I pause and prepare to draw a diagram on the whiteboard, until a soft knock at the door makes me drop the whiteboard marker. My heart starts pounding through my flimsy excuse for a top when I realize who is standing in the doorway.
Jillian Landry, with her perfect hair and perfectly appropriate khaki pants. She’s hugging a textbook to her chest and smiling.
I instinctively pull my cardigan tightly around myself and bend down to pick up the marker with my butt facing the whiteboard. Why is she here? I didn’t even know Jillian took chemistry. I have never been in a class with her. But I guess I don’t know anything about her, really, besides what I gleaned from Tommy. I don’t know anything about her except how much he loves her.
“You’re good at that,” she says when I come back to a standing position. “I never understand it when Mr. Sellers tries to explain it. I always space out after five seconds of hearing him talk.”
I roll the marker between my fingers. I guess I should be embarrassed that Jillian caught me talking to myself, but there are a thousand other things running through my head instead. I wonder if Tommy loves her more now than before they slept together. I wonder if he tells her she’s beautiful, if he remembers special dates and opens doors for her. I wonder if I helped him and in turn helped her. Then I banish that thought from my head. Would I be doing this if I weren’t helping people?
“It’s his voice,” I say finally. “He’s like a drone. Obviously he recites the same spiel, year after year. And year after year, nobody tells him how dry it is.”
Jillian laughs and takes a seat at a desk. My desk. “Yeah. Well, I can’t fully blame him. I have a terrible attention span. Which explains the C I’m getting in this class.”
I sit down at Mr. Sellers’s desk, grateful that its big wooden bulk is covering my bare thighs. Jillian is staring at her notebook now. Maybe I should leave her alone and get out before this gets too awkward.
“I’m Jillian,” she says. “And I suck at chemistry.”
“I’m Mercedes,” I say.
“I know,” she says, raising an eyebrow. For a second all the blood rushes to my head. I know. Two words I never wanted to hear coming from Jillian Landry.
“I know,” she continues. “He mentions you. You’re his little superstar.”
Suddenly I feel like I’m going to be sick. My stomach twists in a violent knot. “Who does?” I squeak out, my voice tinny and unnatural.
She smiles. “Mr. Sellers, of course. I think you’re the yardstick he measures the rest of us by. And you set the bar pretty high.”
I take a deep breath as my heart returns to its normal rate. She doesn’t know. It isn’t Tommy who mentions me. Why would he?
“I’m doing this thing,” she continues, thankfully oblivious to my inner panic. “This Students Helping Students program. I came up with it last year to help my friend who was doing shitty in French class. Basically we pair a student who is doing well with someone who isn’t. It benefits both people. The person struggling hopefully gets better grades. The person doing well gets to add tutoring experience to a college resume.”
I lean back into Mr. Sellers’s chair. I remember seeing Jillian during activities week, sitting behind a booth in the hallway. I remember Angela talking about the program but being too nervous to sign up. I remember writing it off because I’m not a joiner.
“Where’s your helper?” I ask.
Jillian rolls her eyes. “Good question. It’s supposed to be Bobby Lewis, but he’s noticeably not here. Again.”
I almost choke on the saliva collecting under my tongue, but I try not to react. I can’t even imagine Bobby Lewis, aka the Acrobat, as a legitimate chemistry tutor. I figured he had no authority teaching anything besides gymnastics, at least according to what went on in my bedroom.
“I really thought this program would help people,” Jillian says, shaking her head. “I guess I never considered that I’d be the one getting screwed over by it.”
I stare at her, with the ends of her hair pooling on the cover of the textbook. Jillian is a good person, the kind who tries to help other people. The violent knot in my stomach returns. My insides feel like they’re being wrung out like a wet towel.
“I’ll do it,” I say before I can take the words back. “I’ll do it. I mean, if you want me to, I’ll help you.”
Jillian smiles broadly. She has a great smile, wide and open and honest. The smile of somebody who has never been hurt before, or at least not badly enough for it to leave evidence.
