I suppose he’s doing a fine job of running away as it is, though. For every step he takes, I have to make two. I’m not that much shorter, so I know he’s pushing it. Our first hour is physics, the farthest building on campus, which means “I’ll be sweaty and breathless by the time my ass finds a seat in there.”

  I said that part out loud. Shit.

  “Not my problem,” Lucas says over his shoulder. His arms pump as if he’s a speed walker. He pushes open the double doors of the A building and flings them open enough to give me a chance to zip through behind him. He was probably rooting for them to close on my shoulders. All I can focus on are his leather sleeves and that it’s a little warm, now that we’re outside.

  “You know, it’s like eighty, and humid,” I say, somehow halting my words before tacking on a bit about how stupid his jacket is. I also think he’s cute in it, which is fucking up my head right now. I’m both physically and emotionally hot, and I want to take it out on that jacket and the ego it represents. I’ve never even seen him play in a varsity game.

  He doesn’t respond, and that’s probably for the best. Also, either I’m getting faster or he’s slowing down because the gap between us is tightening. Students rush past us, probably taking up all of the seats in our class, which is still a good four hundred yards away. I’m almost in sync with his steps when he turns and stops in the middle of the walkway.

  “We don’t have to do this, you know.” He points at me then to himself. I have no idea what he means, and my expression must say so because he explains. “Pretend we have some bond or shit. You have your life, I have mine that I’ve built here. Just go to class, hang out with your friend, get your straight A’s or whatever.”

  “Friends,” I cut in.

  He shrugs and wrinkles his brow, annoyed.

  “You said I should hang out with my friend, but I have friends, Lucas.” You used to be one of them.

  “Sure. Just . . .” He pauses, his jaw stiffening the way it does when he’s frustrated. So many of his nuances are etched in my memory bank. With a slight shake to his head, he glances up and takes a deep breath, letting his shoulders quickly lift and fall. His gaze leaves the sky and lands back on me. “I’m just saying, it’s not like we really know each other now. That’s all.”

  He turns and continues down the path, but I don’t bother to keep up. I let him get several feet ahead, far enough that the doors to the science building close behind him while I have many steps to go. I let him go in case I have to cry, but really, I’m just pissed. The clenched sensation in my gut makes me want to scream. My hand flattens along the bar for the double doors, but I stop before pushing and check my reflection in the tinted glass. I don’t want to look the way I feel. While I don’t really know people here very well, they know enough about me to put together the crush I once had on the guy who just walked into Physics. I’m already chasing him in there. I don’t need to look upset about it, too.

  With one heavy exhale, I push the right door open and slip quietly inside. The bells have sounded and the classroom doors are closed. I’m holding this golden late pass of a new student’s schedule, though, so I can take my time. My steps are measured, a fraction of what they were outside. Might as well also take advantage of this time to cool down. I let Abby talk me into wearing my hair down straight. It feels like a damp warm blanket on my back and shoulders, though, and I’m pretty sure my flat iron work to smooth out the kinks has all been undone. My hair isn’t curly, but it’s far from perfectly straight. It’s more tousled without the supermodel image that word conjures.

  The class door flies open easily but I manage to grab the handle before it flings into the wall. My entry still catches most everyone’s attention. I focus on the teacher, an older man wearing a shirt like my dad owned—collared and polo-style with a single breast pocket. Today’s color is orange. Vivid orange. I wonder what the rest of his closet looks like.

  “I’m sorry. I’m new, and I had to stop at the office,” I explain, diffusing the disgruntled look forming on his face. He wasn’t here my freshman year. I knew all the teachers, despite only knowing maybe six students.

  “Oh, yes! Miss Mabee.” A few snickers are poorly masked by fake coughs. People my age are so amused by alliteration. He takes my paper and tips his glasses forward on his nose. He has a thin comb over, and the gel he used to swipe the hairs from right to left is still fresh. It glistens.

  “I hope you’re all right with a front-row seat,” he says, bending at the edge of his desk to sign my form. He points with the tip of his pen to the only open seat in the classroom. I’ve already noticed it though, and the six-foot-something pissed-off jock sitting behind it.

