by JB Dutton
* * * * *
The next day when I got to school I waited for Cruz at the lockers. But the bell rang and he still hadn’t shown up. The hallway emptied of students and I looked at my watch pointlessly. Then he appeared, running toward me, rushing but not flustered. He could see that I was waiting for him, so he had no choice but to slow down as he reached me.
“Hey,” I ventured with a sympathetic smile.
“Hi,” he panted, flinging open his locker door and grabbing some books.
“Listen, I feel bad for you about last night,” I said. He ignored me. “At the café.”
He slammed his locker shut. “No biggie,” he sighed. “That shit happens to me all the time.”
“What do you mean?” I queried.
“We’re late.” He hurried toward the classroom door.
I jogged after him. “It looked like kinda a big deal at the time.”
Just as he reached the door he stopped and gave me an intense look.
“That’s it, Kari. I just... I had a bad few days and sometimes... sometimes I snap and that’s what went down at the café. It blows cuz, man, I needed the money.”
“No prob. Everything okay?”
He looked down. Clearly everything was far from okay. I put my hand on his arm and his eyes shot back up at me. There was pain behind them. Real suffering. He pulled away and opened the door.
There was a noticeable reaction as we walked in together. The other kids were already seated and Mr. Jefferson had just opened his mouth to speak. Cruz and I must have totally looked like a couple because people started laughing and whispering. My face instantly started burning up. The whole scene was like a lame-ass sitcom. Thing is, I did like Cruz and felt closer to him every time we talked. We couldn’t even look at each other as we took our seats. Pretty sure he was feeling the same way as me, though.
