I shoulder my backpack. “Well, Doyle, maybe guys like you should stop giving girls like her whatever they want. She’s your psycho ex. I’m not about to make this year any harder than it needs to be. I told you—my objective is to get out. Gone. Done. And I’ll forget this place like it was a bad dream as soon as it’s in my rearview.”
“So you’re going to sit back and take it? Let her and Armstrong and all the rest stomp on you? After standing up to her today? Seriously?” Doyle’s mouth pulls tight.
Inside, the crowds in the halls are thinning already, students ducking into classrooms like I should be, and I have no energy left to stand here arguing. I’m not even halfway through my day, and I’m flattened with exhaustion.
“Seriously. Look, we hardly know each other, okay? Sorry if you thought I was going to be the badass rebel who’d shake up the end of your boring senior year, but I’m not here for your entertainment. Or Ansley’s. This semester is my probation, and I’m just biding my time till it’s over.” I walk backward to the door and shrug. “See you around, Doyle.”
I leave him standing in the middle of a last scurrying surge of students, and notice Ansley skip up, grab him by the arm, and stand on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear. A long shock of blond hair falls down her back and shimmers in the blistering sunshine.
It’s so cliché, it hurts. And my jealousy is extra cliché. So I clamp down on it, head to US history, and grit my teeth when Ansley and Braelynn jostle against me on their way past, knocking me into a water fountain. Doyle sees me from down the hall and battles against the flow of traffic to make it to my side, but I slip into class before he can, my face hot, the tears so close to falling, I can taste the salt in the back of my throat.
I run my hand behind my neck, above my aching sunburn, and touch my scarlet A, the tattoo that was a fierce joke and a mark of pride.
“‘Pride cometh before the fall,’” I mutter as I pull out my textbook and try to bleach my brain of this whole place.
By the time the final bell rings, I realize that I’m going to spend a lot of time trying to avoid Doyle at every turn because he’s not letting our conversation drop.
“Nes!” Doyle sprints to my car as I throw my bag in the window, lean against the closed door, and cross my arms. When he’s finally standing next to me he just stares, like he’s not sure what to say.
For once in my life, I’m right there with him. But it’s unnatural for me to say nothing, so I say the first thing that pops into my head. The thing I hope is the shortest path to getting him out of my life.
“Look, it’s not personal, okay? I like you. I do. But we just met, and things are already too complicated, with Ansley and Lincoln and—”
“Who’s Lincoln?” His eyebrows knot over his gorgeous eyes.
“My ex.” My voice hiccups over those words, because they’re strange. Deep in my secret romantic heart, I imagined I’d never have to say the words my ex and Lincoln in the same conversation.
“Oh. Was it, uh, recent?” He kicks at some loose gravel with his boot.
I nod robotically. “We dated for two years. We broke up just before I moved.”
“Oh.” This oh is totally different. And laced with pure shock. His eyes are a complicated mix of hard and soft. “Two years? I didn’t realize—”
“What? That I had an ex?” My laugh is blasé. “There’s a lot you probably don’t realize about me. ’Cause we’ve known each other for all of... What? Two days? My life is pretty much exploding around me right now like crazy. And that’s without adding in my whole insane backstory. I think it’s better if we back up.”
Clouds collect in a swollen gray mass overhead and the wind whips my hair around. When I tie it back, Doyle lays three fingers on my jaw. I startle, hold my breath, and let him turn my head and look at my neck.
“Hester Prynne?” His fingers trace along my jawline, under my earlobe, and stop just over the skin on my exposed neck.
“They let you read that book here?” I marvel. My veins pump carbonated fire, but I keep my voice on ice.
He half smiles as a light rain pelts down. “The book got taken off the sophomore curriculum ’long with a couple others. That’s why I read it. Hawthorne’s dry as hell, but the story’s a good one.” He pulls his one hand back slowly, then sticks them both deep in his pockets.
“I do like you,” I admit. A fresh burst of light rain explodes around us and we squint into the damp. “I just have a lot going on, and I don’t think my nerves can handle more.”
“I get it.” He watches as I shade my eyes from more rain, then pulls his cap off and tosses it on my head. I hold my breath, because it’s easier to resist him if I can’t smell his delicious fragrance. “And I like you. I know this feels quick, Nes, but like you said, you won’t be here for long. I don’t care if we’re just friends or even just on the same neighborhood ball team. As long as we’re not avoiding each other. Because I don’t want to miss out on my only chance to get to know you.”
I think about the way Ansley crowed like she’d won something in the halls and drag a cleansing breath into my lungs.
What did we learn from World War II?
Never back down from an aggressor.
I won’t go out of my way to get in Ansley’s face, but I’m sure not going to shut down the one and only friendship I’ve made since leaving Brooklyn on account of that flaxen-haired harpy.
“You’re right. We should be friends. It’s complicated, but nothing that’s really good is ever easy, right?” I glance up at a sky rumbling with thunder that promises a full-on downpour. “I’d better go.” I pull the cap off and attempt to hand it back, but Doyle shakes his soaked head as he jogs to his truck and gets in.
“Keep it. And get yourself a pair of sunglasses. You squint too much!” He yells over the roar of the truck’s engine, attracting the attention of a dozen or so of our classmates, who pair up to whisper and giggle.
I wave and keep my head down and grit my teeth as Ansley flies by in her Jeep. Today I may have let her take Czechoslovakia, but I’ll be damned if she marches on to Poland. If she wants a war, I’ll lead her right into the bowels of Russia in the dead of winter.
Yes, I have only the foggiest idea of what my World War II analogies mean. But I do know that a confrontation with Ansley may be inevitable, and I’m going to fight smart.
Or get my cavalry rolled under by Ansley’s tanks.
On a brighter note, even if I wind up committing social suicide, I’m definitely going to ace history this year. Mom would be so proud.
I scroll through Ollie’s Instagram feed and try not to let jealousy eat me alive when I see yet another picture of her laughing with friends at the new chocolate bar she and I were supposed to check out together. I want her to have a great senior year, but here’s another way moving sucks: I’m scared I’m losing Ollie.
Not losing her like we’re not friends anymore. Losing her like our friendship is diluting.
Which isn’t as dramatic as it sounds because we’ve always been a superconcentrated twosome, twined around each other for years. Conjoined, even. Ollie is pretty much reason number one that I dragged my feet over leaving Brooklyn.
Sometimes I feel like I should have just stayed.
But there was this whole other thing.
It revolved around Ollie’s lifelong dream to go to Oberlin, this rad college with an intense music