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“Jeez, walk much?” a snide voice demanded, one I recognized with a sigh. She would’ve kept walking if she hadn’t seen who’d fallen. But she did a double-take at my downturned head, voice going from annoyed to a sort of saccharine gooeyness that made my insides crawl. “Wow, Maisie, I didn’t even see you there.”
I wouldn’t have categorized Jade Dyer as a bully. A jerk, maybe, an absolute snob, but not a bully. She had that superior type personality, treating people as if they were beneath her, but emotional warfare wasn’t really something Jade doled out.
Unless, of course, it was me.
“These hallways are always so crowded,” she went on, voice smug as she glanced around. “But still, Maisie. You should watch where you’re walking.”
Of course, Jade wasn’t alone staring down at me. Madison stood at the cheerleader’s left elbow, biting down on her lower lip, but even better, Connor was there too. Of course he was. He had his hand wrapped around Jade’s, but I refused to lift my gaze higher.
My boyfriend was among the people towering over me, not even attempting to help me collect my things. His hands hadn’t even come out of his pockets. In fact, he was star-struck in the presence of the Top Tier, as if they were famous actors instead of mediocre high schoolers.
“Too bad algebra doesn’t help with coordination.” Jade folded her arms across her chest, watching as I grabbed my apple and shoved it back into the split paper bag. My turkey and ham sandwich had landed in the path of traffic, and in the midst of my fall, someone’s sneaker had squished it flat. “X might not equal Y, but even after all these years, Maisie still equals clumsy.”
It wasn’t even a good insult, but my cheeks heated regardless. The warmth only flared hotter when Connor bent and picked up my water bottle that had rolled to stop against his sneaker, offering it out to me. Something about the small gesture left me gritting my teeth, like he could pick up my stupid water but not keep his girlfriend from bulldozing me in the hallway. If I expected him to call off Jade based on our newfound tutoring relationship, I was sorely wrong. I snatched the plastic bottle from his grip.
“Why doesn’t X equal Y?” I asked Jade as I got to my feet, using the back of my hand to nudge my glasses higher up my nose. Madison had taken a step away from the couple, almost like she was attempting to blend in with the crowd. “What are their values?”
When Jade smiled, it looked like a piece of chiffon—transparent enough for me to see the slice of steel underneath. “Huh?”
“You didn’t quantify the variables, which means that it’s possible that X equals Y. But you’re saying that Xdoesn’tequal Y, meaning you added values to the variables. I’m asking what they are.”
Alex gripped my elbow then, trying—and failing—to discreetly pull me aside to whisper, “Would you stop?”
Stop what?I wanted to ask, because it could’ve been two things: Stop talking geek speak or stop embarrassing him in front of the Top Tier. Most likely, it was both.
Jade gave an unkind chuckle as she tipped her head to the side, closer to Madison. “She makes it too easy, doesn’t she?”
Once upon a time, Madison stood up for me in front of Jade. When I first switched schools, we’d attempted to make the friendship work the three of us. It was quickly obvious that Madison’s school bestie and home bestie weren’t going to mesh, though—even back in the ninth grade.
“Yeah,” Madison said now, blinking fast. “She really does.”
In the whole conversation, that was what hurt the worst. Not Jade running her mouth just to make noise. Not even Connor and Alex, silently watching the showdown, refusing to intervene. It was the complete and utter disregard of someone who’d once been like a sister to me.
The hallway swayed a bit as I watched the three of them start toward the cafeteria, my sluggish heartbeat loud in my ears. Students still moved around us; the crowd had lessened now, but even though there were fewer prying eyes, I felt utterly exposed.
“Maisie,” Alex began, loosening his grip on my elbow, but not letting go completely. He didn’t go on, probably wondering, like me, what there was that he could possibly say.
“Drop it,” I said sharply, juggling my broken lunch bag so the contents didn’t spill out again. The pressure on my chest caved and creased, but it didn’t go away.
The next day, I stared at the door to the library with a laser-like focus, not even blinking. It was black with chipping paint and a small window inset into the metal, and every time someone walked past it, my spine prickled.
On the packet Mrs. Diego gave me, it said that we were to meet in the library after school. It’d been thirty-four minutes since school let out. Twenty-four minutes since Connor Bray was supposed to meet me. And in six minutes, I was giving up and walking out. If Star Player couldn’t be bothered, neither could I.
Inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth.
I’d started off our tutoring session feeling okay. I’d had the entire day to convince myself that I wasn’tmeeting Connor Bray, the football prodigy. Instead, I pretended I was meeting some other student who needed help with their math. Someone who was kind and desperate and had a good attitude about wanting to learn. Pretending got me through theI don’t want to do thismantra that’d been dancing around my head since I’d woken up that morning.
In the first ten minutes of waiting for Connor, I’d settled in at a table closest to the door. In the first fifteen minutes, I’d already unpacked the Algebra II book Mrs. Diego had given me as well as a few practice problems I’d organized onto a piece of lined paper. After twenty minutes, I started staring at the door.
And it was about four minutes ago that I realized he wasn’t coming.
Was he really going to stand me up? After all that BS of lying to Mrs. Diego and forcing me to help, he was going to be a no-show? Was this some prank on me?Ooh, get the math geek’s hopes up about valedictorian?
The door opened, but it was only a petite girl with a rainbow ponytail. Not the muscular figure I was ready to fight.
Five minutes left. Mrs. Diego could clear my tutoring roster and give Connor VIP access all she wanted, but I wasn’t about to chase him down like some mom searching for her toddler in a grocery store. Where would he even be right now? The football field? Yeah, I didn’t need a round two of yesterday. I barely escaped with my sanity the first time, andhe’dbarely escaped without me drawing blood.
I should’ve bitten him harder.
