Blue

by L. E. DeLano

  I wave my mom off in the living room later as she tries to engage me in conversation, insisting that I’m tired. After a shower, I sink down on my bed and mindlessly scroll through my phone. I’m on my fourth YouTube reaction video when the text comes through.

  Hey

  Oh, so now he wants to talk? Austin Bradley, you’ve got some balls. I really don’t know what to say.

  Hey

  r u mad at me

  As if I would give him the satisfaction.

  No

  Why

  Maya

  I’m tempted to ask who? But that would be way too obvious.

  Are you guys together now?

  Does it bother you?

  He didn’t answer my question. Why should I answer his? I do, though.

  Do what you want

  She’s a good person

  I’m trying to think of an answer to that when he follows up with:

  and I need a good person in my life

  What the hell is that supposed to mean?

  And I’m not???

  Don’t be mad because people like her better than you

  I stare at my phone open-mouthed. Where the hell is this coming from? It’s not like he and I had a fight. We only ended because he stopped talking to me. And she’s a good person? Since when does he even talk like that? Austin is a simple single-celled creature. He likes to eat, he likes to play football, he likes to drive his car, he likes Xbox. He wants to have sex with hot girls and he wants to smoke weed and he whines because doesn’t get to do enough of those last two things. There’s no way Austin would be pining for a good person in his life. How did she get into his head like this? I’m not going to bother addressing that in a text.

  I have to go

  I shove the phone under my pillow, but it doesn’t buzz again.

  7

  On Wednesday, Maya told Haylee, who told Allie B, who told Jules, who told me that somebody heard me crying in the bathroom over Austin. I was not.

  On Thursday, we had a discussion in Political Science about the early American colonies, and the development of social norms, standards, and laws. That somehow got railroaded into a discussion about how laws don’t apply equally to all or get ignored entirely when rich people are able to buy the best lawyers.

  On Friday night, Maya came into BurgerMania with Austin ten minutes before closing, and they stayed almost half an hour. I was on dining room, so I had to sweep—and sweep again as she kept dropping fries on the floor on her way out. Austin looked apologetic, but not enough to dump her since it’s Monday again and according to his Instagram and her blowing up Snapchat all weekend, they’re still together.

  Austin tries to get my attention in the hall just as lunch starts, but I am not playing. I turn and walk the opposite way, planning to go into the cafeteria through the doors at the far end of the hall.

  It’s not long before I hear his quickening steps and feel his hand settle on my shoulder.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Yes?” I raise my eyebrows as I turn and give him my best bitch look right down the end of my nose.

  “Uh . . .” He rubs a hand against the back of his neck. “Look,” he says. “I . . . uh . . .” He looks down at the floor for a moment and then forces his eyes back to me. “This is awkward.”

  My eyebrows remain raised and I keep staring the dotted bitch line right through him. Let him feel awkward. He should feel awkward.

  “About Maya . . .” He starts.

  “I really couldn’t care less.”

  “I just—it just happened. I mean you and me haven’t really been hanging lately and—”

  “Exactly.” I cut him off sharply. “Are we done here?”

  “I just feel bad, I guess,” he has the nerve to say. “Maya and me just started talking and it kind of—well it went from there. But I want you to know I still think about you a lot.”

  “Is there a reason you’re telling me this?”

  “Yeah.” He looks over his shoulder, as if he’s making sure we’re not overheard. “I just—I think about you a lot.”

  “You said that.”

  “And I’m not really sure what this thing is with Maya. It’s almost like she’s using me or something.”

  “Ya think?” I snap. “Wait a minute? What happened to she’s a good person and I need her in my life?”

  “What?” He looks at me in confusion.

  “Tuesday. When you texted me.”

  His forehead crinkles up. “I didn’t text you on Tuesday.”

  I whip out my phone and pull up the text, shoving it in front of his face. “I’m not hallucinating,” I tell him.

  He reads through the texts and his frown deepens. “Blue, that wasn’t me.”

  “It’s your phone number,” I remind him.

  He lets out an exaggerated breath. “It was Maya. I caught her going through my phone. We fought about it. I thought she was just jealous and trying to see who else I was texting. I didn’t realize she was playing you like that.”

  That bitch! I should have realized.

  “Well, now you know,” I snarl. “You might want to think about what kind of girl you’re with.”

  “We’re not really exclusive,” he assures me quickly.

  “So?”

  “So I’m just saying if you ever want to hang out—or are you with that new guy?”

  I manage to shrug. “Not sure yet.”

  “Well, the offer’s there.” He looks over his shoulder again. “Text you later.”

  And with that he turns and strides off. He’s that absolutely sure that I’m okay with him texting me later. That cocky, ridiculous asshat! As if I’m sitting around waiting for him to notice me again. And what? He’s playing us both now?

  I’m tempted to run after him just so I can spin him around by his shoulder and slap his face.

  But I have to admit I am also equally intrigued by the idea of texting him tonight and maybe hanging out. Does Maya have a job? Maybe he and I can make a road trip. I still can’t believe she played me and I fell for it.

