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“So where’s Gracie?” she asked after a minute.
“That is a great question.” Dean glanced down the hallway. “I’m not sure. We said we’d grab breakfast, but Gracie wasn’t waiting in the common room like normal.”
Raina didn’t have a response for that, so they walked the rest of the way to the dining hall in comfortable silence. Dean beamed as they approached their usual table, giving Gracie a hug as he sat down.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought we were meeting in the common room.”
Gracie scooted closer to him, curling into his side as she picked up a spoonful of cereal. “Annalisse told me she saw you down here, so I thought you thought we were meeting here.”
Dean frowned. “I was never down here. I was waiting in the common room for you.”
“She probably saw Theo,” Raina offered. The couple turned to look at her, and Raina motioned to where Theo was talking with a group of boys by the buffet tables. “You two look alike from the back. She must have assumed he was Dean.”
“Either way, we’re here now,” Dean said, giving Gracie a smile.
“Are Dean and Gracie being disgustingly cute again?” Jesse asked from behind her.
Raina spun around, nearly crashing into him.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “And yes, they are.”
Jesse made a gagging noise, pretending to stick his finger down his throat. “Ugh. It’s bad enough I have to hear him going on about how much he misses her at night, now I have to see it in person too?”
“Fuck you,” Dean called, but when Raina glanced over, he was pointedly wrapping an arm around his girlfriend.
Raina laughed. “I think they’re cute.”
“Yeah, but you’re a girl.”
Raina frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that girls like gushy cutesy romance stuff.” Jesse grabbed Dean’s banana from his plate, but Dean didn’t even notice, too wrapped up in watching Gracie eat her cereal.
“I mean, I think it’s nice, but it’s not for me,” Raina said. She sat down, taking out her mini cereal box and emptying it into a plastic bowl she’d brought. “If I dated someone, I wouldn’t want a lot of PDA.”
Jesse nodded and began peeling the banana he’d stolen from Dean. Raina turned her attention back to her cereal, only looking up when Jesse blurted out, “What do you meanifyou date someone? You’re not going to date?”
Raina finished chewing her cereal bite before she answered. “Well, it won’t amount to anything. I’m Jewish. I’m going to end up marrying someone who’s also Jewish, and there aren’t any Jewish guys here. Other than Yaakov.”
“So you’re only dating for marriage?”
“That’s what my parents did. Their parents were friends, connected them, and three months later, my parents were engaged.”
“That’s ridiculous. What if they didn’t like each other?”
“Then they would have found someone else. Besides, I am planning to date, just not in high school.”
Jesse looked like he was really, really trying to keep from rolling his eyes. “I disagree. But hey, if those are your beliefs, I can’t change them.”
Raina looked down at her breakfast silently. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to believe. Her parents had taught her from a young age that she would get married after college and there was no real point of dating before then. It was how things were done in her community; it was expected of her, so Raina had never taken a real interest in dating someone. Not until she met Jesse.
Raina had small crushes in middle school and at her old high school, but nothing like what she felt for Jesse. Was what she felt even a crush? She didn’t have anything to compare it to. Some days, she had no idea what she felt for him.
Jesse was a refreshing break from her strict parents. He’d been the first friend she’d made at Trinity, the first person Raina knew that her parents didn’t. Jesse was also someone her parents wouldn’t approve of—for the simple reason that Jesse was a guy. In the Orthodox world, custom dictated that boys and girls didn’t touch. In Raina’s elementary and middle school, classes were separated by gender. Her former high school had been entirely female. That life was all she’d known before Trinity. Before Jesse.
“So I saw the most ridiculous thing on Instagram yesterday.” Zara’s voice jerked Raina out of her thoughts. She looked up to see her friend plop into the seat next to Gracie. “It was an article about how this guy thought gay marriage should be illegal everywhere because it’s disgusting. Apparently, it was from a couple years ago, and last week he came out as bi. Fucking ridiculous.”
Raina caught Jesse and Dean exchanging a glance.
