“Whatever. Don’t ever watch me sleep again. It’s creepy.”
“Oh, you wish I was watching you, but alas.” He holds up a thick fantasy novel. He’s dressed for practice, so I get the feeling that’s where he’s supposed to be. Marcus Riddick as an avid reader is so inconsistent with all the things most people know about him, which is why he seems to do it only when nobody else is around.
“I hope it has plenty of pictures,” I say, as I head for the door.
Marcus laughs, a deep rumble from his chest. “Good one. Very original.”
Fat headphones now over his ears, he starts to lock up the infirmary. I look over at him with the express purpose of marveling at Nurse Diamond’s bad judgment, leaving a senior who thinks class schedules are a suggestion in charge. But he’s already looking my way, so I quickly glance away.
I actually liked Marcus a lot when we first met. It was July last year, a month before Dad died, that Penny threw a big start-of-summer party. Marcus had just moved to town, and I had no idea who he was at the time, but somehow, we spent a whole night talking on the back steps of Penny’s house. We talked books and our families and expectations and college. It was also when Marcus first started trying to make This or That happen. I thought heseemed sweet and funny and genuine. And it goes without saying that he was not bad on the eyes. But then his true colors came out. We were barely two weeks into September, barely two weeks into the school year, when I found out what he really thought about me.
I head to my locker, pulling out my backpack and books. The school is deserted. But as I exit the building, Marcus is a mere second behind, both of us deliberately not walking together the whole way to student parking.
The ground makes the occasional crunchy noise under my boots as the first few brown and yellow leaves speckle the lot.
I pick up my pace and have almost reached my car when Marcus calls my name. “Zadie!”
I sigh and turn around. “What, Marcus?”
He closes the distance between us. “Forgot to mention: I hear congratulations are in order.”
I frown. “Congratulations?”
Now that he’s stopped in front of me, I can see that his eyes are dancing. They are unsettling for how different they are from Jason’s. I’ve always thought there was one variety of brown eyes. Jason has beautiful, familiar dark brown eyes. Warm, steadfast eyes. Marcus’s are a lighter brown with flecks of yellow.
At the look of confusion on my face, he gestures to his ring finger. “It’s so romantic when teenagers take a marriage vow when they can barely vote or see an R-rated movie.”
God. The promise ring.
“Oh, um…”
He’s clearly needling me, but the lack of expression on his face makes me doubt myself.
I stand straighter, feign smugness. “Yeah, well, we’re inlove.”
Marcus smirks, like I’ve just told him a good knock-knock joke. “So I’m told.”
He starts to move in the opposite direction, pulling his headphones back over his ears.
“By the way,” he pauses, speaking too loudly because of his music. “How surprised do you think Jay will be to find himself engaged to the girl he broke up with by the time he wakes up?”
I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t speak.
“Yeah.” Marcus grins. “That’s what I thought.”
And then he crosses the parking lot and is gone.
Five
So much for my hope that Marcus didn’t overhear my voice note to Mo.
The only thought more infuriating than realizing I might have to talk to Marcus Riddick again is accepting that I might have tobargainwith Marcus Riddick.
Since our run-in on Monday, I’ve been scoping out who knows what about Jason and me, and as far as I can tell, only Marcus knows about the breakup. And for some reason, he’s kept it to himself. I’ll need to shake the truth out of him and beg him not to breathe a word to anyone.
My soul and dignity in exchange for his silence.
How is deadbeat Marcus my biggest problem?I whisper to myself as I ring the doorbell of Jason’s house. I smooth down my dark blue dress, fix my hair while I wait.
