I could’ve melted right into the floor. I texted back quickly: Meet me in the courtyard.
“Who is that?” Toby moved again to look.
Ding.
Okay.
Ding.
I love you.
“Cut it out, Toby!”
And even though I’d pulled my phone away, I knew that this time, Toby had seen it—the very last message—because his face had lost all of its color.
My throat was so dry. He knows for sure now. He knows.
When he spoke, his voice was eerily calm, his eyes void of any emotion. “Just show me, Jack,” he said. “Show me what it says.” He moved to grab my phone from me, but I pulled away, accidentally bumping into a girl trying to leave. She yelped in pain and glared at me on her way out the door.
“I’m so sorry!” I said. “Jesus, Toby, what the hell is your problem?”
“I just want to see who texted you,” he said. Like it was no big deal. Like this was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to be asking me.
“What? Why? It’s none of your business. What is up with you lately?”
“Gentlemen,” Mrs. Flores said. “I’m going to have to ask you to stop blocking the doorway.”
“Fine,” Toby said, in that creepy, calm voice. “Forget it, Jack. Let’s just go to lunch.”
I followed him to our old spot in silence, my temples throbbing with pain. Toby glanced around for security guards, then lit a cigarette. I watched a cloud of smoke escape his lips and turn into a sneer. We didn’t speak for what felt like forever. My leg was jiggling again, my palms dripping with sweat. The laughing and chatting around us warped into a muffled, muted, white stream of noise. It was just us in this bubble now, and it was only a matter of time until it burst.
“Yo, did you want bacon, Toby?” Max’s cheerful greeting popped a tiny hole in the bubble, letting in some breathable air. He tossed the paper bags at us and plopped down beside me.
Toby just grunted and tore into his, barely bothering with the aluminum wrapping. I stared at mine until Max nudged me with his elbow.
“You gonna eat that?” he asked me, his mouth full of food. I searched his eyes for some kind of intent, some knowing, but they were pure and clear.
I shrugged and pushed it aside. “Not hungry,” I said. My stomach growled in quiet protest.
“Already got his mouth full.” I heard it, I swear, a murmur audible only to me. Toby was wolfing down his sandwich, staring out across the courtyard as if I didn’t exist.
I took a deep breath, trying to be calm, even as my chest tightened and searing chills ran through my body.
“What was that?” I asked.
Max said something, but I couldn’t hear him. I was focused only on Toby, who hadn’t even moved his head.
“Speak up, Toby. What the fuck did you just say?” The anger was rising inside me, snapping my vocal chords into action.
He swallowed and met my gaze. “You heard me.”
“Say it again, you pussy.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Max asked. He sounded scared.
“Shut the fuck up, Max,” Toby spat, throwing a wrapper in his direction. He leaned closer to me, and I could smell the hot sauce on his breath. “I said, you deaf little shit, it’s no wonder you ain’t hungry, ’cause you already got a mouthful of dick.”
My stomach corkscrewed. I tried to speak, but my mouth was shut with wire and tasted like metal.
He smirked and pulled away from me, satisfied for now. The noise around us was beginning to come back into focus, everything inside me a dull haze. I stood up to leave.
“Jack?” Max’s voice rose tentatively, dumbfounded no doubt.
I turned my back on them and walked away, hearing Toby tell Max, “Don’t bother with him. Dude, it’s true. I know it’s true now, about both of them. I fucking saw something just now. And you ain’t gonna believe this shit, Max, what that little bitch has been texting him.”
Connor. He was calling Connor a little bitch. Through the fog in my brain I pieced it together, and then I walked back to them, grabbed Toby’s shirt collar, and yanked his scrawny ass off the ground.
A group of students were beginning to form around us, gravitating to the mounting tension that promised a fight.
“Don’t you ever fucking talk about him,” I heard myself say. We were so close we could hear each other breathing.
And then he said it slowly, the cruel word dipped in poison that rolled off his tongue like venom. “What are you gonna do, faggot?”
Max stood behind him dumbly.
Then I felt hands around my waist, familiar hands, pulling me aside and out of the way. I smelled cologne and cigarette smoke and a hint of coconut shampoo.
Connor raised his fist and punched Toby dead in the nose.
He hit the ground hard, blood pouring down his face. Someone screamed. Now the group of kids had circled around us, chanting shit about a fight, beat his ass, beat his ass! Max rushed to Toby’s side, asking him again and again if he was okay while Toby moaned pitifully.
There was a flurry of hands, movement, yells of “Let’s go!” and “Move out of the way!” Security surrounded us, pulling Connor’s hands behind his back. One of the guards pushed my shoulder and moved me along through a stream of curious faces, rows of kids lined up to get a glimpse of the action, some of them laughing.
We were herded back inside and into the administrative office, where I sat in a metal folding chair on the other side of the room from Connor, who had two guards on each side of him. I heard grave voices, something about the police being called.
I felt words in my throat, things caught in my chest I wanted to say, but I couldn’t speak. I heard the buzz of walkie-talkies, saw the cops come in and talk to the guards, then put handcuffs
