I take off my right shoe and turn my sock inside out as the bus is pulling up to school. I finish tying my shoe just in time to be the last one off the bus.
As I push through the crowded lobby, trying to get up to the 700 hallway so I can dig through my locker for a pencil, I see the back of a familiar head. “Daniel!” I call. But it’s so loud and crowded he doesn’t hear me. He works his way toward the eighth-grade wing and I follow. I finally grab his shoulder as he breaks free of the herd. “Hey!” I say.
He turns around, and whoa, it’s not Daniel. It’s someone who looks exactly like him. Or not exactly like him. Just . . . almost. “You’re not Daniel,” I say intelligently.
He looks at my Chainsmokers shirt and wrinkles his nose like he finds me gross. He turns and goes down the hallway while I stand there like an idiot. He moves nothing like Daniel. How on earth could I have mistaken him?
“Hi,” a familiar voice says next to me.
I whirl to face Daniel. “You didn’t say you guys were identical!” It sounds like an accusation. “I mean—uh. That’s Mitch?”
He nods. He looks again like he did on Friday, like he’s barely staying upright. A faint pee smell comes off him.
“You stayed with her all night again. Didn’t you.”
“Shh.” He looks around like someone’s going to bust him. “She was cold. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, dude. You look like death on toast. I’m legit worried.”
“I need to go to my locker.” He turns away.
“Daniel . . .”
He looks back at me, his face made of hope and wariness. I want to hug him like I did on the sidewalk, when I imagined squeezing the sad out of him. “I love how much you love her. You’re a big softie.”
He flinches like I just hit him.
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I didn’t mean it like . . . I don’t know. It’s just something I really like about you. That you care so hard.”
“You’re the only person who likes that about me.” He looks away like he wants to leave.
“You should tell Bella. So you can sleep again.”
He doesn’t meet my eyes. “I have to go. See you in photo class.” He walks away before I can ask if he has a pencil I can borrow.
My locker turns out to be pencil-less. When I ask Mr. Simmons for a pencil, I can’t remember which foot has the inside-out sock, and I take off the wrong shoe. He gets one look at the corgi butts and cuss words and gives me a lunch detention. Which is a case I could totally argue, because it’s not like anyone could see my socks before I had to take off my shoe and who the flaming poop wants a shoe for a pencil anyway?
He tells me to turn my sock inside out. Right there in front of everyone.
I try to ignore the snickers. At least I’ll match now. Even if all the cuss words are aimed at me instead of at the Man. Who is definitely Mr. Simmons.
Maybe for my rule-of-thirds assignment, I could use two inside-out socks covered in cuss words. That sure feels “personally significant” right now.
In English class when Mrs. Ellis breaks us into groups to discuss The House of Dies Drear, Zoey beelines for me with Jordan in tow. “Here.” She thrusts a paper at me. It’s full of songs by girl punk bands. “Now that we have a good musician—that’s you, duh—we can up our game. You think you can teach us how to play these songs before Girls Who Rock?”
I look over her list. I know about half the songs, but I only like two or three of them. “Probably. Which do you wanna start with?”
“I’ll number them.” She starts scribbling numbers next to the songs.
Mrs. Ellis taps her desk. “Zoey, it’s time to work, not arrange a playlist.”
“Sure thing.” Zoey keeps numbering while Mrs. Ellis glares. I tense, thinking I’m gonna get in extra trouble since I already have a lunch detention. Zoey finally gives me the paper. “We’ll talk after class.”
“That’s right,” Mrs. Ellis says. “Because now you’re in class. Where you do work.” She gives me, Zoey, and Jordan a stern look and goes off to harass another group.
Zoey rolls her eyes. “She’s totally uptight. She def needs to rock out.”
Jordan grins. “Can you imagine her screaming into a mic?”
“She wouldn’t be able to stop.” I doodle a stick figure of her screaming out the jagged shape of punk chords. “All her pent-up rage would come flying out. Her hair would frizz and sweat would fly and she’d be so spent after that she’d fall over.”
“That’s a punk show I’d pay to see,” Zoey says.
I stop at the cafeteria to get my lunch to take to detention. Griffey’s not at our usual seat when I come out of the line. I scan the crowded cafeteria and spot him sitting near the condiment station. I take my tray to him. “What are you doing over here?”
He shrugs and bites his sandwich. I follow his eyes to our usual spot, where a cute guy is eating a wrap and looking around like he’s trying to find someone. “Don’t look at him,” Griffey says. He shifts so his back is to the kid. “If he comes over, I’m gonna have a massive attack of awkward.”
“Is that bumper-bowling dude?”
“Ugh, yes.”
“You left out the part about him being cute.”
“Cute doesn’t mean squat when it’s attached to a guy with the personality of a toenail clipping!” He shudders. “Are you coming to Rainbow Alliance today? Because I do actually need moral support.”
I don’t want to go because, ugh, gender. And I’d rather help Daniel. But I really do owe Griffey for covering for me this weekend. Twice. Plus he was there for me when my parents were splitting, even though he had his own