“It’ll look good on your college application,” she says, even though we both know college applications have already been sent and MIT will never know if I do or don’t tutor Jillian Landry. “I hope I’m not too dense for you.”
So before school even officially starts for the day, I’m the newest member of Students Helping Students. I’ll be working with Jillian once a week as well as a junior named Toby, who Jillian says is desperate. I had no idea so many people needed help, at least not help in the classroom.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Jillian says when she closes her textbook after a crash course in electronegativity. “I would have been so screwed otherwise.”
I paste on a smile, even though the inside of my mouth is cotton-dry. All this time I have been trying not to think about Tommy, to keep my mind on atoms and elements and ionization energies. But he keeps creeping in, invading everything that makes sense and dragging along something that feels a whole lot like guilt. I can’t deal with it right now, so I push it out of my head and tell Jillian that I’m happy to help. And it’s the truth, in more ways than one.
7
I’m vaguely aware when I walk into home economics later that day that I’m not anonymous in this class, and not because of my barely there outfit. I switched into this class at the last minute because I fulfilled my math credits in first semester, and because Angela told me it would be fun. I can already tell that fun isn’t the word I’ll use to describe it.
“Mercedes,” Trevor Johnston says, turning around to where I sat down beside Angela. He winks at me and stares too long at my crossed legs, a gesture he probably thinks is subtle but definitely isn’t. I look down at my notebook, willing him to not make eye contact. Then I notice who he is sitting beside: Chase Redgrave, aka the Dirty Talker. Chase at least has the decency to pretend he has no idea who I am.
“How do you know that guy?” Angela whispers in my ear. I shrug, aware that a flush is creeping into my face, but I’m spared coming up with an excuse when our teacher loudly admonishes somebody for coming in late—somebody I have gratefully not slept with. I do a quick sweep of the classroom to make sure I haven’t slept with anybody else in attendance, but luckily Trevor and Chase are the only two. I inwardly panic when I see Trevor whisper something to Chase. How do they know each other? And how much do they know about each other?
I turn my gaze to the back of the room, where there are two vacant desks side by side. Maybe Angela and I can sit back there instead, far away from Trevor and Chase. Maybe it’s not too late to move.
“Can we relocate? That guy’s cologne is giving me a headache,” I whisper.
“I can’t see the board from back there,” Angela says.
“Maybe if you wore your glasses you could,” I hiss.
Angela frowns and turns around. “Wait, isn’t that your lab partner?”
I grip my desk with my fingers and peer over my shoulder. Shit. Sure enough, Zach is slinking into the classroom, taking exaggerated tiptoe steps, no doubt to cover up the fact that he’s walking in after the bell.
“Mr. Sutton,” our teacher, Mrs. Hill, says. “Nice of you to grace us with your presence.”
I watch Zach’s face turn red as he plops into one of the empty desks. When he meets my eyes, he winks and gives me a little wave. I roll my eyes and turn around to face the board. Great. Now I’m trapped between three people I have slept with. It’s like the worst kind of claustrophobia. Why would Zach want to take home economics, anyw
ay? I figured he would hate this stuff. Although, I guess I kind of do, too.
Mrs. Hill is rambling on about our first assignment, the details of which I can glean later from Angela. I already hate her high, screechy voice and the way she insists on rapping the blackboard with a meter stick periodically, probably to make sure we’re paying attention. I have more important things to pay attention to, like whether or not my secret is going to be exposed by the end of the day. I don’t know what would be worse—the whole school finding out, or Zach finding out the real reason I don’t want to be his girlfriend.
Trevor and Chase. Chase and Trevor. Trevor is a jock; Chase is a preppy with a seriously sick mind beneath all that argyle. I never thought their paths would cross. I know that guys were bound to talk within their own groups, but I didn’t think there would be any cross contamination between other groups. So far I have been able to avoid awkward exchanges and judgmental stares and that chatter that stops the second you walk into a room.
I think back to what I tell every guy before he gains entry to my bedroom: Don’t wink at me, don’t wave to me, don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me. If you do, I don’t have to tell you how much I have on you. Most of them look at me with wide eyes and nod their heads in assent. The ones who don’t at first do when I threaten to show them the door.
