Page 17

“Oh my God, what did he say?” one friend asks, followed by a lot of screeching.

“Text him back,” another says.

This version of adolescence, the one my parents spent so many years protecting me from, looks pretty good from where I sit.

Ford isn’t in his spot across from me in journalism. I vacillate between wondering where he is and being mad at myself for caring. Mr. Scott had promised we’d be watching a movie today but begins lecturing about defamation instead.

I dutifully take notes, and finally, just as Mr. Scott turns off the lights and cues up the movie, Ford walks in with an office pass.

“You’ll need to copy what you missed,” Mr. Scott says, glancing around the room. His eyes land on me. “Grace—do you mind letting Ford borrow your notes while we watch the film?”

I freeze. My notebook isn’t only journalism notes. It’s everything.

It’s my thoughts on Fahrenheit 451. My questions about the church. My drawings of Ford.

So many drawings.

But I can’t say no. I nod as Ford thumps down into the seat on the other side of the lab table, holding out his hand for my notebook imperiously, like he’s lowering himself to copy my notes. I slide it across the table when I’d actually like to throw it in his face.

“All the notes are on that one page,” I say.

His smirk makes my stomach drop. I might as well have said, Be sure to look at the surrounding pages.

The movie begins, but I can’t focus. In part because it’s fifty years old and boring. Mostly because my eyes are constantly flickering to Ford, who’s taking his sweet time with my notebook. Whenever I glance at him, he catches me, that smirk of his growing.

“I need my notebook back,” I say quietly.

“I’m still copying.” But he isn’t. His pen stopped moving a minute ago, and now his thumb is wedged beneath an earlier page.

“That’s enough. You don’t need to look at the rest of my stuff.”

“You’re awfully proprietary of your little notebook, aren’t you?” he asks. He flips the page and my hand slams down on it.

“Give it back,” I hiss, pulling. We’ve begun to attract attention, but I don’t care. I can’t—there’s no way I’m letting him see the other pages.

He holds fast. “Now I need to know what’s so precious inside here that I can’t even look.”

He tugs the notebook from beneath my flat hand.

There’s a roar in my ears. I’d rather be set on fire than allow him to read my most private thoughts or see that I’ve been trying, again and again, to draw his face.

Throwing my water bottle at him is the only solution I’ve got. He can keep holding the notebook or he can prevent getting a broken nose.

I have a single moment of pure joy as his hands lift from the notebook—I finally did something back to him—and then there’s a cry of outrage from the lab table behind him. The cap was on, but loose. It flew off while airborne, and when Ford batted it away, everyone behind him got wet.

I want to sink into the ground as the lights flip on. “What in God’s name is going on over there?” Mr. Scott demands, glaring at the two of us.

“He wouldn’t give me my notebook back,” I say.

“So, you decided to drench half the class in water?”

“I didn’t know my cap was loose,” I whisper. “I thought if he had to catch the bottle he’d let go.”

Mr. Scott rolls his eyes. “Both of you, head to Dr. Jeffries’ office. Now.”

“Fucking figures,” Ford mutters, glaring at me across the table as he grabs his stuff.

I get my bag as well and follow him into the hall, where he rounds on me. “You fucking threw water on me and I’m going to get a detention for it while you’ll walk away free, like your family always does.”