  “Here you go,” the teacher says, handing back my paper. I keep my focus on the teacher’s name on the page rather than the desk I’m sliding into. He didn’t say it when I walked in, so the pronunciation is still a mystery to me—Slatvka.

  Situated in my chair, I lean forward, elbows on the small desktop so my hair doesn’t tangle itself with anything Lucas-related behind me. I’m so obsessed with that fear that I reach behind my neck and sweep it over my right shoulder, entwining it with my mechanical pencil and flinging it around like a rogue swing set.

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper just as the pencil falls loose and onto the floor, bouncing backward of course. I run my fingers through my now-tangled hair, flattening it over my shoulder before I lean to the side and slouch in my seat in an attempt to reach my pencil. Our teacher is writing a list of the things we need to purchase for class on the board, and he’s about to hand out the syllabus, which means I have about three more seconds before he turns around and spots my contortionist act. The rest of the class is already privy to this spectacular view. I’m nearly flat in my seat, head practically resting on Lucas’s desktop behind me while my hand flails about, fingers stretching and pinching desperately at the floor but coming up with nothing but air.

  Lucas groans and taps on the top of my head with a flick of his finger.

  “Sit up,” he says, leaning to his right while I do, and easily picking up my pencil. I twist just enough to glance at him sideways, taking the pencil in my hand. He doesn’t let go right away, holding on for an extra two or three seconds to make sure I feel the burn of everyone staring at me. It irritates me, and the thank you I was preparing to say gets swapped out for an entirely different response.

  “You could have picked it up sooner.” I give my best glower, and he lets go of the tip, pulling the eraser out and tossing it back on the floor where it bounces a good four or five feet away. I breathe out a faint laugh then look back at him before turning around for the final time—ever!

  “Good thing I don’t make mistakes,” I say, holding his gaze for a beat then turning to greet Mr. Slatvka just in time to take the syllabus from him.

  I busy myself copying down the list of items that I plan to get tonight at the office supply store, feeling pleased with myself for how I handled that little interaction. When our teacher makes it to the back of the classroom, Lucas leans forward on his elbows and brings his mouth close enough to my neck that I feel the tickle of his warm breath.

  “June,” he says, breathing out my name. Both the sound and the feel of it along my skin force me to stop writing and pay attention to the prickle of every hair on my body. I blink at the words typed on my paper. “You are so far from perfect, you have no clue.”

  His weight shifts against the back of my seat where his desktop touches my chair, and I shake with the blunt force of his shoe on the leg of my chair as he rests it there, pushing me forward an inch or two.

  This isn’t one of those moments when I don’t have a response. I’ve got one. It just wouldn’t put him in his place. I say it in my head instead of giving him the satisfaction.

  I know exactly how imperfect I am.

  Chapter Three

  The day just gets better and better. And by better, I mean complete nosedive into a shit pool.

  I had the option of getting out of school early this year. I earned enough credits, and none of the last hour electives appealed to me. I hate cooking, so culinary was out. I’ve already taken photography—and I live with a photographer—and the thought of being in the weight room with half of the football team trying to bulk up sounded like torture. But Abby has to be here for the full day, and she begged.

  She begged, and I caved.

  I figured being a teacher’s assistant for the last hour would be a cake walk, and I’d be able to sit in the back of the class and fly through my homework in an hour. I’m assigned to a freshman algebra class, so the only work I’ll have to help with is making copies and handing out paper since student grading isn’t allowed. It looked promising, until Tory was camped out in Mr. Newsome’s chair when I walked in. He’s Mr. Newsome’s favorite, because Tory D’Angelo and his brother Hayden are the one-two punch on Public’s basketball team, and Mr. Newsome is their coach. I could have been assigned to any classroom for this hour, and somehow, I’m doubling up with him.

  “Why the glum look, Mabee?” Tory twists side to side in the office chair a few feet away from me. I’ve been pretending to ignore his existence while I review the stack of class rules and instructions I collected today, and jot down lists of other teachers I can potentially assist.

