“It was.” His voice cracked. “Fine. You know?”
I nodded, looking at his fidgeting hands in his lap.
“I made some plans for next week and hung out with my friends during the fifth period assembly,” he continued, talking to me as if we were friends.
He’d never seemed like the friendly type before. Was this nervousness pushing him to talk? Or was he genuinely a kind person? All these years of receiving the silent treatment from him had me confused.
Like the last time I made eye contact with him in the hallway at my locker, only the week before. At my locker, I turned my head and immediately noticed him from my peripheral, turning the corner and heading my way. I looked up too quickly, flinging my contact lenses out of focus, which forced an awkward scowl on my face as I blinked to refocus. I usually tried to grin after making eye contact with someone. But my contact lenses had other plans. My vision cleared, and our eyes met for a moment as he bit both of his lips. He quickly redirected his gaze past me to the end of the hall and kept on his merry way.
I assumed he was one of thosepopulartypes who spoke only to those whomattered,like once in American Government when we were assigned to the same group, discussing the pros and cons of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.He sat there tapping his pencil, staring at the blackboard.Had I been wrong all this time?
“Hey,” I blurted into the weird silence after he finished telling me about his last period. I felt dizzy from the heat building up in the car. We were shaded by a tree branch peeking out over the fence, but June heat in Michigan could be a killer even in the shade. Well, at least in those years before the climate was drastically changing. “Could you maybe start the car or open a window?”
I was still wondering what the hell I was doing in Thad’s car. Thad, of all people.
“Ooh.” He twitched, hands reaching for the keys that fell from his lap onto the floor. “They’re right, you’re easy to talk to.”
Who’s they?A cloud of anxiety fell over me.People talk about me? Why?I had tried so hard in life to blend in, why were people talking about me?
He grinned after finally turning on his car and blasting the air conditioning. “So. What are you up to today?”
I grabbed my chest, looking around even though I was obviously the only one in the car. “Uh. Me?”
His eyes met mine as he clenched his jaw. “Yeah. I was thinking…”
“Hold on.” I raised my hands. Thad straightened himself as if trying to take a step backward, but obviously we were both confined in the car. “What’s going on here?” What I really wanted to say was,Why are you talking to me? You’ve barely spoken to me before.
“What do you mean? Nothing’s going on.” He looked down. “Look, I don’t know why I asked to drive you home. I just…” He didn’t continue.
“I have a hard time believing that,” I said.Shit!I said that. It forced itself out of me like word vomit. I mean, Ididhave a hard time believing that someone like him, someone who had never really spoken to me, would pick up a conversation and offer me a ride home. But I was usually better at controlling my urges and keeping thoughts to myself. “Sorry. What I meant to say—”
“I know what you meant.”
“I’m sorry. We’ve been in the same classes together for the last seven years and have never exchanged more than a few words. I’m not trying to be rude. Some people aren’t who they say they are.”
He turned his head slightly, revealing a half grin.
I thought I had a point, though. I decided a long time ago to become a wallflower and keep myself away from the shitty drama of high school. People were your friends one minute, then the next you weren’t cool enough for them anymore. I only had one real friend. Yeah, a few girls sat with me during lunch every day, but my only true friend was Dana.
“I know,” he said, resting his right arm on the center console. He then stretched out his arm. “Let’s start over then. Hey, I’m Thad.”
I reached my hand out to shake his and felt more confused than ever. My uneasiness faded, though, as he grasped my hand firmly with his. But then fear decided to emerge as I realized how cold my hands were. How cold they must feel to another person. To him.
That’s a physical trait I’ve never understood. No matter how warm the weather is, or how heated I feel after a run, my hands are always cold. Dana would tell me it was because I was dead inside, which always made me laugh. But my mom, being a mom, would tell me it was because the warmth was concentrated in my heart. Her response forced my eyes to roll far back into my head every time she said it.
“I’m Étienne,” I stated as a matter of fact. I was probably the only person in our school with that name.
“What do you like to do for fun, Étienne? Actually, let’s get out of here.” He switched gears to back out of the spot.
“Well, I um. I can only go home. Like you offered,” I said, my voice louder than I intended, as the fear of being seen with him crept over me.
The car suddenly stopped. “Huh?”
“I have to get home. I have to go to work for a few hours,” I said, but it was a lie. I was too scared to see where this was going. He was acting too friendly to sayLet’s get out of here, like he wasn’t actually planning on taking me home.
“Oh. Where do you work?”
I shrugged. “Just at this jewelry store down Harper.”