Jason must get Lucy’s disgust because he makes a point of gyrating his hips right up near her face, and she just looks away, down at the floor. She’s blushing. Everyone else is hooting.
Something charges through my body, and I look down and see my hands are balled up into fists. I stare at them for a moment, surprised, and then will them to release.
“All right, all right,” Principal Wilson announces on the microphone, “let’s get going to lunch, y’all. Why don’t we save that energy for the game, Jason.”
The band plays its last notes as we stream out of the gym. I look back but Seth has been swallowed up by the crowd. I hope Seth Acosta is not the sort of guy who would wear a shirt that reads GREAT LEGS—WHEN DO THEY OPEN? He could look as hot as a young Ralph Macchio in The Outsiders, but I still wouldn’t want to hang out with a guy who wears a shirt like that. Even my fantasy boyfriends have to have standards.
As Claudia and I head toward the cafeteria for lunch, we get pushed and bounced through the shuffle of the crowd, and I realize I’ve ended up near Lucy. She walks toward the edge of the hallway, her shoulder bumping into the row of lockers every so often. Her cheeks are still pink, and she’s not really looking at anyone as she makes her way down the packed hallway. I think about asking her to eat with us in the cafeteria, but the idea of breaking out of my regular social routine and talking to someone new seems exhausting somehow.
After she spoke up in Mr. Davies’s class, I know Lucy is the kind of girl who isn’t afraid to be the center of attention even if it doesn’t make her too popular. It’s not so much that I want to be popular, because popular people at East Rockport High School are basically assholes, but I like flying under the radar. I wish I didn’t give a shit about what people think about me. Like my mom coming to school with blue hair. She was never dutiful or under the radar when she went here. That’s why she became a Riot Grrrl.
When Claudia and I get to our regular table in the lunchroom with our friends Meg and Kaitlyn and Sara, I look for Lucy but I don’t see her. I don’t see Seth Acosta either. But I do see Jason with his dumb shirt on, cutting in line in front of some freshmen.
GREAT LEGS—WHEN DO THEY OPEN?
I have the urge to clench my fists again until the slivers of my mostly bitten fingernails dig into my palms.
I wonder what Wonder Woman would do right now. Or my mom. Or the girl who sings that rebel girl song. The one whose voice was a weapon. The one who didn’t care if all eyes were on her. In fact, she liked it that way. What would she do to Jason? Maybe march right up to him and tell him how gross his shirt is? Maybe take a pair of scissors and cut it right off his body?
He’d probably like that, though. He could show off his stupid six-pack.
I take a bite of my ham sandwich and listen as Claudia and Kaitlyn and the others talk about where we should try to sit at the game tonight. I put my sandwich down and pick at the crust. I’m not really hungry.
“So what time do you want me to pick you up?” Claudia says, kicking me under the table.
“I’m not going,” I hear myself saying. I’m surprised at my own response. But also relieved.
“What?” Claudia asks, frowning. “We were just talking about how I have my mom’s car.”
“I’m not really feeling well,” I say, coming up with the easiest excuse.
Kaitlyn reaches over and touches my forehead with her hand. She has, like, five younger brothers and sisters so she’s always doing mom-stuff like that.
“You don’t have a fever, I don’t think,” she tells me. “Do you feel achy or cold?”
“It’s my stomach,” I say, pushing away my lunch.
“Eww, stay away,” says Meg, sliding her chair toward the other end of the table. “I don’t want to get sick.”
Claudia is eyeing me carefully. Just a few minutes ago I was fine, checking out the new guy at the pep rally.
“I don’t know what it is,” I admit. And I don’t. But something has shifted. It happened the moment I said I wouldn’t go to the game and now I can’t go back.
Or did it happen during the pep rally, when I saw Jason’s shirt and realized my hands were in fists?
Or did it happen before that?
“Maybe you should go to the nurse,” Kaitlyn says. “Do you want one of us to walk you?”
“No, I can get there on my own,” I answer. “But thanks.”
“Text me later?” Claudia asks. Her voice is small and a little hurt, I think. But maybe she just doesn’t know what to make of my weird behavior. Honestly, I don’t either.
Nurse Garcia lets me lie down on one of the cots in the back room of the clinic all afternoon. There’s no one else back there, and she turns the lights off for me. It’s nice and cool and quiet. When I shift positions, I hear the paper sheet crumple underneath me. The bell for sixth period to start comes and goes, and I pass the time staring at a poster that reads COUGH AND SNEEZE? ELBOW, PLEASE! A little stick figure girl and boy cough and sneeze into their stick figure elbows. I lie there through sixth period, indulging in the fact that I’m tucked away inside my little clinic cocoon while everyone else has to be in class. The bell rings again for seventh period and then again for eighth. And then, finally, the last bell of the day.
“Feeling better?” Nurse Garcia asks as I step into the main clinic office, blinking my eyes at the bright lights.
“Yeah,” I answer. “Thanks for letting me rest so long.”
“You’re not one to fake it, Vivian,” she says. “And you don’t look quite right, to be honest. Just go home and stick to toast, bananas, and rice, okay? And get rest and drink lots of water. I’m sorry you have to miss the game.”
“I’ll survive,” I tell her.
Usually at the end of the day, Claudia and I meet by my locker, and we walk home together or try to catch a ride with someone we know. But today I grab my backpack and make my way out a side door, taking a different route than I normally do. I walk fast, leaving East Rockport High behind me as quickly as possible.
CHAPTER FOUR
Meemaw and Grandpa are going to the game, and Mom has to work late again. I call my grandparents and tell them I’m not feeling well so I won’t see them at the stadium, and I call my mother at work and tell her my stomach is acting up and I’m staying at home. She gives me the same instructions as Nurse Garcia and reminds me to call her if I start feeling worse.
But I don’t feel worse. I feel better. There’s something weirdly freeing about knowing that almost the entire town is driving into Refugio and I’m safely hidden inside my house all by myself.