  She was checking up on him because it would piss her off blind if she knew we were texting each other. From the way Austin is talking, it sounds like he’s just as vague with her as he is with all of his relationships. Maybe they have a thing and maybe he’s just taking advantage of her trying to use him. They’re using each other.

  My internal monologue is interrupted by the jolt of an elbow into my side.

  “Deep thoughts, huh?”

  Devon’s face is entirely too close as he leans in to mumble in my ear. I rear back, my nose crinkling.

  “Dude, lose the onions.”

  He breathes hard into his cupped hand. “Sorry. It’s Burger Bar today and I love my onions. I was just coming to find you.”

  “You don’t need me to eat lunch with if you’ve already snarfed a burger.”

  “That was just my first burger,” he says. “I could eat another two or five.”

  My eyes can’t seem to help but look him up and down. How did I not notice before that he’s in pretty good shape? He’s got a lot more muscle on his arms and chest than I’ve paid attention to. If he raised that shirt there could be something close to a six pack underneath it.

  “Keep it up and that hot bod is going to turn to flab,” I warn.

  His eyes light up. “You think I’ve got a hot bod?”

  “Don’t get all full of yourself. It’s not the only bod in the school.”

  “Is that your way of letting me know you and lover-boy are back on again? With your whatever?”

  I make a disgusted sound, not even dignifying that with a response and stomp off into the cafeteria. Devon follows and loads up with another burger and an extra-large order of baked crinkle fries. There’s a salad on my plate, but i
t’s completely subverted with a chocolate muffin and two chocolate chip cookies.

  “So?” He presses. “You back with Austin or what?”

  “No, I am not back with Austin. But it sounds like he wants to be back with me,” I add, just in case Devon’s got loose lips. I’d love for that to get back to Maya. Now that I think about it, I should probably be telling Jules or other Julia. One of them is sure to let that slip in front of Haylee or Maya.

  I glance around the cafeteria as casually as I can, looking to see if Maya and Austin are sitting together as usual. It’s a pleasant surprise to see Maya and Haylee in the corner totally absorbed by their phones. Austin is not in sight.

  “He’s not over there,” Devon says, tossing a fry into his mouth. “I can look for you so it doesn’t seem so obvious.”

  “I’m not being obvious,” I retort, even though I obviously am.

  “You need to stop obsessing about her so much,” he says to me. “Whatever it is she’s trying to torment you with, you’re playing right into it.”

  “You think she’s trying to torment me?” That makes me feel good for some reason—like I’m not just imagining all this stuff.

  “Doesn’t matter what I think,” Devon says. “You think she’s tormenting you. And from your point of view, that’s what matters.”

  I glance back over at Maya and Haylee again.

  “Looks like there’s trouble in lover town,” I say. Maybe I can turn the screws a little.

  Devon shakes his head. “Playing right in . . .”

  “Are you going to turn all ‘teacher’ on me and tell me that the best thing I can do is ignore her? I’ve been to all the anti-bullying assemblies, thanks.”

  “How much rent are you charging her? Because that girl is living in your head.”

  “What do you know about it?” I snap. “Have you been through what I’ve been through? Dealing with a situation that upturned everything? Something that isn’t your fault in any way but totally trashes your whole life?”

  He goes still. Then he pauses a moment before he chooses his words.

  “I’m not living your life. That doesn’t mean I’m wrong. You can’t change her actions—or the situation you were thrown into—but you can decide how you’re going to react to all of this. Rattling her cage is only going to keep it going.”

  He’s putting his burger together painstakingly and I finally pay attention to him enough to realize why. His hand is wrapped in an Ace bandage, and it’s bulky in places, like there are gauze bandages under it on his knuckles and fingers. Spots of blood have soaked through the bandage in places.

  “What happened to your hand?” I ask.

  “Maybe I punched a slide,” he mimes it with his good hand.

  “Seriously. Did you fall skateboarding or something?”

  He smiles. “Do I look like I skateboard?”

  “You kind of have that careless skater boi hair,” I point out. “And the hot bod.”

  His smile gets wider. “I do skateboard but I haven’t done it lately. This was just a moment of idiocy. Nothing a whole lot of onions won’t fix.” He punctuates this by loading a layer of onions on to his burger thick enough to double it in size.

  “You stay on that side of the table,” I warn. “You just about melted my mascara off with that last blast.”

  “Consider it a lesson, my child,” he says in a monotonous, sing-song voice. “If you eat a lot of onions, your enemies will avoid you.”

  As if sensing us from across the cafeteria, Maya looks up from her phone. We lock eyes and she gives me a wide cat-like grin, like I’m her favorite mouse and she just spied me stepping out of a hole in the wall. Her fingers fly over her phone. Maybe she’s texting about me. Maybe she’s posting about me. Whatever it is she definitely wants me to know it’s about me.

  Devon’s hand closes over mine as it reaches for my phone. It’s surprisingly warm and his thumb strokes the back of my hand.

