Dead air fills the room. Bishop glances up at the teacher and waves his hand.
“Well?” Bishop snaps his fingers in a perfect mimic of the way Mr. Coleman tends to. “I’m here to get an education.”
Titters move through the room. I nudge Bishop’s back in a show of camaraderie.
Mr. Coleman works his jaw, but lets Bishop slide. “Let’s get back to the lesson. Can anyone tell me your thoughts on the protagonist’s passage on page forty-three?”
Thea’s hand shoots in the air, along with several other students. The girls he has eating out of his palm flail their arms with their eagerness to answer.
“Yes?”
“I think the passage means that it’s important to be true to yourself,” Thea says in a soft voice, her arm still partially raised.
“Yes, Thea,” Mr. Coleman praises in a warm tone, pointing at her energetically. “Excellent.”
His teeth are too white, the gleam blinding and disconcerting. Fake. It’s easy to spot his false mask because I’m so good at hiding that mine isn’t real, either.
Going off what I’ve read in my psychology books on disorders, I cycle through possibilities for what lurks beneath Mr. Coleman’s shiny disguise.
Thea laughs, flustered by the encouragement. I can picture the shy smile she always gives him and the stars in her big doe eyes.
In front of me, Bishop clenches his pencil in a tight grip. The tip breaks against his notes when he presses it to the page on purpose. An angry red flush sneaks up the back of his neck. Bishop’s knee bounces for a few seconds, then he explodes from his seat.
“Mr. Bishop, you’re disrupting—”
“Fuck off,” Bishop barks. “I’m out of here.”
“If you leave class, you’ll earn detention.”
Bishop tosses his hands in the air and slams the door behind him. The window pane in the door rattles.
Thea squeaks and darts her hand up. “Mr. Coleman, may I be excused to use the restroom?”
Mr. Coleman stares at Thea, the defeated slump of his shoulders completely manufactured. He waves in permission and she’s off like a shot.
My curious gaze flicks from the door to Mr. Coleman. Something is going on.
Unbidden, that saucy photo from Bishop’s phone the other night pops into my head. Thea wore the same type of sweater today. There’s no way she’s the girl in the photo, is there?
I put it from my mind.
Mr. Coleman asks another question to get the class back on track, but I tune it out. Instead, I write a time and a place at the bottom of my blank page. Beginning of lunch, in the courtyard. I tear it off and fold it a few times into a small square.
When the teacher has his back turned, I discreetly slip the note onto Blair’s desk.
Blair covers the note with her hand and for a second I think she’s going to swipe it off the desk without reading it. Her cool gaze snaps to me. Unfolding it with deft fingers, she skims the note. Blair’s lip curls.
Tucking the note under her notebook, Blair returns her attention to the board.
It’s hard to focus on the class. For the first time, I can’t even follow the general gist, when normally school comes easily to me.
I keep studying Blair in my periphery.
It’s not until near the end of the period she acknowledges me again. A sharp point pokes my arm while Mr. Coleman rifles through a stack of handouts. I grunt in surprise, rubbing the tender spot where my bicep was jabbed. Blair holds a folded note between her fingers. It’s folded so many times the corners of the paper have become prickly weapons.
I snatch it before she pokes my arm again. Opening it up, I find it’s the same note I gave her twenty minutes ago. Her only response is a checkmark beneath my writing. Simple, succinct.
The corners of my mouth twitch up. The bell rings, interrupting Mr. Coleman mid-sentence.