about the time she got food poisoning from the mall, but I’m already walking away, feeling like the hallway is rolling and buckling underneath me.
Deja vu. It’s the only explanation.
If you repeat something enough, you can almost make yourself believe it.
I’m feeling so shaken up I almost forget that Ally’s waiting for me in the bathroom by the science wing. I go into the stall and flip the lid of a toilet down and just sit there, only half listening while she babbles. I remember something Mrs. Harbor once said on one of her crazy tangents in English: that Plato believed that the whole world —everything we can see—was just like shadows on a cave wall. We can’t actually see the real thing, the thing that’s casting the shadow in the first place. I have that feeling now, of being surrounded by shadows, like I’m seeing the impression of the thing before the thing itself.
“Hello? Are you even listening to me?”
Ally rattles the door and I look up, startled. I notice
“You said pretty soon you’d have to shop for bras in the maternity section,” I say automatically. Of course I wasn’t really listening. Not this time, anyway.
I’m wondering, vaguely, why Lindsay came all the way down here to write on the bathroom wall—why it was important to her, I mean. She’d already written it a dozen times in the stalls across from the cafeteria, and that’s the bathroom everyone uses. I’m not even sure why she dislikes Anna, and it reminds me that I still don’t know when she started hating Juliet Sykes so much either. It’s weird how much you can know about someone without knowing everything. You’d think someday you’d come to the end of it.
I stand up and swing the door open, pointing to the graffiti. “When did Lindsay do this?”
Ally rolls her eyes. “She didn’t. Copycat artist.”
“Really?”
“Uh-huh. There’s one in the girls’ locker room too. Copycat.” She whips her hair into a ponytail and starts pinching her lips to make them swell up. “It’s so lame. We can’t do anything in this school without everyone doing the same thing.”
“Lame.” I run my fingers over the words. They’re thick and black, like worms, drawn in permanent marker. I wonder, briefly, whether Anna uses this bathroom.
“We should sue for copyright infringement. Can you imagine? Twenty bucks for every time somebody bites our style. We’d be rolling in it.” She giggles. “Mint?”
Ally holds out an Altoids tin. Even though she’s still a virgin—and will be, for the foreseeable future (or at least until she goes to college), since she’s completely obsessed with Matt Wilde—she insists on taking birth control pills, which she keeps crumpled up in their foil pack right there alongside her mints. She claims it’s so her dad won’t find them, but everyone knows she likes to flash them during class so that people will think she’s having sex. Not that anybody’s fooled. Thomas Jefferson is small: you know these things.
One time Elody told Ally she had “pregnancy breath” and we all died over it. It was junior year in May and we were all lying out on Ally’s trampoline. It was the Saturday morning after she’d had one of her best parties yet. We were all just a little hungover, our brains fuzzy, stuffed on all the pancakes and bacon we’d put down at the diner, totally happy. I lay there while the trampoline dipped and swayed, closing my eyes against the sun, wishing that the day would never end.
The bell rings and Ally squeals, “Ooh! We’re gonna be late.”
Again that pit opens in my stomach. A part of me is tempted to hide all day in the bathroom, but I can’t.
I know you know what happens next. That I get to chem late. That I take the last seat next to Lauren Lornet. That Mr. Tierney passes out a quiz with three questions on it.
The worst part of it? I’ve seen the quiz before and I
I ask to borrow a pen. Lauren starts whispering to me; she wants to know if it’s working okay. Mr. Tierney’s book comes down with a bang.
Everyone jumps but me.
Class. Bell. Class. Bell.
Crazy. I’m going crazy.
By the time the roses get delivered in math class my hands are shaking. I take a deep breath before I open the little laminated card attached to the rose Rob sent me. I imagine it will say something incredible, something surprising, something that will make everything better.
I lift the corner of the card gently and peek inside.
“Wow. It’s beautiful.”
I look up. The girl dressed like an angel is standing there, staring at the rose she’s just laid on my desk: pink and cream petals swirled together like ice cream. She still has her hand outstretched and tiny blue veins crisscross her skin like a web.
“Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I snap at her. She blushes as red as the roses she’s holding and stammers out an apology.
I don’t bother reading the note that’s attached to this one, and for the rest of class I keep my eyes glued to the blackboard to avoid any sign from Kent. I’m concentrating so hard on not looking at him I almost miss it when Mr. Daimler winks at me and smiles.
Almost.
After class Kent catches up with me, holding the pink-and-cream rose, which I’d deliberately left on my desk.
“You forgot this,” he says. As always his hair is flopping over one eye. “It’s okay, you can say it: I’m amazing.”
“I didn’t forget it.” I’m struggling not to look at him. “I didn’t want it.”
I sneak a glance at him and see his smile fade for a second. Then it’s back on full-force, like a friggin’ laser beam.
“What do you mean?” He tries to pass it to me. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you that the more roses you get on Cupid Day, the more popular you are?”
“I don’t think I need any help in that department. Especially from you.”
His smile definitely drops then. Part of me hates what I’m doing, but all I can think of is the memory—or dream—or whatever it is—when he leans in and I think he’s going to kiss me, I’m sure of it, but instead he whispers,
I dig my nails into my palms.
“I never said the rose was from me,” he says. His voice is so low and serious it startles me. I meet his eyes; they’re bright green. I remember when I was little my mom used to say that God mixed the grass and Kent’s eyes from the same color.
“Yeah, well. It’s pretty obvious.” I just want him to stop looking at me like that.
He takes a deep breath. “Look. I’m having a party tonight—” That’s when I see Rob loping into the cafeteria. Normally I would wait for him to notice me, but today I can’t.
“Rob!” I yell out.
He turns and sees me, gives me half a wave, and starts to turn around again.
“Rob! Wait!” I take off down the hallway. I’m not exactly running—Lindsay, Ally, Elody, and I made a pact years ago never to run on school grounds, not even in gym class (let’s face it: sweating and huffing aren’t exactly attractive)—but it’s a close call.
“Whoa, Slamster. Where’s the fire?”
Rob puts his arms around me and I bury my nose in his fleece. It smells a little like old pizza—not the best smell, especially when it’s mixed with lemon balm—but I don’t care. My legs are shaking so badly I’m afraid they’ll
