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Xavier and Trish shake their heads and Sequoia shrugs. “I could use some math tutoring,” she says, giving me a small frown.
“We could use a break,” Emory says from the desk on my left. “I’d like a free lunch period every once in a while. Maybe we should make Fridays off be a mandatory thing.”
My brows draw together, and I immediately want to throw him a look, but I don’t.
Bastian clucks his tongue. “I hardly think that would be a good idea. We will resume daily meetings on Monday.” To Emory, he says, “If you don’t want to be here, you don’t have to show up.”
“Trust me, I’d rather be here than listen to another one of Mrs. Gertie’s speeches.”
Emory smiles, but Bastian’s face squints up, and he brings his hands in front of his chest, squeezing his fingers together in a mock of how badly he’d like to strangle Emory. Everyone laughs except for Bastian. “Okay, guys, let’s make this meeting a good one. Sequoia? Would you like to begin?”
All week my stomach has been permanently clenched in a ball of anxiety over the homecoming dance that takes place tonight. Just when I’d settled into a routine of trying to ignore it, I arrive in third period AP history to find Lauren’s desk empty. She’d said I could always eat lunch with her, and now she’s not even here on the day I need her. Ciara is at her hair appointment, and I’m stuck, alone when the bell rings for lunch.
I know I could text Emory and ask what he’s doing and if he’d like to throw a rope to my pathetic self for the next forty-five minutes. Knowing him, he could be sitting with a group of guys he’s known his whole life, or he could spend his lunch period lying on a chaise being fanned with palm branches by girls in bikinis. I scowl at the mental image and head toward the stairwell.
Things have been really weird with Emory ever since he texted me last weekend when I was dress shopping. I’d ended up sending him a picture of the dress I’d chosen for the dance. It was on the hanger, not on my body like Ciara had suggested, and all he wrote back was a smiley face.
We haven’t texted at all since then. During gym class, the boys have been doing physical fitness assessments all week and Mr. Wang’s lectures have been an endless stream of words from the start of the period to the time the bell rings. It’s as if the universe set me up to have a homecoming date and now it doesn’t want me conversing with Emory anymore.
I’m not about to ask if I can eat lunch with him.
Dread builds in my stomach as I walk into the cafeteria, keeping my shoulders straight and my head level. I will simply buy some food, take a really long time to walk to an empty seat and then eat as quickly as humanly possible and get the hell out of there. I’ll wander the halls or go to the library. I can d
o this.
A finger taps me on the shoulder. I turn around, partly wondering if the tapping was an accident, and find Emory standing behind me in the food line, a pleasant yet cocky smirk plastered on his lips. “Cafeteria food?” he asks. “Gag.”
I shrug. “No free pizza today.”
“On the contrary,” he says, wrapping his arm around my elbow. “Let’s go.”
I let him lead me out of the line, and I try really hard to hold back the blood that wants to rush to my face. Is everyone watching me? Are girls glaring at us as I walk past, arm in arm with one of the hottest guys in the school?
I wouldn’t know because I don’t look up.
“You’re really hard to get a read on,” I say as we push out of the cafeteria doors and head toward the right.
“Why’s that?” Emory asks, releasing my arm now that we’re alone. He walks quickly, checking the time on his phone as we head down a narrow hallway that leads out to the parking lot.
I shrug. Be cool. “Sometimes we’re friends and sometimes we’re … I don’t know, distant.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Iz-la. Blame me.”
I glance over at him, but he’s staring straight ahead. “What does that mean?”
“I’d rather not explain it,” he says. He opens the door and steps out into the crisp September air, holding it open for me. His pocket jingles as he grabs his car keys and presses a button that makes the headlights on his shiny red Camaro light up.
The moment we reach his car, an older white truck pulls up next to us, a Meadows Pizza magnet on the door. The driver appears to be in his twenties, and he rolls down the window, holding out a pizza box and two bottles of soda to Emory.
“Thanks, man,” Emory says, handing him some cash. The guy nods, cranks up his stereo, and drives off.
Emory tosses his car keys to me while balancing the pizza box on his other hand. “You can pick something on the radio.”
I peer at him over the roof of his car and press my lips together. “You got pizza and two drinks? Who were you supposed to eat lunch with?”
“You,” he says all matter-of-factly as he opens the driver’s side door and slides into his car. I open the passenger door and slink into the soft leather seat, the overwhelming smell of new car hitting my senses before the smell of the pizza sweeps it away.
He hands me a drink, and I tilt my head. “You mean to tell me that you predicted I’d be a complete loser with no friends who would need to be bailed out of lunch today?”
