by Melissa Grey
Hana loved her at once.
Upon seeing the strange girl half lying on her couch, Mrs. Moore dropped the bags she was carrying and rushed to Hana’s side. She must have looked even worse than she felt.
“Oh, honey. What happened to you?” She looked at Tamsin as she said it, as if some mystical maternal intuition told her Hana’s word on the situation was not to be trusted.
“She just sort of fainted,” Tamsin said. “This is Hana, by the way.”
“Hello, Hana.”
Hana stilled as Mrs. Moore’s hand settled on her forehead to check her temperature. Hana couldn’t remember the last time she’d been touched like that. Illnesses were like injuries. Obstacles on the path to perfection. Hurdles to be leaped without a second glance.
“It’s okay,” Hana said. “I just got a little dizzy. I worked out hard at skating practice today.”
Mrs. Moore popped up to stand. “Aha! Did you eat after this skating practice?”
Hana blinked, perplexed at both the woman’s casual acceptance of teenage girls fainting in her shop and her quick leap to a solution. She was stunned enough to admit, “Um, no.”
“Well, that’s something we can fix. I picked up some incredible cheese at the Public Market. I was thinking of using it to make some pasta.” She was already bustling back to her bags, ordering Tamsin to carry the rest to the kitchen. “Hana, you’re staying for dinner. Not negotiable.”
The Public Market was one of the main grocery stores in Jackson Hills, but not the nice one Hana’s parents shopped at. It was open to anyone, regardless of their rating. The supermarket Hana’s mother preferred required scanning in with a minimum rating of 80.
But that wasn’t what made Hana swallow the rising tide of her nausea as she swung her legs off the side of the couch and forced herself to stand. Her equilibrium hadn’t fully recovered, but years of spinning on a steel blade only four millimeters wide made her excellent at faking balance when she had none.
“No, that’s really okay, Mrs. Moore,” Hana said, biting the inside of her cheek to distract from her clamoring stomach.
Tamsin’s mother looked at Hana over an armful of brown bags, bursting with groceries. “It’s Ms. Moore. There’s no mister in this picture. And are you sure? It’s no trouble at all. You really should eat something, sweetheart.”
This woman didn’t even know her and she was calling her sweetheart. Hana blinked back the sudden moisture in her eyes.
“I’m okay.” She scooped up her backpack and her skate bag, settling them on opposite shoulders.
She couldn’t bear it. The thought of these kind, generous people watching her pretend to eat. Hana had the feeling that it would be harder to trick Tamsin’s mother than her own.
“Thank you,” she said to them both. “I … thanks.”
She ducked behind the beaded curtain before either could respond. Over her shoulder, Hana caught a glimpse of Tamsin’s expression as she made her escape. Tamsin’s brow was pinched and her mouth set into a stern line. Ms. Moore just looked confused.
Hana pushed herself home despite the lingering weakness of her muscles and the persistent pounding in her head. The journey went by in a blur. Neither of her parents was home. That made things easier. Though the sense memory of Ms. Moore’s soft hand on her forehead made something inside her clench that wasn’t hunger.
It wasn’t until Hana had changed into a nice, warm pair of sweats and sat down to record her afternoon practice in her little black notebook that she noticed the note stuck between the pages, sealed with the face of a smiling jester.
Chase’s luck ran out sooner than he thought it would. He’d done well in practice that week. Really well. His rating had crawled up two whole points, but it was still hovering on the cusp of disaster.
Not even a week into the school year and he found himself cornered by the man he’d been studiously avoiding for days.
Headmaster Wood smiled benevolently at Chase. They were almost the same height, but somehow Wood still gave off an air of smiling down instead of at.
“Ah, Chase. Just the man I’ve been waiting to see.”
“Hi, Dr. Wood.” Chase swallowed thickly, his hand tightening on the strap of his backpack. “What’s up?”
Wood’s eyes softened, either in sympathy or condescension. It was a fine line between the two and Chase had never been much good at telling the difference.
“We both know what’s up, Mr. Donovan. The letter.”
The letter.
The one still lurking in the bottom of Chase’s backpack.
Chase didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything at all.
“Look, Chase,” Wood began.
Somehow, being called Mr. Donovan was less excruciating than being called Chase by the headmaster. First names felt too intimate, especially when said with such oozing pity.
“I understand that this isn’t something you want to talk about, but we’re going to. Rest assured, this won’t be a long, painful conversation.”
Wood smiled. Something like hope fluttered in Chase’s chest. He knew it wasn’t fair, technically, to grant athletes special status, to let them get away with things other students might not, but perhaps there was hope that a societal imbalance would work in his favor this time.
“I’ve already spoken to your coach, to let him know you’ll be missing a few practices to make room for tutoring.”
And just like that, Chase’s fragile, half-formed hope shriveled into nothingness.
