“Well, it’s true. I just don’t do it. The last time I ate with someone my age was four hundred and ten days ago.”
“Um.” I look over at him. He doesn’t seem to register exactly how bizarre that sentence was. “Why do you remember that?”
“I don’t know. I like keeping count of things, and . . .” He frowns. “Yep.”
Holy shit, that is sad. After a long minute of searching for an appropriate response, I go back to washing graduated cylinders. I can’t imagine a torture more excruciating than eating lunch with Dr. Norman, that condescending prick. I’ll take being roasted over a slow flame any day.
Then again, how long has it been since I had lunch with anybody? I sure as hell don’t keep track, but my score is probably in the hundreds, too. My corner of the courtyard is my lunchtime sanctuary, and when it gets too cold, I resort to empty classrooms or the back section of the library. No company needed.
I can’t remember the last time I sat down to dinner with Dad and Olivia, either. Eating alone seems so sad on Valentine. Is that what I look like from the outside? Some pariah, doomed to sit, untouchable, away from the rest of the world? I hope to God people can tell it’s my choice.
Valentine finishes his bucket first. But he doesn’t leave or find some reason to move away from me. Instead, he stands there, looking like the embodiment of everyone who has ever been awkward.
I tuck the last graduated cylinder into the overhead cabinet and shut the door, checking the clock. “Great.” The bus is always long gone by four fifteen, and it’s raining today. If I catch pneumonia walking home and die, I hope Olivia sues the shit out of Dr. Norman.
As Valentine takes the empty buckets up front, I head to one of the windows and look down at the junior lot. It’s a pleasant surprise—Juniper’s car is still sitting there. I shoot my sister a text. Hey, missed the bus. Can you wait for me? Be down soon.
Valentine stops by the window, shrugging his backpack on. He breathes on the glass and draws an indifferent-looking face in the fog. “Is something out there?”
“Just, my sister’s still here. So I have a ride.” I point out through the drizzle at the silver Mercedes. “That’s her.”
Valentine’s finger freezes over the fogged-up glass. “Oh,” he says, packing more meaning into that one syllable than I would’ve thought possible.
“Oh?” I repeat.
“Nothing. Just, oh.” He seems to have lost the ability to blink, staring down at Juniper’s car. “The blonde, I assume?”
“Nah, my sister’s the brunette. The blonde is Juniper Kipling. She’s a friend. Why?”
“No reason,” he says too quickly.
I lean against the wall. “What, you have a crush on one of them or something?”
“I don’t do those.”
“Do what? Crushes?”
“Yes, those,” he says. “And no. I don’t.”
“What are you, one of those love-is-a-social-construct people?”
“I don’t know about that. I just don’t get crushes.” He gives me a flash of his laser eyes again. “What, do you think it’s a construct?”
“Spare me,” I say. “Don’t change the subject. What’s your deal with Juni and my sister?”
His lips form a thin line. “No deal. Nothing.” He shoves his hands into his jacket, turning away. “I have to go. Bye.” He walks out fast, head down, staring deliberately at the ground.
As he shuts the door, I lean against a desk, drained by the interaction. I wish I were one of those androids from Electric Forces VI. I could stick a plug into myself to recharge.
I slouch out of the room, steeling myself for a weird drive home.
THE SIGHT OF OLIVIA AT THE STOVE THAT EVENING gives me a strange, sinking feeling. Most days, I move to my room the second she walks into the kitchen. Today, though, something keeps me at the table as I play Mass Effect. I glance at her every so often. She stands with one hip shifted out, her hair tied back in a messy stream. She hums a tune that sounds familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
Dad opens the door at a little past seven, his glasses spattered with beads of water. His usual five-o’clock shadow has grown out to a layer of gray-black stubble, making the gaunt peaks and valleys of his face seem rockier than usual. Dad’s all bones, a six-foot-five skeleton man with kind eyes.
“Hi,” he says, shutting the door. He shrugs off his raincoat, revealing the plastic name tag on his button-down, emblazoned with the Golden Arches.
I lift a hand, and Olivia says, “Hey, how was work?”
Dad doesn’t seem to hear. As he meanders toward the stairs, all he says is, “Horrible weather.” His voice barely makes it to my ears, quiet and reedy.
“Yeah, it’s gross out,” Olivia says. “Dinner’s going to be ready in about ten, okay?”
“Thanks.” He vanishes up to the second floor, leaving silence except for the simmering hiss of hot water. As I look after him, Valentine Simmons’s miserable Four Hundred and Ten Days of Eating Alone statistic scratches at the back of my mind.
“You want me to set the table?” I ask, pausing Mass Effect.