“Mostly weed. Some molly. Mushrooms. Pretty basic shit, but . . .”
Sunday’s throat was dry. She was afraid to look at Micah again, worried he’d suddenly morph into a monster she wasn’t aware she’d been hanging out with this whole time. How could she have been so clueless? Why hadn’t he said anything to her?
She glared at Eli. “Why are you telling me this?”
He shrugged again. “Don’t you think you deserve to know?”
The music inside the studio stopped. Sunday looked in, catching Micah’s eye. He waved and held up a finger, signaling he wanted her to wait for him.
When he turned to grab his shoes and towel, she turned and walked out to the parking lot where Ben was waiting for her.
*
Micah was already sitting in first period when Sunday arrived the next day.
She said hello without looking at him, then felt him watching as she dropped her bag at her feet and slipped into her chair.
“Everything cool? You kind of ran off yesterday,” he said, tapping a pencil against the side of his desk.
Sunday glanced at his hands. She felt as if they should look different now that she knew what he used them for. But they looked exactly the same, and when she got up the nerve to meet Micah’s eyes, he looked exactly the same, too.
She shook her head, unable to come up with a response.
Micah leaned in close, bending at the waist so only she could hear him. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Sunday’s head whipped toward him, her mouth open.
“Eli told me you know.” Micah sighed. “He made it sound like it slipped out, but nothing is an accident with him. He really hates not being involved in what I’m doing.”
Sunday looked at him curiously, still silent.
“Like the dance thing . . . Maybe it’s because he was worried about what people would think, but honestly, he wasn’t ever that good.” Micah paused. “He would get so mad when the teachers praised me and didn’t say anything to him. And he’d go into, like, a full-on rage at home if they corrected him in front of the class . . . which happens to everyone in every dance class.”
Sunday frowned. She didn’t want to talk about Eli. “You couldn’t just say it? Like, hi, I’m Micah and I sell—”
“Knock it off,” he said through gritted teeth. “Do you really have no idea how this works?”
Sunday’s eyes darted around the room, but no one was paying attention to them.
“I thought you’d figure it out,” he said in a softer tone a few moments later. “But then you didn’t, or I thought maybe you were just cool with it and didn’t want to talk about it, and . . . I wasn’t trying to hide it from you.”
“Why?” she whispered. “I don’t get it. You don’t need the money.”
Mr. Moore arrived then, juggling an armful of books and a coffee.
“To be continued,” Micah said, turning to face the front of the room.
After the bell they walked like normal to their second class, but Sunday felt like things between them were anything but normal.
“I’m still the same person,” he said without looking at her.
Sunday considered this. She knew he was right and that she wasn’t being entirely fair by judging him. It wasn’t so much about the drugs. The idea of them made her nervous, and she wondered exactly how much and what had been stashed in his house when they were there. This reminded her of Emma Franklin, who was in their youth group back in Chicago. That is, until she’d gotten pregnant and stopped coming to meetings and hangouts. No one stopped inviting her, but it was understood that they couldn’t just pretend like everything was the same once her belly started swelling. Sunday hadn’t been particularly close with Emma, but she couldn’t help feeling like she’d been betrayed by her. Emma had worn a purity ring and pretended like she was as inexperienced with guys as Sunday, and then one day she was pregnant.
It wasn’t that Micah had betrayed her, but Sunday guessed she would have preferred to hear it from him instead of his brother.
“Why do you do it?” she asked again.
They stopped outside the building.
“Because . . . I don’t know, Sunday,” he said with a tinge of annoyance. “Because it feels good to not be the spoiled Beverly Hills kid everyone thinks I am when they hear who my parents are or see where we live. Because it’s so different from what everyone else knows about me. It’s not like it’s going to be a career. I’ll quit doing it after we graduate . . . maybe before.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
He cocked his head to the side as he eyed her. “We’re good?”
Her father and Ben would kill her if they knew she was hanging out with the school drug dealer, but they’d never have to know if she didn’t tell them. Besides, it wasn’t like she wanted to be his girlfriend.
“We’re good,” she said. “But . . . is there anything else?”
Micah shook his head. “What about you? Are you really so . . . virtuous?”
“I’m not virtuous. That makes me sound like a nun.”
But she knew it appeared that way, and not for the first time, Sunday wondered if that meant she was simply boring.
*
Ms. Bailey was in the art room when Sunday walked in after school.
She waved from her desk in the corner, then pushed her glasses up on her nose and went back to whatever she was scribbling in a notebook. Bailey was everyone’s favorite because she mostly left them alone, but she knew her shit when it came to art, and she always knew what their work needed for them to take it to the next level.
Eli walked in a few minutes later, after Sunday had unpacked the materials from her portfolio and spread them out on her desk.
“Hey,” he said, sitting down next to her.
“Hi.” Sunday picked up the piece of charcoal but couldn’t bring herself to start drawing.
“You know, it’s still cool if we hang out, right?”
Sunday looked at him. “What?”
“I mean, just because you and Micah aren’t friends anymore—”
She frowned. “Who said that?”
Eli’s eyebrows twitched. “Well, I just thought . . . I mean, you seemed pretty upset about what I told you.”
He glanced toward Bailey, but she wasn’t paying their conversation any mind.
“I was . . . surprised,” Sunday said with a shrug. “I’m not going to stop being his friend. It’s not like he’s pushing anything on me or selling to kids or something.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But what?” Sunday practically snapped. She wished he would just say whatever he had to say and get it over with.
“Nothing. Sorry.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, do you want to come over again sometime? There’s some more art you didn’t see—some stuff you might like or whatever.”
Sunday wasn’t feeling particularly fond of Eli at the moment, but she felt bad for him. He was younger than them and insecure, like Micah had mentioned. He was trying to smooth things over, and if it meant another chance to look at that Aaron Douglas piece, the one she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d been there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
*