The bell finally rings, and I take my time collecting my things, waiting for Paige to leave. She shoves her copy of The Taming of the Shrew in her bag, pulls on a weird purple beanie with cat ears sewn on top, and walks to the door.
I’m about to follow her when Andrew cuts me off.
“Cool hat,” Andrew says, passing by her.
Paige holds the door for him. “Thanks,” she replies.
I frown. It’s not the first casual display of budding friendship I’ve observed over the week. Every day there’s something—a wave in the hallways, a brief conversation about the night’s readings, a shared glance when someone says something particularly stupid in class. I don’t like it. Not that I’m jealous in a romantic sense. I’m reasonably confident Paige isn’t Andrew’s type, considering he’s had a crush on me since freshman year. However, the better friends they become, the more important it will be I win over Paige before she further turns him against me.
I get into the hallway to find Paige already finished with her locker and heading to the dining hall. I hate that I know exactly where her locker is and where she sits for lunch.
“You’re working on your Econ assignment again today?” I hear Elle ask behind me. She walks up next to me, scowling at the couple of junior boys who cross her path.
I’ve been telling Elle I have an Econ project not because I think she’d be judgmental about what I’m really doing. It would just take plenty of explaining. I don’t enjoy being dishonest with my friends—and once when I told everyone I was spending spring break in Avignon like the rest of my classmates, I ended up running into Elle and her entire family in a restaurant near my house. That didn’t feel great.
Desperate times, however.
“Unfortunately,” I lie.
“How much longer is this assignment going to take?” Elle asks. I recognize the playfulness under her pointed tone. It’s a distinction I’ve picked up over years of overhearing her peeved conversations with vendors and promoters versus having her pester me about hanging out and helping with videos. “Why do you care?” she goes on without waiting for my answer. “I know you hate Econ.”
“I don’t hate Econ,” I protest. I don’t love the late nights and eye-watering spreadsheets. It’s worth it, though.
Elle eyes me. “How much longer?” she repeats drolly.
“Today,” I say. “I promise.” I’ve devoted nearly a week to the Paige project. If something doesn’t come along in the next couple hours, I’m going to need a new strategy.
“Good,” Elle says emphatically, opening the door to the dining hall. “I don’t know if I can take two more lunches with nothing to do but watch Brad and Morgan eye-bang each other.”
“Please. You didn’t practically walk in on them,” I reply, remembering a uniquely unpleasant encounter in Morgan’s bathroom at the end of the party. “Puppy-dog eyes in the dining hall is nothing.”
Elle laughs. We walk together toward where Morgan and Brad are—of course—gazing goofily at each other. “Oh boy,” Elle mutters. She shoots me a stern look. “For real, Cameron. Finish this Econ project.” It’s not a question.
“I will. Promise,” I repeat. “Do you . . . you know”—I nod toward Morgan and Brad—“need a barf bag? I have a Ziploc from my lunch . . .”
Elle rolls her eyes. “Get to work, Cam.”
With a grin, I pull away. I enter the dining hall as Paige is leaving the kitchen. Instead of heading for her usual table, she turns toward the science wing. Walking against the crowds coming from classrooms to the dining hall, I follow her. She stops in front of the robotics room. I linger a distance away while she pulls open the door and goes inside.
I wait for her to finish her errand, not looking forward to another day of eavesdropping on her friends’ conversations about video games and Japanese TV and probably learning nothing. There’s a new episode every Thursday of one of the group’s favorite shows. They’ll probably be preoccupied with that today.
Ugh. I feel like a psycho. Except instead of Beyoncé or Ryan Gosling or someone reasonable, my stalkee has weird taste in hats and an anime obsession.
I check my phone, realizing it’s been over five minutes since Paige went in. That’s way longer than you need to drop off homework or pick up a test. There are only a limited number of reasons a person would want to be in an empty classroom during the middle of lunch, chief among them: hookups.
If it’s Jeff, gross. If it’s not, it might be someone I’m less morally opposed to helping her with. It could be the first useful piece of information I’ve learned. While I don’t exactly want to witness whatever’s going on in there firsthand, I have no choice. I have to peek.
