He responds fast.
JACKSON:
Oh no, what’d you have?
ELLIE:
A sandwich and an argument
He’s typing another message. Then stops. Yeah, that was a difficult text to respond to. He’s trying to be friendly, and I’m giving him absolutely nothing to go on here.
I’m half hoping that he’s looking up a quick bit of ASL to respond with another video. I try to come up with something to casually double text, just to soften my last message and seem more approachable. But it’s been too long since my last message, and now it doesn’t seem right to send a follow-up. I’m hoping he’ll still reply.
And yet there’s not another text from him tonight.
Since the weather’s nice today, I wish I could spend lunch outside, but Amber High doesn’t let students leave the building during the school day. I’m alone at a far corner table in the cafeteria, reading some dry thriller that’s not the least bit thrilling. Still, I jump when I realize someone is standing beside me saying something. It’s Jackson.
Are we doing the tour now? He’d said study hall in his text, right? I already know where all my classes are and don’t really care to learnmuch more about Amber High. “Is Ms. Lily making you do this…” I say bluntly. Maybe I should’ve led with aheyor something.
Jackson waits for me to look up from my lunch again before speaking, starting with something about “making me do this.” Did he sayisorisn’t? “But I don’t want to bother you if you’d rather—” He gestures to the book I’ve put down.
“That’s okay.”
I pack up my food, close my book, and stand—then look down to see Jackson has sat and opened his lunch box.
“Um.” Jackson is flustered. “If you didn’t want me to…” He trails off, mumbling.
“Oh, we’re eating first?” I realize my mistake. Now it’s my turn to feel awkward. I take a seat again and lift the plastic flap off my microwaveable soup that still has the spoon inside. “And then the tour during study hall?”
“Yeah.” He takes a long sip of water. Jackson’s lunch is meal-prepped chicken and rice with a side of veggies and a bag of kettle chips. Before he dives into anything, I try to insist that he doesn’t need to be here. He’s more than fulfilling his obligations to help the new student, and he doesn’t have to sit with me just because I’m all alone at lunch. Like, yes, he’s nice, and I’m surprisingly enjoying his company, but I don’t want it if it’s coming from a place of pity.
“Really, I’m fine by myself. I don’t want to keep you from your friends.” The next part slips out of my mouth before I remember we do not have this level of familiarity yet. “That is, if you have any.”
Half his mouth curls into an uncertain grin. “The checks must have stopped clearing.” That was a joke, I think. An attempt to level out the rather rude statement I just made. He’s still saying something as he nods toward a group of guys sitting a few tables down.Some of them are wearing similar athletics jackets to the one I’ve seen Jackson sport.
“You’re usually there?” I ask.
It’s impossible to know what he’s saying. My hearing aid and cochlear implant are no match for the raucous cafeteria. Even when the technology tries to autofocus on what’s in front of me, I don’t get a clear picture, especially because Jackson and I are sitting side by side and not across from each other, which means I have to keep turning to read his lips.
My resting bitch face now has an added “I can’t tell what the hell is going on” frown to it. It’s definitely going to scare Jackson away.
I hope it doesn’t.
“My teammates,” he says, facing me now. “They’ve been the worst lately.”
“Oh, really?”
He opens a small Tupperware of green beans. “I don’t know if I should tell you this…”
I wait, impatiently, but he doesn’t continue. “Now you kind of have to,” I pry.
“That one”—Jackson points to the preppy-looking guy dominating the conversation between players—“seems to be the one who started the, well, rumor.”
My eyes narrow. I hate that I know what’s coming.
“That you were faking, um…” Jackson’s jaw tightens.
I save him from having to explain further. “I figured. The way people were staring at me after that shit class.”