I try not to visibly cringe when Trevor and Chase give each other one of those lame fist bumps. I seriously hope that isn’t universal guy code for “I slept with Mercedes, too.”
“Mercy. Duh.” Angela is poking me in the ribs with her pen. I look up to see the whole class, plus Mrs. Hill, staring at me. Mrs. Hill is even rapping that goddamned meter stick.
“Sorry. I missed the question.”
“That’s not surprising,” Mrs. Hill says, bringing the meter stick to rest beside her desk. “That’s what happens when you don’t pay attention.”
“Sorry, Mrs. Hill.” I give her my sweetest smile, which feels like more of a grimace.
“As punishment, I’m going to make you my first victim. Today’s topic,” she says, hitting the blackboard with her meter stick with an ungodly amount of force, “is sexual education. Nobody wants to talk about it, but we have to make it a priority.”
I want to curl up under my desk and disappear. This can’t possibly be happening. As if Trevor and Chase and Zach in the same room wasn’t bad enough, now Mrs. Hill seems to be in on the joke. I suddenly have to fight an unpleasant mental image of Mrs. Hill wielding that meter stick like a whip. Mrs. Hill, the dominatrix in an ill-fitting pantsuit.
“Although, I don’t call it sexual education. I call it safer sex. We’re not telling you not to do it. Just how to do it safer.” She laughs, an unnaturally high-pitched sound. Her hands are shaking slightly as she opens her desk drawer. She comes up with a goddamned bunch of bananas.
“This is not going to end well,” I mutter under my breath. By the look Angela gives me, I can tell she has no idea what Mrs. Hill is going to do with those bananas. Lucky Angela.
“Has everyone seen one of these?” she says, wagging a condom packet in the air. I recognize it as a Ribbed Ultra Thin. I wonder if it came from Mrs. Hill’s own collection, yet another mental image I don’t want to have.
The guys in the class snicker. Chase laughs the loudest of all. I pretend not to notice. Trevor, at least, has the good grace to shut up and stare at the blackboard, although I can see the backs of his ears turning red. I don’t even dare to peek at Zach, but I can feel his eyes on me, boring holes into me. It’s unsettling. Why does he have to look at me like that?
We all watch Mrs. Hill hastily rip open the condom and try to sheathe the banana. Some people laugh. Others, like Angela, cover their eyes with their hands. Somebody films it on a cell phone, unbeknownst to Mrs. Hill and her no technology rule. Although Mrs. Hill has a wedding ring on, I get the feeling she has never put a condom on a guy in her life. Her brow furrows under her frizzy hair. You just ripped it with your fingernail, you idiot, I want to tell her. That condom’s going to break. Mrs. Hill, you just got pregnant.
“I’m leaving this stuff up to Charlie,” Angela says through her hands. “When we’re married, of course.”
Yeah, right, I want to tell her. Because men always know what they’re doing.
“Voilà,” Mrs. Hill says. The condom sags loosely around the banana she waves in the air. I hope he pulled out, I want to say.
“Mercedes, do you want to give it a turn?” Mrs. Hill says, thrusting a naked banana in my direction with a nervous laugh. “I did say you’d be my first victim.”
I stare at Angela, whose eyes are wide with terror. Chase laughs into his hand and tries to disguise it as a cough. The back of Trevor’s neck turns an unfortunate shade of crimson. I’m just glad my face isn’t turning the same color, and I’m about to stand up on shaking legs—either to give the class a better demonstration or to configure an escape route from this school—when somebody saves me the trouble.
“That’s really a terrible example,” says the female voice accompanying the knock at the door. “It’s supposed to block the sperm, not give it a swimming pool.”
Everyone turns at once. The girl in the doorway gives the guys in the front row whiplash. I see their reactions before I actually see her. I’m expecting rough, tough, maybe army-green cargo pants and a bad haircut. I’m not expecting beautiful.
“You call this sex ed,” she says. “I call it a really lame Friday night.”