Pulling my bag over my shoulder, I walk nonchalantly to the window. I notice a poster on the door for BPR—Beaumont Prep Robotics—over a design resembling men’s and women’s restroom identifiers, except the figures have square heads instead of round. Robots. Clever design.
I press my face to the glass, preparing for the worst.
Okay, this would be a morally objectionable pairing.
I have only an obscured view from the narrow window. The room is dark. On one end, a bare bulb dimly illuminates a table and a desk chair, with heaps of old robotics equipment and extension cords in the corner. In the chair sits Barfy Brendan.
Paige lingers by the desk. I watch the two of them. BB’s busy with the computer, typing, his face turned from his sister’s. On hers is written a complication of emotions I don’t recognize from Paige. Not the exhilaration and skepticism that wage war when she’s geeking out about whatever she and her friends geek out about. Definitely not the ire I exclusively earn.
She looks hopeful, and hurting. Like she’s putting on an enthusiastic face.
I watch her talk to Brendan, prodding his shoulder and craning over him to check out whatever he’s doing. While I can’t understand the conversation—even with my unnervingly excessive surveillance of Paige this week, I haven’t learned to lip-read—I catch one word that falls unmistakably from Paige’s mouth. Please. From her imploring expression and the way she waves in the direction of the door, I infer she’s trying to get Brendan to have lunch with her outside the robotics room. He gestures toward the computer, and Paige’s face falls. I instantly translate what I read in her expression. Worry.
Which is when it hits me. Worry, like in her essay. I am an idiot for not realizing the person she was writing about. The person she worries about often enough to feel like she’s losing herself. The person she watches get bullied with nothing she can do to help.
Nothing she can do. But maybe there’s something I can do.
She turns, and I don’t step away from the window in time. We lock eyes. Her expression hardens in surprise. Recognizing me, it fills with fury.
I know I have no chance of retreating and having the whole incident forgotten. I wait, and in seconds Paige charges out and faces me. “What the hell, Bright?” she spits. “You’re spying on me now?”
If only you knew. I remind myself not to go in a retaliatory, lute-smashing direction. I cannot be Kate right now. I need Paige’s forgiveness, not to mess things up worse. “It’s not what you think,” I finally say.
“Oh no? What is it, then?” she sneers. “Interested in joining the robotics team?”
“Of course not.” I feel my nose wrinkle and realize I probably don’t want to be denigrating robotics in front of Paige. I school my expression into understanding. “Not that I have a problem with the robotics team, I just—” I begin to recover.
“Cut the crap,” Paige interrupts. “‘Popular girls’”—she forms finger-quotes—“don’t care about robotics, and they certainly don’t spend school lunches following people like me. You’re up to something.”
“What would you know about popular girls?”
Paige’s eyes widen. She gives a bitter laugh. “Good one. That was
funny”—her voice comes out heavy with sarcasm—“if characteristically mean.”
“No,” I say, conscious of how horribly this is going. “What I’m trying to say is not everyone who’s popular is just a one-dimensional, popular-girl stereotype. I’m not a one-dimensional, popular-girl stereotype.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Paige is stone-faced.
Finally, I feel anger flare up, and it’s out of my mouth faster than I can contain it. “Could you knock it off with the woman-scorned act for just, like, a couple minutes?” I hear myself say. Paige startles. “Look,” I go on. “I want to . . . I don’t know, fix things. I followed you here—” I notice Paige become smug, and I sigh. “Yes, okay? I followed you. I followed you because . . . I wanted to do something nice for you.”
Her eyes narrow. With confusion this time, not anger. It’s progress.
“I want to make things right,” I say. “After what happened at Ska¯ra.”
Paige’s eyebrows rise. She gives an indignant huff of a chuckle. “Well, you can’t, Cameron. You can’t make it up to me. Not that it’s a gaping wound in my self-esteem, what you said to me. I’m just completely uninterested in forgiving you.”
I feel my heart plummet.
