Drew and I stayed on campus the next day at lunch while Caro disappeared to Del Taco with three senior girls from the cheer squad. “Bring me a bean burrito!” Drew called after her as she ran down the hill toward the parking lot. “With red sauce!”
“Okay!” Caro yelled back, her voice disappearing into the breeze.
“She’s not going to remember,” I said to Drew as she disappeared. “She never remembers.”
“I’m forever hopeful,” he said. “That’s what friends do. They hope. They have faith in each other.”
“Well, I have faith that she’ll forget,” I said, hiking my backpack up onto my shoulders. “You have to be a realist with Caro.”
“I’m a hopeful realist,” Drew said. “I’m a healist! Like those guys on TV late at night that cure people of cancer.” He grinned down at me. Even when we were kids, Drew was always the tallest kid in our class and when he hit his growth spurt in eighth grade, he became the Beanstalk to our classroom of Jacks.
“Yeah, speaking of that, I saw Oliver last night,” I said.
Drew paused midstep. “What does being a healist—don’t steal that, by the way, I’m having it copyrighted even as we speak—have to do with Oliver?”
“Nothing, I was just trying to change the subject.” I tugged at his elbow to keep him moving. There are conversations you have to have face-to-face, but others that require perpetual motion. Shoes scuffing, the crunch of fallen leaves, blades of grass whispering together keeping the other person from looking into your eyes and realizing that you don’t believe a word of what you’re saying.
“So Oliver. Mr. Mystery,” Drew said. “Did you hear about the milk cartons the other day?”
“Dude, I was there with Caro. I saw the whole thing.”
“Sucks,” Drew said, scuffing the toe of his Vans along the cement walkway. “People are assholes. Milk-wasting assholes.”
“Yeah.” It was always a little easier to talk to Drew than it was to Caro. He gave people more space in between their words, let them figure out how to make their thoughts sound the same on the outside as they did on the inside. He was patient where Caro was urgent. Drew would remember to not only bring back the bean burrito, but extra packets of red sauce, too.
“I saw him yesterday morning, too,” I said. “He was in the car with his mom.”
Drew shuddered. “That’s my biggest nightmare right now, having my mom drive me to school.”
I glanced up. “Really?”
Drew tucked his thumbs into his backpack straps, now scuffing his shoes in rhythm with my steps. “She’s being super nicey-nice, handling me with extra care. Like I’m a live grenade or something.”
I didn’t say anything at first. I let him find the right words, the same as he does for me.
“I think they’re waiting for me to freak out or, I don’t know, have this crazy breakdown or something. My mom’s even reading this book right now, How to Talk to Your Teenager.”
We both rolled our eyes at the same time.
“Gross,” I said.
“Right? Like, if you want to talk to me, don’t read a book about it. Just talk to me. I’m a person.” Drew sighed and gave his shoe a final scuff. “Anyway, yeah, parents are weird. But Oliver.” He glanced down and waited for me to look up at him before wiggling an eyebrow.
“Stop it,” I said, laughing a little. “You know it creeps me out when you do that.”
Drew, of course, did it even more, and I shoved him away and tried to cover my eyes. “Stop!” I said. “Or I won’t share my sandwich with you and you’ll starve for the rest of the day!”
Drew stopped and flicked his hair out of his eyes. He always looks cool when he does that, even though I know he doesn’t mean to. “Why would I want your sandwich? Caro’s bringing me a delicious burrito from Del Taco.”
“Hope springs eternal,” I said as we wandered into the quad. There were scattered freshmen (most of them hung out near the cafeteria’s exit, like it was difficult for them to move too far away from the food) and a few juniors whose names I didn’t know, and then a figure sitting on a long cement-block wall under a tree, wearing headphones and eating something out of a brown paper bag, gazing off into the distance like he was at a museum and the rest of us were moving sculptures.
“Oh,” I said.
“Oh,” Drew replied.
I elbowed him. Hard. “Shut up.”
“What? All I said was oh!” He elbowed me back, but I moved away. “Are you blushing?”
“No,” I said. (I totally was.)
“He’s sitting by himself,” Drew said.
“Yes, thank you, I can see that.”
But Drew was on a roll. “Here we see the typical teenager during an average high school lunch period,” he said, doing his best PBS documentary narrator voice. “This creature is normally sedate, but can be provoked with milk cartons and conversation.”
“I’m going over there,” I said.
“What? No.” Drew grabbed my arm before I could even take a step. “You’re not talking to him.”
“He’s sitting by himself!” I hissed. “Look at him, it’s sad. And, like, we grew up together and now he’s back and he lives next door to me. I can’t just ignore him.”
“We’re supposed to give him space, Emmy.”
“He’s not a rabid animal at the zoo!” I cried, shrugging off Drew’s arm. “How much space are we supposed to give him? He goes to our school now. It’s not like we can pretend that we don’t know him. Or, I mean, used to know him.”
“You’re not good at making conversation. In fact, you’re pretty much the worst at it.”
I thought of how I crossed my eyes and stuck out my tongue at Oliver the day before, then said nothing. Drew didn’t need to know any of that.
