Bayview High is loving this. Chad Posner finds me after last period to tell me people are practically lining up to be interviewed outside. “They’re asking about you, man,” he warns. “You might wanna head out the back. They’re not allowed in the parking lot, so you can cut through the woods on your bike.”
“Thanks.” I take off and scan the hallway for Bronwyn. We don’t talk much at school to avoid—as she says in her lawyer voice—the appearance of collusion. But I’ll bet this will freak her out. I spot her at her locker with Maeve and one of her friends, and sure enough she looks ready to throw up. When she sees me she waves me closer, not even trying to pretend she hardly knows me.
“Did you hear?” she asks, and I nod. “I don’t know what to do.” A horrified realization crosses her face. “I guess we have to drive past them, don’t we?”
“I’ll drive,” Maeve volunteers. “You can, like, hide in the back or something.”
“Or we can stay here till they leave,” her friend suggests. “Wait them out.”
“I hate this,” Bronwyn says. Maybe it’s the wrong time to notice, but I like how her face floods with color whenever she feels strongly about something. It makes her look twice as alive as most people, and more distracting than she already does in a short dress and boots.
“Come with me,” I say. “I’m taking my bike out back to Boden Street. I’ll bring you to the mall. Maeve can pick you up later.”
Bronwyn brightens as Maeve says, “That’ll work. I’ll come find you in half an hour at the food court.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” mutters the other girl, giving me a hard look. “If they catch you together it’ll be ten times worse.”
“They won’t catch us,” I say shortly.
I’m not positive Bronwyn’s on board, but she nods and tells Maeve she’ll see her soon, meeting her friend’s annoyed glance with a calm smile. I feel this stupid rush of triumph, like she chose me, even though she basically chose not winding up on the five o’clock news. But she walks close to me as we head out the back door to the parking lot, not seeming to care about the stares. At least they’re the kind we’ve gotten used to. No microphones or cameras involved.
I hand her my helmet and wait for her to settle herself on my bike and loop her arms around me. Too tight again, but I don’t mind. Her death grip, along with how her legs look in that dress, is why I engineered this escape in the first place.
We’re not in the woods long before the narrow trail I’m taking widens into a dirt path that runs past a row of houses behind the school. I take back roads for a couple of miles until we make it to the mall, and ease my bike into a parking spot as far from the entrance as I can get. Bronwyn takes the helmet off and hands it to me, squeezing my arm as she does. She swings her legs onto the pavement, her cheeks flushed and her hair tousled. “Thanks, Nate. That was nice of you.”
I didn’t do it to be nice. My hand reaches out and catches her around the waist, pulling her toward me. And then I stop, not sure what to do next. I’m off my game. If anyone had asked me ten minutes ago, I would have said I don’t have game. But now it occurs to me that I probably do, and it’s not giving a shit.
When I’m still sitting and she’s standing we’re almost the same height. She’s close enough for me to notice that her hair smells like green apples. I can’t stop looking at her lips while I wait for her to back away. She doesn’t, and when I raise my eyes to hers it feels like the breath is yanked right out of my lungs.
Two thoughts run through my head. One, I want to kiss her more than I want air. And two, if I do I’m bound to screw everything up and she’ll stop looking at me that way.
A van screeches into the spot next to us and we both jump, bracing for the Channel 7 News camera crew. But it’s an ordinary soccer-mom van filled with screaming kids. When they tumble out Bronwyn blinks and moves off to the side. “Now what?” she asks.
Now wait till they’re gone and get back here. But she’s already walking toward the entrance. “Buy me a giant pretzel for saving your ass,” I say instead. She laughs and I wonder if she’s thankful for the interruption.
We walk past the potted palms that frame the front entrance, and I pull the door open for a stressed-looking mother with two screaming toddlers in a double stroller. Bronwyn flashes her a sympathetic smile but as soon as we’re inside it disappears and she ducks her head. “Everyone’s staring at me. You were smart not to have your class picture taken. That photo in the Bayview Blade didn’t even look like you.”
“Nobody’s staring,” I tell her, but it’s not true. The girl folding sweaters at Abercrombie & Fitch widens her eyes and pulls out her phone when we pass by. “Even if they were, all you’d have to do is take your glasses off. Instant disguise.”
I’m kidding, but she pulls them off and reaches into her bag for a bright-blue case she snaps them into. “Good idea, except I’m blind without them.” I’ve seen Bronwyn without glasses only once before, when they got knocked off by a volleyball in fifth-grade gym class. It was the first time I’d noticed her eyes weren’t blue like I always thought, but a clear, bright gray.
“I’ll guide you,” I tell her. “That’s a fountain. Don’t walk into it.”
Bronwyn wants to go to the Apple store, where she squints at iPod Nanos for her sister. “Maeve’s starting to run now. She keeps borrowing mine and forgetting to charge it.”
“You know that’s a rich-girl problem nobody else cares about, right?”
She grins, unoffended. “I need to make a playlist to keep her motivated. Any recommendations?”
“I doubt we like the same music.”
“Maeve and I have varied musical taste. You’d be surprised. Let me see your library.” I shrug and unlock my phone, and she scrolls through iTunes with an increasingly furrowed brow. “What is all this? Why don’t I recognize anything?” Then she glances at me. “You have ‘Variations on the Canon’?”
I take the phone from her and put it back in my pocket. I forgot I’d downloaded that. “I like your version better,” I say, and her lips curve into a smile.
We head for the food court, making small talk about stupid stuff like we’re a couple of ordinary teenagers. Bronwyn insists on actually buying me a pretzel, although I have to help her since she can’t see two feet in front of her face. We sit by the fountain to wait for Maeve, and Bronwyn leans across the table so she can meet my eyes. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” I raise my brows, interested, until she says, “I’m worried about the fact that you don’t have a lawyer.”
I swallow a hunk of pretzel and avoid her eyes. “Why?”
“Because this whole thing’s starting to implode. My lawyer thinks the news coverage is going to go viral. She made me set all my social media accounts to private yesterday. You should do that too, by the way. If you have any. I couldn’t find you anywhere. Not that I was stalking you. Just curious.” She gives herself a little shake, like she’s trying to get her thoughts back on track. “Anyway. The pressure’s on, and you’re already on probation, so you … you need somebody good in your corner.”
You’re the obvious outlier and scapegoat. That’s what she means; she’s just too polite to say it. I push my chair away from the table and tip it backward on two legs. “That’s good news for you, right? If they focus on me.”
“No!” She’s so loud, people at the next table look over, and she lowers her voice. “No, it’s awful. But I was thinking. Have you heard of Until Proven?”
“What?”
“Until Proven. It’s that pro bono legal group that started at California Western. Remember, they got that homeless guy who was convicted of murder released because of mishandled DNA evidence that led them to the real killer?”
I’m not sure I’m hearing her correctly. “Are you comparing me to a homeless guy on death row?”
“That’s only one example of a high-profile case. They do other stuff too. I thought it might be worth checking them out.”
She and Officer Lopez would really get along. They’re both positive you can fix any problem with the right support group. “Sounds pointless.”