“But, Dr. Wood—”
“But nothing.” Wood spoke with such authority that Chase’s teeth clacked shut. There was absolutely no way Coach was on board with that plan. The fact that Wood had likely pulled rank on him to get Chase time off—if it could be called that—had probably only irritated Coach even more. Chase knew he would be the one to pay for it when he returned to practice. “I’ve arranged for you to meet with one of our best peer tutors this afternoon. I thought you’d be more comfortable with someone your own age.”
He said this as if he’d just performed an act of supreme magnanimity, instead of broadcasting Chase’s shame. Embarrassing himself in front of a teacher was one thing. Chase had plenty of experience in that arena. But another student? Someone smarter and more accomplished and probably far higher-rated than himself?
“Dr. Wood, if I could just—”
“This isn’t a negotiation, Mr. Donovan. You will report to your tutor and you will pull up your grades. Failure to do so will result in your immediate expulsion from the baseball team and the loss of your scholarship. Any questions?”
“No, sir.”
“Very good. Rebecca Johnson is a great tutor. You’ll see.”
With that, Wood sauntered away, off to torment the next poor soul on his list of underperforming elites.
And that was how Chase Donovan, star pitcher of the Maplethorpe Academy baseball team, regional champions for seven years running, found himself standing before the future valedictorian of his senior class, Bex Johnson. They stared at each other for a frozen moment, the three feet between them feeling miles wide. He’d never spoken to her before, despite the fact that they’d been in school together for years. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Bex. It’s just that he had nothing in common with her. She was everything he wasn’t. Academically gifted. Multitalented. Well-rounded.
A girl like Bex didn’t bother with guys like him. And if he was honest, guys like him didn’t often bother with girls like her. They were too smart. Too unpredictable. Most of the guys on the team didn’t like it when girls were better than them at things, and Bex was good at pretty much everything.
Chase did one thing extremely well. And if he wasn’t allowed to do that one thing anymore, he had nothing else to fall back on.
“Hi,” he said, because she seemed perfectly content to let him stew in the roaring silence of his own inadequacy.
“Hi,” she replied. “I’m supposed to tutor you.”
She said it like she wasn�
��t quite sure she wanted to be there. Chase definitely didn’t want to be there, so that was one thing they had in common.
Progress.
“Listen, you don’t have to,” Chase said. “Tutor me, I mean.”
Bex furrowed her brow. “But Headmaster Wood said you needed help …”
“I don’t.” That was too much of a lie, even for Chase’s wounded pride. “I mean, I do, obviously, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“So you need it,” Bex said, “but you don’t want it.”
It sounded so petty when phrased that way. She wasn’t wrong, not really.
“I … yeah.” Chase hefted his backpack higher on his shoulder. “That about sums it up.”
Bex nodded thoughtfully. She looked down the hallway, at the swirl of students around them, each of them off to practice, or rehearsal, or whatever it was other overachieving Maplethorpe students did once the last bell rang.
“I was thinking we’d use the library,” she said, “but we can go someplace else if you’d like.”
The thought of libraries made Chase itch all over. He never felt quite welcome in them, like a weed growing in a garden.
“How about the Lucky Penny?” Chase offered.
Bex smiled.
It’s a nice smile, Chase thought. Not an ounce of judgment in it.
Maybe this won’t be so awful after all.
* * *
The diner was as packed as it was after any school day, but the vibe was different this afternoon. Chase rarely went without the rest of the team in tow. In a large group, as a star athlete, he almost never paid for his own food or drinks. Somebody else with less social—but more financial—capital usually did.
Today Chase stared at the large laminated menu, pondering how many singles he could find crammed into his backpack or smushed into the pockets of his Maplethorpe letter jacket. A signature Lucky Penny milkshake cost eight dollars. He might be able to get a plain vanilla one if luck was on his side.
“So,” Bex said, her eyes on her own menu. Her gaze was still, not tracking lines from side to side, so Chase was pretty sure she wasn’t really reading it. “Tutoring.”
He put down his menu and folded his hands on top of it. Maybe he wouldn’t need to order anything at all.
Bex followed Chase’s lead and set her own menu down on the table. She took out a notebook and a pen with those multicolored tips, so you could switch between hues with minimal effort. As she flipped to a clean page, he couldn’t help but notice that her handwriting was the neatest he’d ever seen. The letters were arrayed on the page with military precision. And they were small. So ridiculously small. His eyes trembled, ready to cross at the thought of attempting to read any of it.
“Any subject in particular?” Bex asked. “Dr. Wood didn’t get into specifics.”
All of them.
“Math, I guess.” Numbers were a safer bet for him, but only just slightly. He didn’t want to look stupid in front of Bex. Technically, she already knew he was stupid, or they wouldn’t be sitting in the Lucky Penny talking about tutoring, but he wanted to hide the depths of his stupidity from her as long as possible. He wasn’t used to being bad at things—not publicly, anyway. And being bad at academics stung much more than being bad at, say, skiing, which he’d tried once on a school trip and vowed never to attempt again.
Bex’s pen paused over her notebook. The purple ink seemed to yearn for the page just out of reach. “You guess?”
Her tone wasn’t unkind. That small shred of softness was perhaps what made it easier for him to say what he desperately did not want to admit.
