I say, “that’s really fine.”
“I’m going to be here anyway,” he says. “My mom’s a guidance counselor, and I have to wait for my ride home. So maybe you should be the one leaving. This was my job first.”
“Look, AP, I don’t need the attitude.” A muscle over my left eye spasms. I rub it. Like a retort, it spasms again.
“Looks like what you need is some sleep,” he says.
“No shit, genius.”
When the guy says nothing, I glance back at him. “Sorry,” I mumble. “That just sort of came out.”
He cocks his head like a perplexed puppy. “It’s all right. Social interaction is generally not my forte, either.”
“Your what?”
“My forte,” he repeats.
“You mean for-tay?”
“No, that’s an Italian word used in musical notation. The English word is adapted from the French fort, meaning strong. One syllable. Forte.”
My mouth droops open, and I try not to let anything too disparaging fall out. Who the hell is this guy, some sort of malnourished TA? It’s almost refreshing, his total weirdness.
Something about him in general soothes my nerves, although I can’t pinpoint what.
I take a bottle and draw out a cylinder from the second bucket. Beside me, the kid’s pale hands move in jerks and starts, impatient, hyperefficient. “Rinse them three times each,” he says, “then line them up overhead. Got it?”
I nod.
He turns to me.
“Got it?”
“I nodded.”
“Ah. Right.” He goes back to washing. “Didn’t see.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not.”
“What?”
“Worrying,” he says. “I’m not worrying about it.”
I look at him for a second, wondering how long it’s been since he spoke to a human being. I’m not a master of small talk by any means, but this kid is something else.
I go back to my cylinders. We lapse into blessed silence, but it doesn’t take long for him to break it. “Valentine Simmons,” he introduces himself. “Junior.”
“Sure,” I say, putting a cylinder into one of the cabinets.
“Despite common belief,” he adds, “Valentine is a boy’s name, since Saint Valentine was a man. So. So it’s not weird.”
“Okay,” I say. “I didn’t say it was weird.”
Another silent minute trickles by before Valentine asks, “What grade are you in?”
Jesus, this guy won’t take a hint. “Same,” I say.
He squeezes a thin jet of water from his bottle’s nozzle, his expression carefully neutral. Still, I get the sense he’s disappointed I won’t bite.
It hits me why he seems disarming: this air hovers around him, and I only recognize it because it’s familiar. He’s one of those kids who, like me, has zero friends. Nice to know my superpower is detecting social failure.
I make a peace offering. “So, how about that assembly? What a waste of time, huh?”
“Waste of . . .?”
“One email, and they go batshit crazy? It was probably someone trolling.”
“If that’s what you choose to believe,” he says, an air of superiority cloaking him so thickly, I can almost smell it. He goes back to his cylinder, silent at last.
“I’m Kat Scott,” I say. “So, why’d Norman put you on cleaning duty?”
“He didn’t. I offered.”
“Best buds, huh?”
“Well, we ate lunch together today, if that qualifies.”
I eye him. “That’s, uh.”<
br />
“You think it’s strange.”
“I mean, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong.”
“Yes, well.” Valentine shrugs. “It was raining, so I couldn’t eat outside.”
“And you couldn’t just go to the cafeteria because . . .?”
His nose wrinkles. “I don’t particularly enjoy the company of my peers.”
“. . . right. That didn’t sound rehearsed at all.”
“Well, it’s true. I just don’t do it. The last time I ate with someone my age was four hundred and ten days ago.”
“Um.” I look over at him. He doesn’t seem to register exactly how bizarre that sentence was. “Why do you remember that?”
“I don’t know. I like keeping count of things, and . . .” He frowns. “Yep.”
Holy shit, that is sad. After a long minute of searching for an appropriate response, I go back to washing graduated cylinders. I can’t imagine a torture more excruciating than eating lunch with Dr. Norman, that condescending prick. I’ll take being roasted over a slow flame any day.
Then again, how long has it been since I had lunch with anybody? I sure as hell don’t keep track, but my score is probably in the hundreds, too. My corner of the courtyard is my lunchtime sanctuary, and when it gets too cold, I resort to empty classrooms or the back section of the library. No company needed.
I can’t remember the last time I sat down to dinner with Dad and Olivia, either. Eating alone seems so sad on Valentine. Is that what I look like from the outside? Some pariah, doomed to sit, untouchable, away from the rest of the world? I hope to God people can tell it’s my choice.
Valentine finishes his bucket first. But he doesn’t leave or find some reason to move away from me. Instead, he stands there, looking like the embodiment of everyone who has ever been awkward.
I tuck the last graduated cylinder into the overhead cabinet and shut the door, checking the clock. “Great.” The bus is always long gone by four fifteen, and it’s raining today. If I catch pneumonia walking home and die, I hope Olivia sues the shit out of Dr. Norman.
Seven Ways We Lie Page 9