  “Don’t do it. She’s watching you and she wants you to do it.”

  He’s right, but it pisses me off that he is. I already have her manipulating me. I don’t need him telling me what to do, too.

  “I was just seeing what time it was,” I say, standing up with my tray. “I need to get to my next class early. There’s a presentation due and I want to look it over first.”

  He smiles and nods, even though his face says he doesn’t believe me.

  “Later,” he says. “Hope there’s room in your head for that presentation. You might have to ask Maya to move all the baggage you’re letting her keep there.”

  “Eat your onions.”

  “Onions are love,” he pulls a long string of onion off his burger and slurps it down. “Onions are life.”

  I shake my head as I walk away, and of course, I barely make it to the hallway before I’m on my phone, checking. Her story features a pic of Devon in the cafeteria. I’m sitting across from him, and it was just taken because she’s zoomed in on his injured hand so much that I’m barely visible in the shot.

  Better warn a brutha, she captioned it. Hanging with certain people can leave you injured or dead.

  My face flushes hot red with anger and then deepens to crimson as Maya strolls past, a smirk on her lips.

  I have a vivid mental picture of me rushing up behind her and shoving her hard into the wall until that smirk meets concrete. But then everyone would stop to pick her up and console her because she lost her dad and I only lost my previously peaceful life. I’d be the asshole. Not her. Never her.

  How long am I going to have to put up with this? How long do I have to be the bigger person?

  I’m not the bigger person. I’m small. And petty. And mean. And I have a presentation due in two minutes with all of this on my mind.

  I can hear Devon’s voice in my head telling me to find my inner rainbow or something. I could start repeating some of my mom’s inspirational post-it notes. He’d probably like that. He could choke down a stack of them, covered in onions.

  Despite my black mood, that mental picture makes me smile. Just a little.

  Okay Devon, I think. I’ll embrace my inner onion and just get through this presentation. That’s all I have to do.

  8

  I wait until the last possible minute to go into Poly Sci because I know if I’m sitting there too long, and Maya even looks at me sideways, I’m going to snap and say something to her.

  She’s unbelievable. Stealing Austin’s phone just so she can get to me! Using him like that.

  No matter how tempting it is, I’m not going to text him. That would make me as bad as she is, using him to get back at her. I will not give either of them the satisfaction. But it is really, really tempting.

  And that pic she posted of Devon—my stomach tightens just thinking about it.

  I slip into the room right behind Mr. Jones, and go straight to my desk. Luckily, I sit three rows in front of Maya, so I don’t have to look at her smirking face. Her eyes are boring into me, though. Let her look. She’s probably wishing she could be with Austin because he genuinely liked her. The way he genuinely likes me. Not that I want him, but it gives me some small satisfaction to know that they’re only together because she’s using him. And he’s letting her.

  They’re disgusting.

  Guilt pricks me and anger flares again over it. I can’t even be properly pissed at her. She thinks my brother killed her father. In her place, I’d probably feel the same. I wouldn’t go to the lengths she’s going to in an effort to make her life miserable, though. At least, I don’t think I would.

  She’s grieving. I get it. Grief processes differently for everyone. Hating me is a lot easier than mourning her father. She’s being petty and vindictive, but that’s how she’s processing.

  I can be the bigger person. I can.

  By the time Mr. Jones calls up the fi
rst presenter, my blood pressure is down and I’m in a much better place mentally.

  We have been studying the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in class this week. The presentation today involves each of us reading a two hundred word letter that we’ve written from the viewpoint of someone living at that time, and how they feel the Civil Rights Act will impact their lives. We had to draw papers from a bowl, with each of us getting someone from a different profession or a different station in life. I got a teacher in a soon-to be desegregated white school.

  My letter was all about how excited I was to finally have the kids in my class integrated and being taught equally, and that I was hopeful there would be more programs to help some of the more economically challenged children.

  “Nicely done, Blue,” Mr. Jones says. “Although it took years for many of those affirmative action programs to click in, the Civil Rights Act was a good first step toward getting us there.”

  “Affirmative Action programs like scholarships?” Maya asks. “Like scholarships offered to kids to get them into Audubon Academy?”

  Mr. Jones shrugs. “The Academy scholarships aren’t entirely based on financial need, or based specifically on ethnic diversity, but those are certainly factors that go into the deliberations.”

  “So of course, Blue wants to be the teacher who feels like she’s a good person just for doing what the school should have been doing all along.”

  My temper instantly ignites. “That’s not what I said!”

  “That’s what it sounded like to me. Sounded like a teacher trying to play like they’re being a good person. Or a student trying to pretend to be a good person by writing a cheesy letter about being a good person.”

  “Maya—” Mr. Jones begins to warn.

  “Don’t put words in my mouth!” I shoot back. “In fact, you can keep my name out of your mouth entirely.”

  “Girls!” Mr. Jones cuts in again.

  “You got a problem with me all you’ve got to do is say so.” Maya says, standing up.