“Thanks.” I stuff the pen into my bag. She’s still making that face—I can see it out of the corner of my eye—and after a minute I whip around and say, “You shouldn’t be so nice to me.”
“What?” Now she looks completely stunned. Definitely an improvement.
I have to whisper because Tierney’s started his lesson again. Chemical reactions, blah, blah, blah. Transfiguration. Put two liquids together and they form a solid. Two plus two does not equal four.
“Nice to me. You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?” She squinches up her forehead so her eyes nearly disappear.
“Because I’m not nice to you.” The words are surprisingly hard to get out.
“You’re nice,” Lauren says, looking at her hands, but she obviously doesn’t mean it. She looks up and tries again. “You don’t…”
She trails off, but I know what she’s going to say. You don’t have to be nice to me.
“Exactly,” I say.
“Girls!” Mr. Tierney bellows, slamming his fist down on his lab station. I swear he goes practically neon.
Lauren and I don’t talk for the rest of class, but I leave chem feeling good, like I’ve done the right thing.
“That’s what I like to see.” Mr. Daimler drums his fingers on my desk as he walks the aisles at the end of class collecting homework. “A big smile. It’s a beautiful day—”
“It’s supposed to rain later,” Mike Heffner interjects, and everyone laughs. He’s an idiot.
Mr. Daimler doesn’t skip a beat. “—and it’s Cupid Day. Love is in the air.” He looks straight at me and my heart stops for a second. “Everyone should be smiling.”
“Just for you, Mr. Daimler,” I say, making my voice extra sweet. More giggles and one loud snort from the back. I turn around and see Kent, head down, scribbling furiously on the cover of his notebook.
Mr. Daimler laughs and says, “And here I thought I’d gotten you excited about differential equations.”
“You got her excited about something,” Mike mutters. More laughter from the class. I’m not sure if Mr. Daimler hears—he doesn’t seem to—but the tips of his ears turn red.
The whole class has been like this. I’m in a good mood, certain everything will be okay. I’ve got it all figured out. I’m going to get a second chance. Plus Mr. Daimler’s been paying me extra attention. After the Cupids came in he took a look at my four roses, raised his eyebrows, and said I must have secret admirers everywhere.
“Not so secret,” I said, and he winked at me.
After class I gather up my stuff and go out into the hall, pausing for just a second to check over my shoulder. Sure enough, Kent’s bounding along after me, shirt untucked, messenger bag half open and slapping against his thigh. What a mess. I start walking toward the cafeteria. Today I looked more carefully at his note: the tree is sketched in black ink, each dip and shadow in the bark shaded perfectly. The leaves are tiny and diamond shaped. The whole thing must have taken him hours. I stuck it between two pages of my math book so it wouldn’t get crushed.
“Hey,” he says, catching up with me. “Did you get my note?”
I almost say to him, It’s really good, but something stops me. “‘Don’t drink and love?’ Is that some kind of a catchphrase I don’t know about?”
“I consider it my civic duty to spread the word.” Kent puts his hand over his heart.
A thought flashes—you wouldn’t be talking to me if you could remember—but I push it aside. This is Kent McFuller. He’s lucky I’m talking to him at all. Besides, I don’t plan on being at the party tonight: no party, no Juliet Sykes, no reason for Kent to wig out on me. Most important, no accident.
“More like spread the weirdness,” I say.
“I take that as a compliment.” Kent suddenly looks serious. He scrunches up his face so that all the light freckles on his nose come together like a constellation. “Why do you flirt with Mr. Daimler? He’s a perv, you know.”
I’m so surprised by the question it takes me a second to answer. “Mr. Daimler is not a perv.”
“Trust me, he is.”
“Jealous?”
“Hardly.”
“I don’t flirt with him, anyway.”
Kent rolls his eyes. “Sure.”
I shrug my shoulders. “Why so interested?”
Kent goes red and drops his eyes to the floor. “No reason,” he mumbles.
My stomach dips a little bit, and I realize a part of me was hoping his answer would be different—more personal. Of course, if Kent did confess his undying love for me right there, in the hallway, it would be disastrous. Despite his weirdness I have no desire to publicly humiliate him—he’s nice and we were childhood friends and all that—but I could never, ever, ever date him, not in a million lifetimes. Not in my lifetime, anyway: the one I want back, where yesterdays are followed by todays and then tomorrows. The bowler hat alone makes it impossible.
“Listen.” Kent shoots me a look out of the corner of his eye. “My parents are going away this weekend, and I’m having some people over tonight….”
“Uh-huh.” Up ahead I see Rob loping toward the cafeteria. At any second he’ll spot me. I can’t handle seeing him right now. My stomach clenches and I leap in front of Kent, turning my back to the cafeteria. “Um…where’s your house again?”
Kent looks at me strangely. I did basically just set myself up like a human barricade. “Off Route Nine. You don’t remember?” I don’t respond and he looks away, shrugging. “I guess you wouldn’t, really. You were only there a few times. We moved just before middle school. From Terrace Place. You remember my old house on Terrace Place, right?” The smile is back. It’s true: his eyes are exactly the color of grass. “You used to hang out in the kitchen and steal all the good cookies. And I chased you around these huge maple trees in the front yard. Remember?”