I walked in the direction Alex had nudged me toward. I wasn’t anxious to hear Jenna talk about herself, but standing there in the hall staring wide-eyed at Alex was not going to help. Normal. That was what I was striving for. Problem was, I had no idea what Maddy’s version of normal was.
Mine was sitting in my room drawing or arguing with Josh over whether or not banana peppers and chicken was a good combination of pizza toppings. My normal was constant. The people around me were predictable. I could tell you that Josh had a poppy seed bagel with veggie cream cheese every morning for breakfast. I could tell you that he never filled his tank past the quarter mark and always went to the 7-Eleven on Reservoir Avenue because it was the only one that had watermelon Slurpees. He’d bring two brand-new mechanical pencils to every test, same make, same brand. One for me, one for him.
But Maddy’s friends … Alex … there was nothing predictable or consistent about them.
I didn’t have a clue what I was supposed to do. I’d never had a study hall in my life. I always filled those empty spots with an open studio or an advanced class. Plus, I had nothing to study. In fact, if I wanted to play the part of Maddy, then I needed to dumb myself down, not get a jump start on tomorrow’s homework.
The halls were pretty much empty. A couple of girls were heading toward the bathroom and a few more were digging forgotten books or homework assignments out of their lockers. The rest of the students were in their classes. Having nowhere in particular to go, I slowed my pace. It was nice to be alone, to have a second of peace to reorient myself.
I had forty-five minutes until my next real class started, and I thought I’d use it to sift through the contents of Maddy’s locker. I’d already gone through her desk, bureau, and closet. None of those revealed anything out of the ordinary, except perhaps the box of condoms I found shoved down in the toe of one of her boots this morning.
I don’t know where the urge to count them came from, but I did. Box of twelve, seven left. That only confirmed my suspicion that Alex wasn’t kidding when he joked that I’d be ready soon. Yeah, no clue how I was going to handle that one.
I slowed nearly to a stop when I heard Jenna’s voice. She couldn’t see me; there was a bank of lockers blocking her view, but I doubted seeing me would’ve stopped her. I carefully eased my way forward until she came into full view. I intended to do as Alex had instructed and pretend to be interested in what Jenna had to say. I mean, how hard could it be? All I had to do was smile and nod every once in a while.
I counted the lockers three times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, then searched the numbers for further confirmation: that was Maddy’s locker Jenna was standing in front of.
But it was my name—Ella—mingled into Jenna’s conversation that had my ears trained on her words. I shrank into the lockers out of Jenna’s view and let the cold metal support me as I stood there and listened.
“Alex is angry that we didn’t have this done before she got here this morning,” Jenna was saying.
She had a roll of crepe paper in one hand, a giant poster board in the other. She tore off a chunk of streamer paper and waved at the girl next to her to hurry up and give her some tape. “If he wanted her locker decorated with this welcome-back crap, then he should’ve done it himself. Like the one in the locker room isn’t enough.”
The girl laughed as she dug some sort of homemade sign out of her backpack. I couldn’t read the names on it from where I was hiding, but there were a lot. She tacked it to the front of my locker and offered Jenna a pen. Jenna shook her head and shoved the pen away.
“I don’t know why he’s mad. It’s not like anybody knew she’d be here today,” the girl said.