“Ginger, stop that,” she scolded. “Sorry. He usually likes people.”
I’m not people.I wondered if she’d ever had a wyvern in her room before. So far as I knew, she didn’t have any other wyvern friends. Or, really, many friends at all, as her brother had pointed out. “I wanted to apologize for running out on you at the movies.” As soon as I said it, I realized I did feel bad about it. I’d used her, and here I was, planning on using her again.
Guilt is such a uselesshumanemotion. I’m fairly certain that our ancestors didn’t feel guilt over how they treated anyone. But then, they didn’t have to live in a majority-human world. It was understandable that we’d picked up a few bad habits.
“Not necessary,” Gabriela said. “You’re going through a rough time. Frankly, I was surprised you asked me to come in the first place. You usually only call about homework.”
And more guilt. I hadn’t even realized I only called about school before now. Funny how a little social ostracism causes one to reevaluate all relationships. “Speaking of homework…we don’t have any. It’s April break, at least until tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She blushed. It lit up her cheekbones. But still, she raised her chin and looked at me as if daring me to laugh at her. “I like to give myself research projects.”
See? Fearless. She had to know how that sounded. “I like to climb things,” I offered.
“I know. You climbed to the roof of the school in third grade.”
I was surprised she remembered that. Granted, it was one of my finer moments. I’d been sent to the principal’s office, and Mom had been so proud. She liked to climb too.
“I made a list of the bones you were likely to break and gave it to the teacher so she’d know what to tell the ambulance. Except I didn’t know how to spell half the bones, and she thought it was gibberish. She was an idiot.”
“She was,” I agreed. “She never noticed when the gym teacher flirted with her. And it was obvious to even oblivious little third graders. Just whined about how she’d die an old maid, like her great-aunt Agnes—”
“—who had nine cats and was found dead with all of them sleeping on her,” Gabriela finished. She grinned, and I grinned back. “You know, I don’t think Great-Aunt Agnes even existed. Just a family story. Looked for her obituary once and couldn’t find it.”
“You researched her obituary?”
“I researcheverything.It’s kind of my thing.”
That was…interesting? Quirky? Alarming. “Have you researched me?”
“You’re very easy to Google.”
Now it was my turn to blush. Heat rose up my neck and stained my cheeks. “And you’re still speaking to me?” I knew what the tabloids said about me, and I knew they weren’t entirely wrong either. Iamselfish and shallow—or at least I try to be. Makes life hurt less.
“I know you wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t broken up with Ryan,” she said matter-of-factly. “You’re usually sandwiched between the other wyverns and don’t notice humans exist.”
Ouch. Just because I hung out with only wyverns didn’t mean I had no human friends. Well, actually, yes, it did. “That’s…”
“Fair? True?” Gabriela shrugged. Crossing to her desk, she straightened a few papers, tucked some into folders, and neatened her notebooks. I didn’t know what to say. I certainly hadn’t come here to argue. “Sorry, that was harsh,” she said. “I just wish that when you’d left the movie theater, you’d told me. I had a hundred scenarios playing out in my head: You’d slipped in the bathroom, hit your head, and were lying there unconscious. You’d been kidnapped and held for a ransom. You’d been dragged into an alley and murdered. You’d been drugged and taken, and I’d have to explain to the police and your kind of scary father—”
“You have an overactive imagination,” I cut her off. “I was just upset. Ryan…” I sank down on her bed. Hissing, the cat bolted out the door. Cats really don’t like wyverns. “Well, you probably heard at least some version of what happened, and the details don’t really matter.” He’d led the official shunning. When the council voted to lower our rank at the last Reckoning, he was the one who had turned his back on us—on me—which forced all the other wyverns to do the same or be shunned too. It didn’t matter that his parents had told him to do it. What mattered was he’d done it. I’d never thought he’d choose them over me. And once he had…everyone else had followed suit. Emma, Emily, Carlos, Topher…all the wyverns who’d eaten lunch with me, complained about homework with me, danced in a clump at school dances with me…None of them had even hesitated, because Ryan had done it first.
“He’d seemed nice. Are we supposed to hate him now?” She sat down next to me, knocking off a few books and a couple of stuffed animals that had been cuddled so much their ears were frayed. “You’ll have to tell me what to do. As my brother so nicely pointed out, I don’t have that many friends.”
“Guess we have that in common now.”
She laughed.
Glancing at her clock—which had math symbols instead of numbers on its face—I saw it was 9:45. Fifteen minutes until it was time to meet Ryan. “I have another favor to ask, and it does involve ditching you again. But not publicly, and you won’t have to worry about my dying.”
Our secret meeting place was on the Top 100 Best Ice Cream Shops in America list inUSA Todayand had been featured on Food Network twice. So, not very secret. We used to meet here, though, and tell our parents we were studying together at the library—his family had zero interest in human-run establishments, so they never caught on. I really love blackberry ice cream. He likes red-hots mixed into vanilla. He was asking the girl at the counter to add more red-hots when I walked inside. Seeing him, I stopped and was tempted to turn around and run back to Gabriela’s.
It felt like seeing the empty chair at our kitchen table.
He was my missing chair.
But then he saw me in the reflection in the glass over the ice cream. I saw my name on his lips, though he didn’t say it out loud. Joining him at the counter, I ordered a cup of blackberry, two scoops. Extra sprinkles.
We took our ice cream to a booth in the corner, all without looking at or speaking to each other—the two of us radiating so much awkwardness, I was surprised it didn’t drive everyone else out of the store. Their ice cream must have tasted too good to leave. We slid in across from each other, and Ryan handed me a napkin—a simple gesture, but it made me think,He still cares.I took the napkin.
