* * *
By the timeI got to math, I’d finished my coffee and felt more exhausted than I had been before I had any. That class was like a war.
“Hey,” Caesar said, walking up next to me. “I thought that was you.” He smiled, and then his face fell. “You okay?”
“What?” I rubbed my eyes. One of the good things about being completely ignored and left alone was I never had to explain to anyone how I felt. Or maybe I just told myself it was one of the good things. I didn’t really know any difference. “Hi. Where are you all coming from?”
He blinked and then took my hand, squeezing it. “Something happened to you. What is it?”
“Nothing new.” I wiped at my eyes, which were dry. I wasn’t a crier. Not a hugger. Nothing that came to being physical or asking for attention. What was the point of any of that? I just wanted to make sure I didn’t give any indication that I wasn’t okay when I entered my next class. As Frost said, the only way out was through. I had to keep going. Then I could disappear and reappear someplace else that wasn’t here.
He opened and closed his eyes. “Shit. I don’t know… Rowan is better at this, but if you tell me to beat someone up, I can do it.”
I pointed to the class across the hall. “We can’t beat up teachers. Don’t worry about me, but it is sweet of you to offer.”
He eyed the room I’d indicated. “There?”
I waved my hand in the air and gave him my bestI’m okaysmile. “Thank you for caring. It’s really nice. I mean, you’re all being really, incredibly nice. Thank you for that. It’s just…nothing.” I pointed at my next class. “Can’t be late. You can’t be, either.”
“I can be whatever I want. If I don’t go, it doesn’t even matter. You have no idea how little it matters.” He squeezed my hand. “Can’t get you out of my head. Seems they can’t either, from what you’re saying. I don’t know what that means, but I’m not going to worry about it because you are like a dose of light, Maci.”
No one had ever said such a nice thing to me before. I wasn’t a dose of light. I was a pile of something that most people forgot about the second they met me.
Most of the class was already seated, including Griffin, when I got inside. He looked up when I entered, and despite my frozen feelings, I remembered I had something for him—the note I’d stayed up writing. I put it down on his desk, which made him grin at me, but his smile quickly fell as I walked past him.
Damn.I must not have been doing such a great job with my fake smile. I sat down in my chair at the back of the room and settled. Math was always my best subject. It was right or it was wrong. I didn’t have to think too hard about it to figure it out.
Griffin sat down in the desk next to mine that was usually empty, the chair squeaking when he pulled it back. “Great answer.” He smiled. “I mean really. I didn’t see it coming. I’m impressed. What’s more, I think that you mean it, and I love it.”
I looked up from my open textbook. “I…I thought about it a long time.”
“I love that. I stay up at night thinking about those kinds of questions.” He shook his head. “So what’s wrong? I saw you talking to Caesar. Did he upset you? Because I know he can be a dick, but he’s actually…”
I interrupted him. “Caesar is great. I think he was offering to beat up my teacher. Of course he can’t do that, but it was a first for me.”
“Why do we need to beat up your teacher?” Our math teacher had started class, so Griffin lowered his voice. “And I doubt he was going to beat him up. He’d probably find someone to do something else entirely, but I digress. What is the problem?”
“Mr. Gaines,” Mrs. Hollow, our math teacher, spoke from the front of the class. “Is this desk change permanent or are you just going to bother Ms. Green for today?”
He smiled at her, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “Permanent.”
She nodded, a funny look on her face, before she started instruction.
He lowered his voice. “Maci…”
I let out a breath. “I don’t know what to do with all of you. People don’t pay me this much attention. Are you guys up to something? Why are you doing this? Is it some kind of game? Why bother with this?”
He winked at me. “Let’s just say that you got our attention. It’s hard to do. Most people are terribly boring. The same things over and over again. We didn’t see you coming, you surprised us, and now we’ve all decided that we like you. That’s also unique. We never like the same people. So you’ve made five new friends.” He scribbled on his paper, answering a question I hadn’t even heard the teacher ask. “What happened to you with your teacher?”
I hadfivenew friends. “Doesn’t matter. Friends, huh? I don’t currently have any. My only friend left, like everyone around here does. They go, and they’re never heard from again.”
“Yes. They do. They leave. They vanish. Or they can never leave at all.” He winked at me. “So come on, friend. Let’s do math. Rowan will get your secrets out. He’s good at it.”
Why would they want to?“You don’t even know me.”
“Well, you’re never going to really know me, so we’ll have that kind of friendship—one where we have each other’s back and we both think the other one is awfully good-looking, but we can’t and don’t ever do anything about it. We’ll watch movies, laugh, and always have things that we keep from the other one. You’ll probably feel that way about all of us, so that is the friendship we’ll have.”
I opened and closed my mouth. What was I supposed to say about that? “Okay. Sounds good.”