Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

We end up singing Disney songs in the stairwell. Abby weirdly knows every word to every song in Pocahontas, and everyone knows The Lion King and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Taylor can improvise harmonies, and I guess we’re all warmed up from singing the Oliver! songs, because it just sounds really amazing. And the acoustics in the stairwell are freaking awesome.

And then we go back upstairs, and Mila Odom and Eve Miller pull a bunch of rolling chairs out of the computer lab. It’s pretty convenient that Creekwood has such long, straight hallways.

Perfect happiness is: gripping the bottom of a rolling chair with both hands, while Cal Price pushes me down the hall in a full-on run. We race against two of the sophomore girls from the ensemble. Cal is kind of a slow-moving person, so they totally dominate, but I don’t even care. His hands grip my shoulders, and we’re both laughing, and the rows of lockers are a toothpaste-blue blur. I let down my legs, and we skid to a stop. And I guess I have to get up. I raise my hand to give Cal a high five, but instead, he threads his fingers through mine for just a second. Then he looks down and smiles, and his eyes are hidden by his bangs. We untangle our hands, and my heart is thudding. I have to look away from him.

Then Taylor, of all people, mounts one of the chairs. Her blond hair flies backward as Abby pushes her, and they’re the indisputable champions. Abby and her leg muscles, I guess. I had no idea she was so freaking fast.

Abby collapses into me, laughing and panting, and we slide to the floor against the lockers. She leans her head on my shoulder, and I slide my arm around her back. Leah can get weird about touching, and it’s this unspoken thing that I don’t really touch Nick. But Abby’s a huggy person, and I sort of am, too, so that’s been nice. And everything has just felt really natural and comfortable between us since that night in the car after the Waffle House. It’s pretty cozy sitting next to Abby and smelling her magical French toast scent, while we watch the freshmen take turns racing in the chairs.

Abby and I sit like that for so long my arm starts to prickle. But it isn’t until we’re finally about to head back to the auditorium that I realize two people have been watching us.

The first is Cal.

The second is Martin, and he looks pretty goddamn furious.

“Spier. We need to talk.” Martin pulls me into a stairwell.

“Um, now? Because Ms. Albright wants us to—”

“Yeah, Ms. Albright can fucking wait a second.”

“Okay. What’s up?” I lean against the railing and look up at him. The stairwell is dark, but my eyes are pretty well-adjusted, and I can see the tension in Martin’s jaw. He stops and waits until the others are too far down the hall to overhear.

“So, I guess you think this is all hilarious,” he says under his breath.

“What?”

He doesn’t elaborate.

“I have no freaking clue what you’re talking about,” I say finally.

“Right, of course not.” Martin crosses his arms in front of his chest and tugs on his elbow, and he just radiates the stink-eye.

“Marty, seriously. I don’t know why you’re upset. If you want to fill me in, great. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you.”

He exhales loudly and leans into the railing. “You’re trying to humiliate me. And believe me, I get it. I get that you weren’t a hundred percent on board with our arrangement—”

“Our arrangement? You mean you blackmailing me? Yeah, I’m not on board with being blackmailed, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You think I’m fucking blackmailing you?”

“What the hell else would you call it?” I say. But it’s funny—I’m not really pissed off at him. A little bewildered at the moment, but not angry.

“Look. It’s over. The Abby thing is done, okay? So you can forget about the whole goddamn thing.”

I pause. “Did something happen with Abby?”

“Yes, something fucking happened with Abby. She fucking rejected me.”

“What? When?”

Martin stands abruptly, his face flushed. “Roughly five minutes before she draped herself all over you,” he says.

“What? Yeah, that’s not what—”

“You know what? Save it, Spier. Actually, you know what you can do? You can tell Ms. Albright I’ll see her in fucking January.”

“You’re leaving?” I ask.

I seriously don’t know what the hell is happening. He flips me the bird as he walks away. He doesn’t even turn around to look at me.

“Martin, are you—”

“Merry goddamned Christmas, Simon,” he says. “Hope you’re happy.”



18

FROM: [email protected] TO: [email protected] DATE: Dec 20 at 1:45 PM

SUBJECT: Oh baby

Jacques,

You’re not going to believe this.