“There’s nothing you could do that I’d possibly be interested in,” Paige says, turning to leave.
“What about your brother?” I call to her.
Paige pauses. I can practically feel how much she wants to walk away warring with . . . what?
She rounds on me.
“What about him?” she finally says. “Why would you having anything to do with my brother ever be a good idea?”
“I remember your essay,” I say, the reply ready on my tongue. “He’s the person you worry about.” When Paige doesn’t say anything, I continue. “What if I apologized? You’re right to say I of all people have nothing to offer your brother. What if I could fix that? What if I went into the robotics room right now and apologized for the nickname I gave him?”
Paige’s eyes dart to the robotics room. I go on, unwilling to lose my focus.
“I might be ‘mean’”—I return the finger-quotes and earn the hint of a raised eyebrow—“but I’m not unobservant or unintelligent. Who’s to say if I went in there and apologized, Brendan wouldn’t . . .” I gesture to the robotics room. “Who knows? What if an apology gets him out here, having lunch with his friends instead of hiding in there?”
I probably come off desperate. But I don’t care, because I’ve got the wheels turning in Paige’s head.
I watch her consider. Her expression softens, her eyes moving from mine to the door. Her hard frown eases nearly imperceptibly. After a moment she purses her lips. Not in consternation—in what feels like grudging, reluctant agreement.
Hardened, her eyes return to mine.
“Fine,” she says.
“Really?” Until I hear it from Paige, I won’t accept I’ve actually found the answer to the problem I’ve wrestled with for the entire week. What I really don’t want is for Paige to decide in a couple of hours that it was a horrible plan for me to apologize to BB and I’m a horrible person for even having the idea.
Paige nods. “Apologize to Brendan—fix things with him—and I’ll forgive you for what you said to me. You know where to find him.” She crosses her arms. “He’s in the robotics room every lunch.” From the smugness in her expression, I have a hunch she doesn’t think I can pull this off. Doesn’t think Cameron Bright, bitch extraordinaire, can get through even one apology.
I don’t care. Finally, I permit excitement to well in my chest. If Paige forgives me, I’m one giant step closer to her telling her new BFF Andrew about how the incident at Ska¯ra was no big deal, how I went out of my way to be thoughtful to her brother, and how I’m really not the person she thought I was.
“Done,” I reply.
Without a word, Paige walks off. I gather my composure and open the door.
Nine
THE ROBOTICS ROOM IS CLOSER TO A warehouse than a classroom. A thick wooden table down the length of one wall is piled high with what appear to be pieces of metal bolted together in half-finished forms and wires running from motors to electronics with little blinking lights. On the other wall is a row of computers, new Macs next to old desktops someone’s halfway done repairing.
I walk between the tables toward where BB sits in the back of the room, my footsteps swallowed by the sound effects coming from the computer on his desk. I pause a couple feet behind him and glance over his shoulder. He’s playing a computer game on a desktop he’s hooked up to an external hard drive and intricate keyboard with extra keys that must be designed for gaming. Furiously, he punches his fingers on the keys.
I watch the screen for a couple seconds. The two-dimensional character isn’t moving despite Brendan’s clicking and typing. What I’m guessing is a sorceress, dressed in a dramatic black dress and with blonde hair, closes in on the stuck character. I notice the color palette of the game is all over the place, pastels combined with neons without rhyme or reason.
I watch the sorceress reach the unmoving boy and promptly chop off his head. The words GAME OVER flash on the screen.
Brendan sighs exasperatedly and types in more commands. I figure this is the best window I’m going to have. “Hi, B—Brendan,” I say, my voice echoing oddly loudly in the enormous room. “What are you doing?”
BB whirls. He searches the room, suspicious, like he’s looking for some explanation for what I’m doing here. The dim light plays shadows on his features, which have a definition to them you wouldn’t expect on a junior boy’s face.
“Do you want help with the problem set or something?” he asks.
“What?” I’m thrown until I realize the problem set is, in fact, the likeliest reason I’d come find him. “No. I’m, um, here to talk to you.”
