I technically wasn’t supposed to have caffeine—my mother said it made me too excitable and screwed with my medicine, which made her a liar because I felt perfectly fine whenever I broke the rules—but I drank it anyway.
“I see your textbooks have had a rough day.” Tucker prodded the binding of my calculus book.
“Mm,” I said. “Stray cat found its way into my locker.”
“Superglue will fix that right up.”
Superglue? Now there was an idea. I glanced down at Miles. He was staring over his shoulder at us, eyes narrowed. The enormity of this balancing act hit me all at once, made my stomach lurch. I couldn’t let him walk all over me, but I couldn’t make him angry, either.
Tucker gave him the finger. Miles turned back to the court.
“I’ll regret that later,” Tucker said, “when my steering column is gone.”
Either Tucker would regret it, or I would.
“Are you okay?” Tucker asked. “You look like you’re going to vomit.”
“Yes.” No. “I’m okay.” This was the least okay thing that had happened to me since the Hillpark Gym Graffiti Incident.
I realized too late that I’d snapped at him. I didn’t mean to be harsh, but I hated worry, and pity, and that look people got when they knew something wasn’t okay with you and they also knew that you were in denial about it.
I wasn’t in denial. I just couldn’t let it slip this time.
Chapter Seven
I spent the rest of the game flipping my focus back and forth between my homework and Miles. He didn’t look back up at us, but I knew he knew I was watching him.
I distracted myself by trying to think of ways to pay Tucker back for the Coke. He ignored me when I brought it up and changed the subject to conspiracy theories— Roswell, the Illuminati, Elvis faking his own death, and when Miles glared up at us again, a nice little story about a Nazi moon base.
Tucker was the sort of intelligent, history-savvy person I could throw at my mother and watch him stick, but also the sort of person I’d never do that to, because I had a soul.
Then I thought, Hey, I could hug him. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if I hugged him. But I knew that physical contact meant certain things in the world of normal social conduct, and while I trusted Tucker more than most of the other people I knew, I didn’t want to mean those certain things toward him.
Tucker left with the crowd when the game ended. I stayed behind to help the club, but they were so quick and efficient that the net was down and the ball carts stowed before I’d stepped off the bleachers.
Miles and Jetta stood at the scorer’s table. When I walked up to them, they fell silent; I was pretty sure they hadn’t been speaking English.
“What?” Miles snapped.
“Do you need me for anything or can I go home?”
“Yeah, go.” He turned back to Jetta.
“Bis sp?ter, Alex!” Jetta smiled and waved as I walked away. Apparently any feelings I’d hurt by not shaking her hand had been forgotten.
“Um. See you,” I replied.
Outside the school was pandemonium. I expected big crowds after football games, but this looked like the entire school had formed one huge tailgating party. At eight at night. After a volleyball game. On the first day of school.
There was no way I could do a sufficient perimeter check here, so I went for plan B: Get out. I wheeled Erwin out of the bushes where I’d hidden him, and hoped to God no one noticed me. The people closest to the school entrance were the men still standing on the roof, the few football players probably waiting for their girlfriends, and Celia Hendricks and two other girls, doing who the hell knows what.
“Nice bike!” Celia called over her shoulder, flipping her bleached hair out of the way. Her two friends stifled laughs. “Where’d you get it?”
“Egypt,” I said, trying to figure out if she was serious.
Celia laughed. “Remind me never to go to Egypt.”
I ignored her and continued past the football players. I didn’t get far; all 230 pounds of Cliff Ackerley fell into step beside me. “Hey, you’re the new girl, right?”
“Yes.” His closeness sent shivers crawling up my spine. I veered away to put some distance between us.
He planted himself in front of me, pointed at my hair, and yelled, “HILLPARK FAN!”
A thunderous, rolling BOO instantly rose from the crowd. Most of them probably had no clue I’d actually gone to Hillpark, but brandishing any kind of red around here was asking for trouble.
I tried to move around Cliff, but he stuck his foot on Erwin’s front tire and pushed. “What the hell?” I stumbled backward to keep Erwin upright.
“What the hell?” one of the other guys mocked in a high falsetto, a million times more sinister than when Tucker had done it at work the night before. The rest of Cliff’s friends circled around me. I squeezed tighter against Erwin. Either these guys were all drunk or they were all douche bags. If they were drunk, they were less likely to see reason but also less likely to catch me if I ran for it. But I couldn’t run with Erwin. Maybe I could use him as a shield. That meant leaving him behind, and the last thing I wanted to do was leave Erwin behind. No matter how I played this situation, Outlook not so good.