Another rural intersection. Another student trudging up the bus steps, glancing around for an empty seat, dropping onto the hard vinyl, and staring out the window as the bus lumbers back onto the street in a cloud of exhaust. Same as it’s been for the past forty-five minutes and will be for the next forty-five.
Same as it was yesterday.
Same as it will be tomorrow.
Just like I have for the past two weeks, I wait to go into the physics room until the very last second of break. If the bell is about to ring, there’s no time for conversation with Ainsley.
Or with Oliver. Ever since the text I sent him from the bus on my first long morning ride, there’s been nothing more to say.
When I walk in, Ainsley is at our lab table, poking around on her phone. I am agonizingly aware of the muscled blur in my peripheral vision. These days, Oliver also arrives at the last possible second. It’s like we’ve come to an unspoken agreement about how to conduct ourselves around each other: we just don’t.
Today I change direction. I head to Kaylie’s empty seat, and when I plop down into it, Tyler gives me a startled look from the adjacent chair. “Change of scenery,” I tell him.
The bell rings and Kaylie saunters in. She sees me in her spot and stops abruptly at the top of the aisle. Her mouth and eyes get all round, like she can’t believe I would be so daring.
I gaze at her. No, it’s more of a glare. A challenge.
What are you going to do about it?
It turns out the answer is nothing, because we both hear Ainsley’s high, sweet voice from my old table—“Over here!”—and Kaylie whirls. She sits down by Ainsley and order is restored to the world. Two hot cheerleaders at a table together. Oliver the hot jock in the back.
Me next to a guy named Tyler, neither of us with anything to say.
I leave fifteen minutes before the end of class. I tell Mrs. Nelson I have to go to the bathroom, but then I take my backpack with me. Either she doesn’t notice or it’s the end of the year and she just doesn’t care anymore.
The hall is empty, so, because I can, I fling my backpack down it. It flies through the air and lands with a satisfying whomp several yards away. It’s only a tiny act of rebellion, but it feels great. I reach it and this time I haul off and slide it across the floor, like I’m back at Wolverine Lanes and it’s my bowling ball.
My backpack skids all the way to the corner, and when I get to it, there’s Theo Nizzola, squirting mustard through the vents of someone’s locker. Because that’s what he does instead of throwing backpacks down a hallway.
“Hafferty, you skipping?”
“No, Theo. I’m not skipping.” Normally I would walk away and find another bathroom in another hallway, but today I don’t feel like it. Today I lean against the wall and watch him. He finishes what he’s doing and sets the empty mustard bottle on the floor before straightening and looking at me.
“What do you want?”
“Why are you such a dick?” I ask.
“Shut up.” He starts to walk away.
I run to catch up and then to pass him. I jump in front, turning to block him. “Hey, Theo. Do you honestly, truly think I was giving Oliver sexual favors for rides to school? Me, a straight-A student with a bright future. And him, a hot popular dude with his pick of girls. Do you actually think that’s what was going down?”
“Go back to class,” Theo says. “You don’t belong out here.”
But I’m not done.
“No, really. Are you that much of a moron, or does constantly talking about sex make you feel like you have a bigger penis?” He doesn’t answer, so I take a step toward him. My voice gets louder. “Seriously, why are you like this? What do you get from it?”
“You never liked me.” Theo glares at me. “Why?”
That’s a stupid question.
“Why would I like you? You’re disgusting. Your only contribution to society is to say horrible things.”
“I didn’t always.”
“Yes you did.”
“Not when I first moved here.” He crosses his arms over his thick chest. “Not in ninth grade.”
“That’s bullshit.” I don’t have a memory of Theo that doesn’t involve him being a jerk….
Except that I do.
Suddenly, I do.
It was ninth grade.
Ninth grade was when Theo became a horrible person.
It was the beginning of the year. Geography class. Mrs. Carter asked Theo to read aloud from a chapter. Something about resource consumption in the United States. He started haltingly. Pausing before long words. Pronouncing things incorrectly. And Mrs. Carter stopped him, correcting him every single time. Making him repeat the words.
At first it was only awkward, because Theo read so slowly and messed up so many times. But eventually, someone snickered. Then someone else did. And then every time Theo pronounced something wrong, people laughed again. And still Mrs. Carter didn’t put an end to it. She just kept Theo reading and reading, with him pronouncing words wrong and her correcting him while people laughed.
Until Theo started saying things wrong on purpose.
He mispronounced words to sound gross or sexual. “Resource” became “re-whores.” “Sustainable” became “sus-taint-able.” “Country”…well, it didn’t change that much.
The class laughed more, but now they were laughing with him instead of at him. Mrs. Carter finally got fed up and sent him to the office. As he was packing up his things, she asked me to finish Theo’s chapter. Out loud. So I did. With perfect diction. Because that’s how I roll.
Now I stare at Theo, looming before me in the hallway. “You act like this to me because I’m good in school?”
“You think you’re better than me.”
I gaze up at him, unable to refute it. I do think I’m better than him. But it’s because he’s such a jerk. There’s no win here. It’s an endless circle of awful, and if it’s ever going to be better, someone has to be the first one to make a move. If I’m going to think of myself as the better person, I’m going to have to act like the better person.
Somehow, moving against all the history between Theo and me, I manage to make my mouth form into a tentative smile. Somehow, I say the words. “I’m sorry.”
Theo scowls down at me. “I told you to go to class.” He turns to the mustard bottle and gives it a kick. It flies down the hall, spattering tiny yellow drops as it goes. Theo grabs his backpack and, without another word, walks away.
At least I tried.
Oliver drives past my house in the behemoth. I know this because I’m out on the porch swing, ostensibly flipping through one of my mom’s decorator magazines, but in reality hoping to see him. Wondering if Theo told him about our exchange.
Guess I’ll never know, because Oliver doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even turn his head in my direction.
He just drives by.