He narrows his eyes. “Why?”
I sit on the stool next to him. His shirt, I notice, reads THOROUGHBRED OF SIN in big block text under a picture of a horse. He keeps his eyes on me like he’s expecting me to pounce.
“I realize I might not have been the nicest person to you over the years,” I say sincerely.
BB watches me for a second longer. I hope—in an illogical part of my brain—it’s going to be this easy, and Brendan will shrug and say, “Whatever,” and bygones will be bygones.
Instead, he turns back to the computer. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says unemotionally. “We don’t even know each other.” He glances toward me a second later out of the corner of his eye. “If you’re worried I’m going to tell Mr. West you were emailing in class, forget about it.”
“Why would I—” I begin to point out West wouldn’t care, then cut myself off. I have to give BB a genuine apology—the quicker, the better. “Remember when you first moved here in sixth grade and I was in seventh?” I say hurriedly. “You, like, threw up at school a bunch of times? It was, like, every week, and we’d know not to eat in the cafeteria when you were in there and not to go near the second-floor boys’ bathroom?”
I’m rambling. I never ramble. But Brendan is no longer facing the computer. His eyes fix on mine skeptically. His attention is suddenly making me self-conscious.
“No,” he says dryly. “I’d completely forgotten that wonderful period in my life. Thank you for reminding me, Cameron.”
I wince. I’m doing exactly what Kate does. I’m being too blunt, too honest. But what do I say instead? My inexperience with apologies means that I have no idea what I’m doing. “I’m terrible at this,” I tell Brendan. I study his nose and his brown eyes, noticing that when you look up close, he doesn’t really look very much like Paige. I don’t know why, but the thought brings me a fresh bout of nervousness. Only remembering why I’m here keeps me from throwing in the towel and getting out of here. Andrew.
“Here’s a tip,” Brendan r
eplies, an edge entering his tone. “Whatever this is, don’t. Just don’t. Go take selfies with your friends or whatever.”
“Hey,” I fire back, hardly caring I’m not keeping my cool. “You don’t have to go and insult me when I’m in here trying to apologize.”
BB’s eyebrows bounce up. “You’re trying to apologize? Wow, you’re really terrible at this.”
His words smother my anger. It’s not even worth it to try to defend myself. He’s 100 percent right. My breath leaves my chest in a frustrated sigh. “I know,” I say. “But, Brendan, I’m sorry I started calling you BB. And I’m sorry it’s what the whole school’s called you for the past five years.”
It’s not like I didn’t have a reason, to be fair. In seventh grade, I was just minding my own business, reading in a second-floor hallway during recess. I didn’t want my friends to know, because reading was obviously uncool, but my dad had sent me one of the few birthday gifts I’ve ever received from him—The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. On the one hand, it was a completely tone-deaf gift, not something in which I’d ever expressed interest. On the other, it was from my dad. The thought of him going to the store, picking something out, and wrapping it meant the world to me.
I was reading in the hallway, unfortunately near the bathrooms. Brendan rounded the corner, clutching his stomach. I had no time to react. In the next second, he’d puked voluminously on the ground, sending spatter onto my backpack, my shoes—and the book.
From his stool, BB’s staring, taking in my apology. I’m not expecting his harsh laugh. “Okay, great. Thanks.”
I study him, trying to figure him out. “I feel like that wasn’t totally genuine.”
He shakes his head. “Everyone knows I have celiac disease,” he says, weary again. I didn’t know—or did I? I could’ve forgotten if I ever heard, admittedly. “Everyone knows I barf when I have gluten,” he continues, and I don’t miss the emphasis. “When I was in sixth grade I had to do these painful and embarrassing tests because nobody knew what was wrong with me. It could’ve been fine when they found out—except, thanks to you, my entire high-school experience has been defined by your catchy nickname for me.” His voice has gathered momentum, his dark eyes unexpectedly fierce. “Do you know how hard it is for me to make friends? To know that everyone in every one of my classes immediately thinks ‘barfy’ in connection with my name?” He turns back to the computer. “Of course you don’t.”
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