  “No glum look. Just relishing how comfortable this box is, and what a gentleman you are,” I say without peeling my eyes from my work. I’m sitting on a large storage bin filled with donated school supplies like note cards, handwipes and tissues. This class is full and there are no extra chairs. Tory hasn’t moved from his seat—too busy playing solitaire on the teacher’s laptop.

  “Oh, I’m a gentleman. I offered to share.” He swivels so his knees are square with me then pats his thigh.

  “I’m not sitting on your lap,” I say, my tone flat and head tilted. I’ve twisted my hair into a knot and poked two pencils through it to hold it in place. It’s slipping a little, so tiny hairs stick out in all directions and tickle my face. I pull the pencils free to retwist.

  “You should leave it down,” Tory says. Ignoring him, I continue to twist, holding one pencil in my hand and one gripped by my teeth.

  “I’m serious,” he continues. I give in with a sideways look as I poke one pencil through my attempt at a bun; once I feel it’s secure, I take the pencil from my mouth and maneuver it around my head.

  “I’m waiting for the misogynistic joke that usually follows everything you’ve ever said to me.” I wiggle the second pencil until everything feels secure then let my hands fall flat to my lap, my focus still on Tory.

  A few seconds pass without him saying a word, and while I partly brace myself for a doozy of a comeback, a piece of me also feels guilty for laying into him after a compliment. He eventually shrugs and turns back to the computer, clicking away at card graphics while wearing a flat line on his mouth.

  “June, can I get a hand with these?” Mr. Newsome asks. Delighted to leave the close quarters with Tory, I unfurl my legs and stretch to a stand as I take a stack of stapled papers from the teacher. Rather than passing several at a time up the rows, I drop one at every desk, mostly to stretch the activity out a little longer.

  There are a few packets left when I get to the last student, so I hold them up to signal I’m done. Mr. Newsome nods for me to leave them on his desk, and I head back to my box-seat only to find it occupied by Tory. The desk chair is turned to the side for easy access, and my papers are stacked in front of the laptop. The asshole makes me grin a little and I glance down at where he’s slouched on the box, back against the wall, as I pass by. He looks up from his phone for a hint and our eyes meet.

  “Yeah, yeah. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’,” he says with an uneven smile and shift of his eyes. His thumb scrolls through a series of Instagram images like he’s playing roulette, and my mouth forms the shape to utter “thank you” back to him. Before the words come out, though, he stops on a picture of a woman in barely-there lingerie, and I decide to just be smug about this. Might as well let this class period end with his nice gesture rather than open an opportunity for him to show me all of his sordid follows on social media.

  The bell is mid-ring by the time Tory is up from the box and headed to the door. He holds out a fist to pound with Mr. Newsome, who suggests he only go half-speed in football practice and save yourself for the sport that really matters.

  Tory laughs quietly and nods, leaving the room without looking back to where he left me the comfortable seat. I wait for everyone to clear out so I can pitch an idea to Mr. Newsome, but as the last few students leave, Lucas slips in and I practically sprint back to the chair. Pulling the pencils from my makeshift bun, I let my hair fall to my left side to shade my face and provide camouflage.

  “You have a sec? I need help on something, and I’m not sure how to handle it.” It’s a different tone from Lucas than I’ve been hearing; this one is more like the boy I grew up with. There’s an uncertainty to it, and respect. Our interactions have been far from courteous.

  “Sure, you wanna step outside?” I tense at Mr. Newsome’s response. Clearly, he means it’s not private in here.

  “No, it’s—” I turn my head and my hair slides apart like a veil, and my eyes hit Lucas’s for a breath. He holds his stare on me and responds. “It’s fine. It’s not anything private.”

  Emboldened by being allowed to stay, I tuck the hair behind my ear and offer an apologetic smile that’s quickly dismissed when Lucas turns his shoulder to me and shoves his hands in his pockets. I blink away and return my focus to my papers, drawing the same doodle of flowers and leaves that I started earlier in the day.

