I shrugged, not knowing how to respond. Because it was three months into school and I already had a binder full of notes for AP English. Because I’d read four books, dissected each one, and written a seven-page essay on each. Because I had no idea what was going on in this class, and from the lack of notes Maddy had, it appeared she didn’t either.
Someone kicked my shoe, and I turned to my right. I remembered her. She was the girl from the party, the one sitting on the couch crying. I stared at her for a moment, finally recognizing who she was. Without the noise of the party and the makeup streaming down her face, I actually recognized her. Molly.
She used to be one of Maddy’s friends. Something happened to her last year, though, something to do with a field hockey game and testing positive for drugs. I’d learned some of the details from listening to Maddy. Molly had lost her spot on the field hockey team and the scholarship she was nearly guaranteed to get from Northwestern. On top of that, the incident took her from being more popular than Maddy to being barely one rung above me on the social ladder. She still sat with Maddy’s group at lunch and was invited to the same parties, but to say she operated on the fringe of their circle was being generous at best.
“Hey, Molly—” I started to say something more, but she waved me off and tilted her head toward the front of the class.
I had a brief moment of panic, wondering if Mr. Peterson was angry with me for talking in class. But Mr. Peterson wasn’t trying to get my attention, Alex was. He tossed his hands out in a what-are-you-doing gesture, then motioned to Ryan. He didn’t need words to convey his message; I got it loud and clear. In Maddy’s world, Alex took center stage. Whatever he wanted, whatever he needed, Maddy gave it to him. If I wanted to pull this off, then I needed to stop talking to the nameless kids in the back of the room and start focusing on him.
Nodding my apology, I took up Ryan’s favorite pastime and started reading the etchings on the desk. I’d finished counting the number of times the f-word could be used as a descriptor and was hazarding a guess at whose initials were in the heart when a piece of paper covered my desk.
“Try your best,” Mr. Peterson whispered. “I won’t grade it.”
I wrote my name and date on the paper. I missed nearly a month of school, and on my first day back, I had to take a test.
The book’s title was in bold letters across the top, two questions posed in italics below. East of Eden. I read it freshman year; it was on the summer reading list for those of us who had tested into the advanced track. Had I known there was a test today, I would’ve dug it out and reread a few chapters so I’d have quotes to support my answers.
I glanced at the first question and started writing my answer, worrying that I would forget something important. I remembered enough of the book to formulate a decent response. It wouldn’t be an A, but it wouldn’t be a C either.
Mr. Peterson had given us nearly the entire fifty minutes of class time to take the test, and according to the clock on the wall, I had twelve minutes left. I looked over my answers twice before I put my pen down. Writing those two responses had felt great, like a little part of the old me was safe to come out. An old part of me that was still useful.
I took a quick peek at Ryan’s test. He had three sentences down for the first answer and was struggling his way through the first paragraph of the second. A quick look at Molly’s proved that she was no better off. There was less than ten minutes left of class, and she hadn’t even started on the second question. I’d been to one class, had spent less than an hour in school as Maddy, and already I’d screwed up. I’d read the book for American Lit and actually answered the questions.
Frustrated, I balled up my test and pushed it aside. That sound, the crumpling of paper in my hand, echoed through the room, every head swinging in my direction. Alex, Jenna, Molly, even Ryan stared at me.