They’re still heading away from me, but Caroline turns to face me, as graceful walking backward as she is walking the regular way. “What she’s trying to say is that you might not want to burn your bridges when you’re standing on an island.” And then she smiles the meanest smile I’ve ever seen.
In driver’s ed, Mr. Dominguez says, “Libby? Whenever you want to join us.”
“Sorry.” I stop staring into space.
Bailey passes me a note. Are you okay?
Instead of answering, I sit there and pretend I’m paying attention, and even when Mr. Dominguez says, “Next week, we’re ready to start driving”—the moment I’ve been waiting for all my short, sad life—it’s like I’m sitting in another room, at another school, far, far away.
I’m in the bathroom after third period when two guys walk in, both white, both nondescript, except that one is a fucking mountain and the other is about my height. They shut the door. This is bad news because for as long as I’ve been at MVB, that door has never been closed.
“What’s up?” I do the head nod, act casual, but even though I can’t recognize their faces, I recognize the emotion. They’re mad as hell. I saunter toward the exit, trying to look as carefree as one can in this particular situation, but the smaller one blocks my way.
“When you messed around with my girlfriend, I let it go, but when you jump me and my friends for no reason and try to beat the living shit out of us? You don’t do that, man. You don’t screw with the people I love.”
This tells me it’s almost definitely (probably) Reed Young, and that right there behind him is definitely (probably) Moses Hunt. I’m feeling reckless enough to go, “So you’re saying you love him?” I nod at Moses.
And they both lunge for me. I can’t afford another fight, so I duck and Probably Reed goes sprawling while Probably Moses ricochets into the wall, and then I throw open the door and I’m out of there. I don’t run. Hell no. But I burn a path in the floor all the way down the hall.
For as long as people have been around, we’ve relied on facial recognition for survival. Back in caveman times, whether a person lived or died could come down to being able to read a face. You had to know your enemy. And here I am, barely able to make it out alive from a high school bathroom.
Mr. Levine (electric-blue bow tie, electric-blue sneakers) is sitting on the risers waiting for us as we walk into the old gym. We take our usual seats and after we have a chance to get settled, he bounces to his feet. “We’re going to try something different.” Which is what he says every day.
So far, we’ve sung songs, run a kind of obstacle course (stopping at each station to talk about a specific feeling or ways in which we might change our behaviors), and performed a scene from a Star Trek episode (about two enemies having to work together to survive). Mr. Levine calls these “teen-building exercises.”
But this time he walks out of the gym.
We wait. When Mr. Levine doesn’t return, Travis Kearns says, “Can we leave?”
And then the gym goes dark, the only light coming from these narrow windows way up by the ceiling. A second later, the room starts spinning with these spiraling globes of light—pink, orange, green, yellow, blue. It’s what I imagine a European disco was like back in the 1970s.
“What the—”
But Travis doesn’t finish because a song booms out over the speaker system, so loud I almost cover my ears. It’s the sappiest eighties ballad you’ve ever heard, and all that’s missing is a DJ and a corsage pinned to my shirt.
Mr. Levine comes back in and says, “On your feet.” He waves his hands like he’s some sort of conductor and we’re his orchestra. “Up. Up. Time’s a-wasting. Let’s work on building that self-esteem.”
One by one, we stand. Keshawn and Natasha kind of jokingly start slow-dancing. When they stop, Mr. Levine says, “Keep going. Yes, it’s really that simple. Now the rest of you.”
Travis Kearns asks Maddy, who’s pretty but shy. She stares at her feet the whole time. Even though there aren’t enough girls to go around, no one asks me. Andy Thornburg starts waltzing with an invisible partner because dancing alone is apparently better than dancing with me. My chest flutters, the first sign of panic.
Mr. Levine says, “Ask her to dance, Jack.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
Jack looks at me and I look at him.
“Before the song ends, please.”
We keep standing there, and now my palms are damp—the second sign of panic. The next thing will be this strange compression in my chest and head, as if I’m being squeezed by a giant boa constrictor. Gradually, everything will grow dim and distant, and I’ll shrink until I’m a regular-size person, and then keep shrinking until I’m small enough to squash under someone’s shoe.
Finally, Mr. Levine pulls out this remote and clicks it, and the song starts over. Everyone groans. “I can do this all day. My phone is fully charged, and there are a lot more songs just like this on there. Worse ones, even.”
I look at Jack and he looks at me, and the lights are flashing across his face, turning his eyes green, brown, blue, gold, like he’s a chameleon changing colors.
He offers his hand. I take it. Because we have to. This is not the way I imagined my first school dance.
We fumble our hands together and stand as far apart as possible, like someone’s holding a ruler—more like a yardstick—between us. We shuffle back and forth as if we’re both made of wood, staring at the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the other kids, anywhere but at each other.
The song only gets cheesier as it goes on, and the lights are swirling and strobing, and his eyes are flashing green/brown/blue/gold, and suddenly I’m thinking about my palms. Like how sweaty they are. I can just hear Jack Masselin going back to his friends, telling them all about my sweaty palms and what it was like to dance with the fat girl.
Jack says, “This may scare me off school dances forever.”
My first instinct is that he’s talking about me or maybe my damp hands, so I go, “Well, I’m not exactly having the time of my life.”
“I didn’t mean you’re scaring me off. Although you’re kind of scaring me off now.”
“Sorry.” As I realize he means the song and the lights and Mr. Levine, standing there like the world’s most attentive chaperone.
We’re now kind of swaying, and it’s not so bad. It’s the first time we’ve touched where I wasn’t either punching him or stopping him from punching someone.
I say, “This is my first school dance.”
“Ah.”
“Well, it’s the closest I’ve ever come, at least. Not to put any pressure on you.”
“No pressure. Just extreme performance anxiety. Every guy’s dream.”
“You’re not a terrible dancer.”
“My confidence is soaring now.”
“It’s just not exactly how I pictured it.”
“Okay, so what can I do to change that?”
“Uh …”
“You look really pretty tonight.”
In the second it takes me to realize he’s playing, my legs grow into the floor like roots. Jack tightens his grip on me and kind of nudges me into motion again.
He says, “Especially in that dress. The color really brings out your eyes.”
“Uh.” Think. “The sales clerk called it Hershey brown.” Ugh. What?
“Actually more like amber.”
And he’s looking into my eyes as if I’m the only thing he sees. I tell myself, He’s such a good actor, as these little goose bumps spring out at the base of my spine and go shooting up my back, across my shoulders, and down both arms.
Suddenly we’re dancing closer, and I’m aware of not just his hands but each individual finger connecting to my body and his legs bumping against mine. I want to lean in and get a whiff of him and rest my head on his shoulder or maybe make out with his neck. Afterward he’ll walk me home and kiss me on the doorstep, sweet at first, and then hungrier and hungrier till we fall into the bushes and go rolling off across the yard.