  “What’s going on?” Mr. Newsome’s tone is lowered, but I can still hear every word. I should leave.

  “It’s about Tennessee,” Lucas says. I’m guessing it’s college. Even though I quit attending Public games when I quit going to school here, it was impossible not to hear about them. Lucas started as a sophomore, and they went to state last year. Plus, he’s always been smart, so I imagine his college options are plentiful. A lot bigger than the tiny list I’m left with now that we’re surviving on wedding photos. Not that I have any clue what I want to study or become. I just want to go somewhere different; reinvent myself a little.

  “I see. You know how I feel about it, but it’s up to you, really,” Mr. Newsome says. I can’t help the eavesdropping, and the exchange has my curious mind buzzing. Tennessee isn’t that far from here, maybe a five or six-hour drive. Not that I’ll be driving there to visit him or anything. The time I spent on that calculation was wholly unnecessary.

  “If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” Lucas laughs lightly, but it sounds frustrated. I tilt my head in time to catch him running his hand through his thick hair then rubbing both palms on his face. “Gah! Maybe I should just flip a coin!”

  Mr. Newsome laughs at the joke, but Lucas doesn’t. I turn my head to the side again to inspect his face, in search of those little tells he’s always had that once served as windows into his true feelings. For the briefest moment, his lips twitch, almost as if he’s about to be sick. He’s angry, maybe trapped, but it washes away in a flash when he catches me looking.

  He sniffles and his eyes flit back to Mr. Newsome.

  “You know what? I’ll figure it out. I gotta get to practice.” He lightly pounds his left fist against the door frame as he takes a step back. Our eyes meet one last time, and I can tell he would rather I wasn’t here for whatever this conversation is really about.

  “Let me make a call, talk to him.” Mr. Newsome’s plea does little to break through the guards Lucas has already raised.

  “Maybe. I’ll let ya know. Whatever, right?” A deep raspy laugh comes from his chest as he disappears around the doorway. Mr. Newsome steps out, holding the door open with his foot while he throws a Hail Mary.

  “It might help! Lucas?” Mr. Newsome’s fingers rap against the door frame, counting down the seconds it probably takes Lucas to walk to the end of the hallway and out the double doors. His chin eventually falls to his chest, and he mouths out “damn it.”

  I gather my stack of papers and relocate my doodle to the bottom of the pile along with my list of alternate teachers I could help this semester. It doesn’t feel like the right time to ask.

  I’m pushing in the chair when Mr. Newsome turns his focus back to the inside of his classroom, his eyes flashing quickly with shock as he remembers I’m in here, waiting.

  “June, sorry. You know Lucas, right? From your freshman algebra class?” He lets the door shut behind him and moves to one of the desks that face his, leaning back to sit on the desktop. I give him a crooked smile and short laugh.

  “Yeah, he’s hard to forget,” I say, not mentioning all the ways Lucas and I have history. Even if our relationship was drawn from our time in Mr. Newsome’s class and nothing else, Lucas would have made an impression. He took our extra credit math games so seriously, leaping with pounding his chest when he scored the most points and earned credit he didn’t need. He tested out of geometry and second-year algebra and went right to pre-calc. I’m smart, but I don’t enjoy math, not like Lucas did . . . does. At least, I guess he still does.

  “Kid has a chance to go to MIT.” He mutters the words under his breath, but probably louder than he realizes. Lucas is choosing between MIT and Tennessee. He shakes his head out of a semi-trance and palms both his cheeks, clapping them lightly. “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. What did you need?”

  My thumb runs along the edge of my stacked papers, feeling for the staple on the last form, the one I wrote my backup list of teachers on.

  “You have two assistants.” I’m hemming, hawing, hedging—all of it.

  His head falls back with a belly laugh, and I pause with my thumb on the top of the page I need for reference.

  “I guess you could say that, but Tory D’Angelo isn’t much of an assistant. I just like keeping an eye on that kid, keeps him out of trouble. I was glad they gave me two of you. I promise I won’t overburden you.” He leans forward and cups the side of his mouth. “I know some of you like to use these gigs to get homework done.”