“I’m fine,” I said, shifting the strap on my shoulder.
“Eh, bullshit,” Perez said, leaning out into the aisle to block my path. “You’ve been like a ghost all week.”
I shook my head. “I’m going to the back.”
Perez stopped chewing. His sharp eyes tracked toward the back rows before snapping back to me. He saw where the only other empty seat was. And he knew who was sitting next to it.
“You sure?” Perez asked, his voice dropping the casual, joking tone. He leaned back, giving me a hard, assessing look. “Keeping your head down is working, bro. Coach is off your back. Don’t go doing something stupid now.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I said. It was a lie, but it was the most efficient way to end the conversation.
Perez raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he held his hands up in surrender. “Suit yourself, man.”
I squeezed past his seat and kept walking, as my grip tightened on the strap of my bag. Perez was right about keeping my head down, but the truth was, keeping up the silent treatment was getting too hard to maintain.
Dodging Karter took more energy than fighting him. I was done running.
Karter was in a window seat near the back. Three rows up, his brother was already out cold, head slumped against the glass.
I shoved my bag into the overhead rack and slipped into the empty aisle seat next to Karter.
Taking it probably looked like I just didn’t have anywhere else to go. I did. But I’d learn early on in life that if you spend all your time ducking a hit, you just end up backing yourself into a corner.
Avoiding him gave him the power. So, if Karter wanted to throw challenges at me in parking lots, fine. I’d sit right next to him, crowd his space, and show him how ugly this could get. Let’s see how much reality the legacy kid could stomach before he panicked and backed off.
I settled myself in my seat, while beside me, Karter went still.
His hand slipped from our shared armrest to rest on his leg, his fingers digging into his thigh. “You’re actually sitting here,” Karter whispered.
“Nowhere else to sit,” I said.
“Perez had an empty seat.”
“He talks too much.” I settled deeper into the aisle seat, tilting my weight so my shoulder crowded his space. “So do you.”
“Not tonight.” The thin glow of a passing headlight outside the bus swept across Karter’s face, catching the pale green of hisirises before the dark swallowed him again. “You’ve been the one talking.”
“I haven’t said a goddamn word in days.”
“Yeah, well.” Karter’s teeth sank into his lower lip, a quick flash of white before he let it go. “Silence is a statement too.”
“Everything’s a statement to you.”
“Your knee is touching mine.”
My jaw tightened. It was.
“The bus is cramped,” I said.
“No. It’s not.” Karter’s thigh didn’t shift. Neither did mine. “You’re avoiding my question. And me.”
“I picked up extra shifts at work.”
“And skipped Tuesday’s study session.”
“I can highlight a textbook perfectly well without you holding my hand,” I said.
I stared straight ahead, but I could practically hear the gears turning in his head. When Karter spoke again, his voice had that unhurried, steady rhythm he always used—the one that sounded like he’d never had to fight for a chance to speak in his life. “Right. So, are you going to stare straight at the back of that seat for the entire trip to the U.P.?”