One laugh breaks the silence. Mine.
“Who is that?” Angela hisses in my ear.
The girl pushes her honey-colored hair behind her shoulders, an amused expression on her face. She could probably commit murder and hide behind that face.
I make the mistake of looking at Zach now, of all times. He’s not looking at me anymore. He’s staring at the new girl, and I don’t like the expression on his face. It’s how he used to look at me, before we ever slept together. It’s the face he makes when he’s concentrating, when the wheels in his head are turning, when he’s thinking about something he wants.
I didn’t know he could look at another girl like that.
I watch the new girl sit down in the vacant desk beside Zach. His eyes travel from her face, make a detour down to her legs, and come to rest on her boobs, which are propped up inside a tiny tank top. Gross, Zach. Way to be so completely obvious.
“I have absolutely no idea,” I say to Angela, and it must be what the thirty other students in the class are thinking, too.
8
Her name is Faye. I don’t know her last name, or where she came from, or why she transferred to our school right when second semester is starting, when freedom from high school is a mere six months away. I only know that her name is Faye and that she’s terrible at chemistry. I know the second part because as of Wednesday morning, she has displaced Zach as my new chemistry partner. Mr. Sellers’s choice, not mine or Zach’s.
“I guess we’ll have to figure out a new label,” Zach says as he gathers his stuff with a heaving sigh. “Like maybe ‘Wednesday friend.’”
Faye watches him shuffle off with a raised eyebrow. “He’s cute,” she says. “I sat beside him in home economics yesterday. He even offered to share his notes.”
I barely resist rolling my eyes. I’m sure that’s all he offered to share.
“I wouldn’t trust Zach’s notes,” I hear myself say. “They’re probably more like doodles in the margins.”
Faye stifles a laugh and I realize how mean that sounded, how sharp my voice was. I don’t know why I even said that. Just because Zach sucks at chemistry doesn’t mean he sucks at all his other classes, too. Plus, we’re supposed to be friends. But before I can open my mouth to fix it, Faye cuts in.
“Well, he’s probably pissed that I’m stealing his lab partner. I hope I didn’t ruin chemistry for him.”
I shake my head but silently vow to make it up to him today at lunch. “Zach’s resilient. He’ll be fine.”
“So,
what’s your deal? You’re like, a chemistry superstar? I got lucky, then.” She looks at me from under eyelashes that must be fake. No tube of Maybelline Great Lash would give that much volume. I should know—I have tried out enough mascaras to bankrupt any drugstore on my eternal quest for the perfect bedroom eyes.
I shrug. “I just get it. I like how everything can be boiled down to a formula. Makes it almost impossible to fail.”
She laughs, a harsh, grating sound, like some kind of animal should be making it instead of a teenage girl. “I guess I never understood the formula, then.”
Today, we’re making a volcano out of hydrochloric acid and sodium bicarbonate. The end result is supposed to be an explosion. It’s a juvenile experiment, one that was done ad nauseam last year, but Mr. Sellers is intent on reincarnating it again this year. Either that, or he’s going senile, which may be likely, considering he must be pushing eighty.
“I like watching things explode,” Faye says as she pours solution into a beaker—the wrong kind of solution, too much of the indicator solution and not enough sodium bicarbonate.
“Just watch your mixing,” I tell her. “You need to wait to add the diluted hydrochloric acid to the purple solution. Otherwise it won’t explode. It’ll just kind of be—”
“Flaccid?” Her laughter rises over the general din of the room. Zach, two rows in front of us, turns his head back and makes a pouty face. Zach’s own volcano, I notice, is mixed with the correct proportions. I feel a swell of pride. When he catches my eye, he winks. I wink back.
Then I realize I don’t know who he’s winking at—because Faye is looking at him, too.
“I was going to say stagnant,” I say loudly. “But flaccid is better.” I dump the contents of Faye’s beaker down the sink.
“So doing all this boring prep work is like foreplay,” Faye says, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Sorry. I’m afraid I have a bit of a one-track mind.”
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