I imagine sketching the scene: me and an oversized hammer, off-balance and smashing, their Whac-A-Mole heads popping like cherries.
I want to say something, something scathing and brilliant and conversation ending, but let’s talk false advertising. The real picture would look something like this: them and their mole eyes and twitching noses, me with my guts back in my art room and my brain melting out onto my lunch tray and my mouth catching all the flies that buzz around the trash can. And I know then that I did the right thing when I crossed out those lawyer numbers. Who the fuck would take my side? No one in Waldo. No one here. No one who saw me scuttling after him since freshman year, flirting at every chance, kissing at regionals. Kissing kissing kissing.
I close my mouth and open it again and close it again, and in the end I just take my tray and walk away. I briefly consider the bathroom, but, ugh, who could actually eat lunch in a school bathroom outside of a nineties chick flick? Gross. I can barely walk through the door without gagging.
Hello, universe. I know you don’t give a shit. But you handed me the wrong nineties chick flick.
I don’t want this one.
I don’t freaking want it.
I just can’t stay at this table. I can’t breathe.
But—there! There’s Micah! And Dewey! I’m even glad to see Dewey! I didn’t know they ate lunch in the hallway! Okay, I totally did. But I pretend I didn’t as I walk over. I pretend and pretend and pretend.
“Look, I’m just saying,” Dewey is saying as I get closer, “that’s who she is. Hell, she’s been—that for so long that she probably doesn’t even fucking remember what the truth is. She didn’t fucking change, Micah. The two of you are just so goddamn parasitic that you can’t even see it. Get your head out of your ass. Just because she flirts with you doesn’t mean you stand a chance. She flirts with everyone.”
Quick, can I get away? No, Micah has already spotted me. His cheeks go red so fast it’s almost funny. My breath catches a little, but I force it out.
I drop my tray next to Dewey and say, “I don’t flirt with you.”
“Yeah, well, there’s that whole thing about me not being into girls,” he says. He doesn’t even try to look embarrassed about seeing me. He takes another bite of pizza before he talks again, and not to me. “Do whatever you want, dude. But I’ll be waiting with the I TOLD YOU SO sign when she fucks you over again.”
Metaphorical sign, I tell myself. They don’t have a real sign.
Do they?
“Shut up,” Micah mutters. He doesn’t look at me. Why doesn’t he look at me? I prod him with my soul. He still doesn’t look up. But he does talk in my direction. “What are you doing here?”
“She’s here because no one back in there wants to sit with her,” Dewey says. Does he always chew with his mouth open? Pepperoni pieces and wet pizza dough between his gnashing, gnashing teeth. “Same reason we’re out here. Right? Cameron’s been telling everyone that he dumped you because you had sex and then you shouted rape because you regretted it in the morning. That true?” He looks straight at me.
I didn’t exactly mean to dump my lunch tray over his head.
“Fuck you,” I say. My voice is perfect—so cold, so wonderfully hollow. “Get a life, Dewey, and stop chasing Micah around. He doesn’t love you back.”
He loves me.
Then I walk away. Just kidding. I sprint the hell out of there. I go straight to the parking lot, and I dig out my phone and start Googling directions on hot-wiring a car. Micah can find another ride home. I’m stealing his.
I’m scrolling through the Wikipedia page, holding my breath because I just have to keep it together until I’m in the car driving away, when suddenly—
“Janie.”
I yelp and drop my phone and close my eyes and take a moment to tell my heart to freaking chill, because it’s not Ander and it’s not Dewey, it’s just Micah. Just Micah.
He bends down to get my phone, and his eyebrows furrow. “You were gonna steal my car?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “but it’s a lot more complicated than nineties chick flicks would have you believe.”
“No shit,” he says, and gets in the car. “Come on.”
I slide into the passenger side. “Metaphor?”
“Sure.”
We drive in silence. I study my palms. There are four perfect half moons where my nails dug in, and a fate line that looks normal. Perfectly straight, average length. I used to think that destiny was fluid, because isn’t that the point of every Disney movie and Saturday-morning cartoon? You make your own choices. You decide how life goes. I always thought that your fate line would change if something happened, bam, something goes wrong and the line on your palm goes all wonky to reflect that. Nope. It still looks fine.
Well, fuck you too, fate.