In Government, we had a sub. He put on an old Schoolhouse Rock! tape and dozed off at his desk, a thin line of drool collecting on his chin. Most of the kids were on their phones or just dicking around quietly, but Valerie Baker’s voice penetrated the room.
“Skye Russo is ditching her as fast as those dark roots are coming back in,” she said with a laugh, using her little hand mirror as she swiped on clumpy mascara.
“I always thought she looked tacky as a blonde,” said Asha Yardley, and the other girls nodded in agreement.
I usually tuned them out, their dull chatter white noise to my ears, but this time they were talking about Jess. My Jess. My palms got hot and I fought the urge to speak. It’ll just make it worse, I told myself.
“I mean, I guess hanging out with Skye does have its advantages…” said Katie Oh.
“Yeah,” Valerie Baker cut in. “If you like giving hand-jobs to seniors in exchange for designer purses and maybe a prom invite.”
“And maybe, just maybe, breakfast at Denny’s the morning after,” Asha added. Valerie laughed so hard she almost poked herself in the eye with her mascara and grinned at her friend in approval.
“If she’s anything like her big sister, homegirl’s gonna be giving much more than hand-jobs,” said Katie.
“Do you all ever talk about anything other than how superior you are to everyone else?” I snapped.
Katie’s mouth opened and closed. Asha turned red and stared at her desk. Valerie put down her mascara and sized me up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t remember inviting you in on this conversation, Jack.”
“I’m pretty sure you invited everyone in the room, you’ve been talking so loud,” I said, surprising myself. It felt good to speak up, to tell someone off in this dump for once. “Lay off Jess. None of you are saints, and if you possessed the smallest shred of empathy, you’d see she’s going through a lot right now.”
Asha and Katie looked to Valerie, who was now applying sparkly purple eye shadow to her lids, studying her face in her mirror like I wasn’t there.
Valerie lowered her voice. “You would know about her rough times, Jack. You were the one getting all rape-y with her on the couch at Skye’s party, weren’t you?”
Katie gasped. Asha covered her hand with her mouth. A few kids looked over at us.
I grabbed my backpack and stormed out of the room, slamming the door on my way out. I kicked a locker hard, and the lock clanked and rattled against the metal. I needed a joint. A huge hit off a bong. I headed off to the courtyard and lit up under the big sycamore tree.
I realized I was shaking.
I tried writing Jess a note. I crumpled it up and tossed it out. I tried writing an email, but my hands fumbled all over the keyboard and nothing came out right. I thought about calling her, but no, she’d said she needed space. I would honor that space.
Still, I had to at least check to see if she was alright. We were still friends, weren’t we? I sent her a quick text message: You okay? I’m here if you want to talk. My heart picked up as three little dots appeared below my text message. She was typing something. She was actually going to tell me! But then they vanished, and nothing.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket and went to my next class, trying to block it all out. If she didn’t need me, she didn’t need me.
Then, later, right before school was about to let out, I spotted them: Connor and Jess, huddled together in a corner of the science wing. He leaned in close to her and whispered something to her, and my heart thumped so hard I could hear my pulse in my ears. Was he telling her about us? Jess bit her lip and stared down at the floor, and Connor moved in to give her a one-armed hug. She hugged him back.
When he walked towards me down the hall, I grabbed his arm and he gasped in surprised.
“Oh! Sorry, you startled me,” he said.
“I saw you talking to Jess. What was that about?”
He was looking around all distracted, but he just shrugged, forced a smile. “Oh. Nothing. She just needed help with something. Some class thing.”
“You weren’t like, talking about me, were you?”
He laughed and quickly kissed me under my jaw, my favorite spot to be kissed. The hall was empty by now, but it still made me freeze, watching and waiting for someone to walk by and see. “You’re all we ever talk about,” he teased, but I moved away from him.
“Wait, so you’ve talked to her before? You guys talk in general?”
He gave me this look like I was losing my mind. “Of course. We have classes together. Is that a problem?” He sounded annoyed, maybe mad.
“No, forget it,” I said. “I’m just worried about her. It seems like something’s really bothering her lately.”
He chewed at his lip. “Yeah. Well. If there is, she’ll tell you when she’s ready, you know?”
I swallowed down the questions I desperately wanted to ask. He wasn’t telling me something. That was obvious. But I didn’t want him to be mad at me, or keep looking at me like that. I just wanted to go back to his house and watch movies and smoke, and for everything to be easy between us. I didn’t want to think about Jess.
I didn’t really want to think, period.
Still, as I followed him to his locker to get his skateboard, I tried again. One last time. I opened my messages and sent her one.
If you need anything, you