He drew in a breath, steeling himself as he loosened the white-knuckled grip he had on his pride.
“I need help … with everything.”
Gently, Bex placed the pen down on the open notebook without writing anything. “It sounds like that was hard for you to admit. Am I right?”
Chase nodded. Gestures were easier than words.
Bex’s face softened. She offered him a soft smile. There was no pity in her expression … just simple understanding. “I’m not here to make you feel bad, Chase. You have nothing to feel bad about anyway. I’m here to help. We can tackle everything.”
“Everything seems like a lot.”
“Yes, by definition.”
“But aren’t you, like, super busy taking over the world?”
“Huh?”
“You’re a super genius.”
Bex shrugged and took a sip of her water. “I set a few hours aside on the weekends for world domination. I’m free after school Tuesdays now that the school newspaper is on hiatus.”
“Is it?” Chase asked. “Why’s that?”
Bex shrugged, but there was tension in her shoulders that made the gesture far less casual than she probably intended. “Something to do with the graffiti the other day. I don’t think they want anybody talking about it.”
“That’s weird,” Chase commented.
“Yup. And you’re changing the subject.”
Now it was Chase’s turn to shrug, shoulders stiff.
“Why would I change the subject? It’s so much fun to talk about how stupid I am.”
Bex narrowed her eyes. “You’re not stupid.”
“Okay, but I am, though.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re not.”
“I am.”
Bex threw herself back against the booth, her arms crossing over her chest in defiance. “I can sit here all day, if that’s what it takes to convince you that you’re not stupid.”
“Then why can’t I do simple things like everybody else?” Chase hadn’t planned to ask that question out loud, but now that the ball was rolling, he found it difficult to stop. There was a catharsis in saying these things out loud. He hadn’t realized how rancid his thoughts had become, left to fester. “How come basic stuff makes my head hurt?”
“Because education isn’t one size fits all,” Bex said. “What works for me doesn’t work for you, and that’s okay. We just have to find what works for you.”
“If education isn’t one size fits all, then why does our school act like it is?”
Bex picked at the skin around her nails. Her cuticles were disastrous—shredded and red with inflammation. The picking must be an anxious tic. “I don’t know. I think that’s just the way most schools work, I guess.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
“Finally. We agree on something.”
Being around Bex wasn’t what Chase thought it would be. He’d assumed it would be awkward and uncomfortable, but now they’d slipped into something that was starting to feel like camaraderie. Chase had been on teams before. He knew what it was like to bond with people because of circumstance. This was different. They had nothing in common that he could identify, but that didn’t feel like much of a problem. He talked and she listened. It was … nice. Really nice. It stilled the restless anxiety that had plagued him since Wood stopped by his locker.
Bex picked up her menu to scan it, just as Chase’s stomach growled loud enough to be heard several counties over.
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Are you hungry?”
He shrugged. There might be a few dollar bills squished into his backpack, but he didn’t want to look and come up empty. That would be far too embarrassing.
“Well, I am,” Bex said. “And my mom and dad never let me eat fun stuff.”
“Fun stuff?”
“Grease. Refined sugars. Processed foods. Pretty much anything that doesn’t occur in nature.”
She had just described approximately 90 percent of Chase’s diet. “Ah, they must not have heard of the fabled milkshake tree.”
Bex stared at him dumbly for a moment. Then the edges of her lips twitched minutely, a tentative smile crawling across them. “A rare species, I’m sure.”
Chase flipped the menu closed. “Well, I don’t think I have any money on me, so get whatever you want.”
He said it casually, hopeful that she wouldn’t read too much into it. Plenty of people walked around without cash. Most restaurants had gone paperless, allowing customers to pay with a scan of their smartwatches—with prices adjusted for ratings, naturally. But not Lucky’s. She was an analog girl in a digital world, the Lucky Penny.
Bex shrugged. “My parents never give me cash either. I have a credit card for emergencies, but if I used it for a jumbo strawberry milkshake, I don’t know that I’d live long enough to enjoy it.”
She extricated a well-worn twenty-dollar bill from the rear pocket of her planner and held it gingerly, as if it were some great treasure she’d unearthed on an archeological dig. “But I’ve been saving this for a special occasion.”
Something in Chase’s gut gave a peculiar little twist, for reasons he couldn’t explain. “Is this a special occasion?”
She placed the bill on the table so it was ready to go at a moment’s notice. “I can’t remember the last time I actually went someplace that wasn’t school or flute lessons or the soup kitchen or Mathletes practice or—”
“Do you actually do all that stuff?” Chase asked. He had to stop her before she went on, further reminding him of his own inadequacy. He was beginning to think her ambition for world domination wasn’t actually a joke. She was operating on a plane beyond mere mortals like himself. “Like, it’s not just application padding for college?”
Bex nodded. “Yup.”
Chase let out a low, deeply impressed whistle. “When do you find time to breathe?”
“Oh, I don’t. My plan is to slowly suffocate and then take a break when I’m dead.”