“Thanks for the save in Spanish,” I say, trying to pull my arm back.
“Lore, I’m fucking worried about you.” Salma keeps her hold on me, her brown eyes narrowed with concern. “You’re sleeping more hours than the rest of us, but you look like you’ve been pulling all-nighters. And you’ve nevergotten in trouble at school before! Something is happening to you, and I think I know what it is.”
She inhales deeply, like this is costing her, and I feel awful that I’m causing her even more pain than she’s already in.
“You resent me for making you come to Huntington,” she blurts out. “Especially since I ditched you the other night. And you have every right to be upset.”
“I don’t—and I’m not!” I rest my hand on hers reassuringly. “I’m just not sleeping well, that’s all. How else do you think I knew you snuck out the other night?”
I manage to lie to Salma with ease. A small part of me is impressed, but most of me is disgusted.
“No,” she argues, “you’re not sleeping well because you didn’t want to come here. I know I twisted your arm—but now I’m letting go.” She pulls her hand off me. “I’m going to call your parents, and I would prefer to do it with you and not behind your back.”
“You’rewhat?”
“I expected you to have called them by now, but I think you’re afraid they’ll hear it in your voice, how unhappy you are. So, if you won’t do it, I will.”
I feel something tightening in my chest. This isn’t like Salma at all. She’s acting like—
Me.
“Salma, what’s going on? You’re not being yourself.”
“You mean I’m being like you?” she asks, reading my thoughts. “Now you can see how it feels.”
“I told you I’m fine!”
Her eyes widen to comical size. “You’re one step closer to expulsion!”
“You heard Mr. Torres,” I say, trying to placate her. “Just give me one more day. If I’m still a mess tomorrow, we can call my parents. Okay?”
She nods in assent, and she looks more relieved than I feel. This is way out of character for her—but then I could say the same about myself.
For Sal’s sake, I force myself to stay awake in my other classes, until finally we get to last period. I love the way Minaro runs this class: She lets us read for the first forty-five minutes, then we have a class discussion about the novel for the last fifteen minutes.
Class time has started, but one of the chairs in the front row remains empty. A quick scan of the others tells me Mateo is missing.
The director isn’t here yet, either. I open my copy ofJane Eyre,eager to keep reading. Jane is at school, and even though Lowood is just as miserable as her aunt’s house, I love that she’s found a friend like Helen.
“Mateo is no longer in this class,” says a deep voice, and I look up from my book to see Minaro, who’s standing in front of her desk, addressing us. “He informed us this morning of his decision to return home. We are of course saddened by this, but we recognize that it can be hard to stay away from our families for this long.”
She looks at me, like she’s somehow aware of my conversation with Salma.
“Yet there is, as with everything, a silver lining,” says the director. “As it is quite early in the year, we were able to let in a student off the waitlist.”
The door opens, and our teacher says, “What fortuitous timing! Please welcome…” The new kid stays out in the hall, and she gestures for them to enter the room. “Your name, dear?”
The guy looks like he barely fits into the school uniform, cutting an even taller and stronger figure than Trevor. As I lift my gaze, the air gets suctioned out of me, and my throat grows dryer than a desert.
The new kid looks straight into my eyes as he introduces himself.
“William Pride.”
CHAPTER 12lorena
“Out with it,” says Salma as soon as we’re back in our room. “I saw the way you and the new kid were looking at each other in class—did you just meet your soulmate?!”
When I stare at her blankly, she turns to Tiffany to back her up. “You saw that, too, right?”