“No, I’m not,” I said instead. “I took public speaking in freshman year, remember?”
“Remember?” Drew repeated. “I’m trying to forget.”
“I was good!”
“Yeah, you were good, but every time you gave a speech, you’d kick the podium and your microphone would screech!” Drew swung his foot a few times, mimicking me. “And you’re terrible without a plan. Oliver would probably be in physical danger. You’d take out his kneecap or something.”
“Drew. I am going over there. So you can help me or watch me make a total fool of myself.”
Drew sighed. “Fine.”
“So, what do I talk to him about?”
“Just go over and say hi—”
“Got it.”
“—and then ask him if he needs your notes for any classes—”
“Easy.”
“—and then offer to make out with him.”
“Okay, I—DREW!”
He giggled and ducked away from me as I swung my notebook at him.
Drew didn’t know what he was talking about, I told myself as I stalked away. I could make great conversation.
“Hey,” I said when I was close enough, before realizing that Oliver probably couldn’t hear me with his earbuds in. I waved my hand a little, trying to get his attention, and I didn’t even have to turn around to know that Drew was smacking himself in the forehead.
Doing great so far, genius, I scolded myself.
“Oh,” Oliver said after a few seconds. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said. “Sorry, am I . . . ? I mean, I don’t want to . . .”
So, Drew may have had a point.
“No, it’s cool.” He slipped his earbuds out of his ears and let them dangle over his shoulders. “What’s up?”
“Hi,” I said again. “I just wanted to say that. I mean, I wanted to say hi and, um, see how you were doing.”
“I’m good,” he said. “Getting a lot of calcium, as you know.”
He was so deadpan that it took me a few seconds to realize he was kidding. “Oh!” I laughed. “Yeah, sorry about that. Drew and I”—I gestured to Drew behind me—“were just saying that people can be assholes.”
Oliver just shrugged. “Law of averages. Some are, some aren’t.”
“Yeah. Speaking of, do you need any notes or anything?”
Oliver frowned a little at my segue (which was, to be fair, nonexistent). “Notes?” he repeated.
“For class,” I added, patting my backpack. “Like, if you’re not caught up.”
“I don’t think we share any classes,” Oliver said. He was squinting up at me now, like the sun was in his face even though it was behind a cloud. “I’m a junior.”
And I wanted to die. Right there, right then, I wanted that cloud above us to throw a lightning bolt down and strike me dead. I had forgotten that they had put Oliver back a grade from the rest of us. Apparently, his dad had homeschooled him, so his math and science skills were off the charts, but his history and English were behind. He was easily the oldest-looking junior in our school, yet another thing that made him stand out when he needed more than ever to blend in.
“Oh, riiiiight,” I said, knocking myself in the head and grinning like an idiot. “I’m sorry, I totally forgot.”
“That’s okay,” he replied. “Just adds to my rebel image. New guy in school, mysterious past, being held back a grade.” He smiled up at me. “Girls like it.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah.” He smiled wider. “That’s why I’m eating lunch with all these people.”
I laughed despite myself and then he laughed, too, a familiar sound that I hadn’t heard in years. His laugh was deeper now, but still Oliver’s, as unique as a double helix. Or a fingerprint.
“You have fun with my sisters last night?” he asked, tearing off a piece of sandwich and eating it, rather than biting into the bread.
“You do that,” I said, pointing at him, and Oliver stopped midchew and looked down at the sandwich.
“What?” he asked, then swallowed. “Eat?”
“No, you do this”—I mimed him tearing the sandwich—“and then eat it. That’s how you used to eat sandwiches when we were little.”
“You remember that?”
“I do now.”
Oliver smiled, almost to himself, then tore off another piece. “My mom keeps saying things like that,” he said. “You do this or you do that.”
“Preserved in amber,” I said before I could stop myself, and he laughed again.
“Yeah, something like that,” he said. “A fossil in a brave new world.”
“Hey,” Drew said, coming up behind my left shoulder. “We should, uh, go get to that thing.”
I had no idea what thing he meant, but I knew a friendly rescue attempt when I saw one. “Yeah, that thing,” I said. “Oliver and I were just talking about sandwiches.”
“Hey, man,” Oliver said, and he and Drew did the fist-bump thing. (I will never understand how so many guys always know how to do that. Is it genetic? Is it a talent carried on the Y chromosome?)
“Hey,” Drew said. “Sandwiches? Uh, they’re cool, I guess.” He shot a quick smile at me. “Did you maim him yet?”
“Oh my God, please shut up,” I said, then started shoving Drew away and following close behind. “See you later, Oliver,” I said, and he waved before putting his earbuds back in and popping the last crust into his mouth.
“Sandwiches?” Drew hissed at me. “You’re terrible. Is there a dating elective at this school, because you need to sign up for it immediately.”
“Hey, who doesn’t like sandwiches?” I shot back. “People who hate life, that’s who. And I was just saying that I remembered the weird way he ate them.”
“You talked about sandwiches . . . and called him weird.” Drew closed his eyes and took a deep breath in through his nose. “Caro’s going to die when she hears this. Secondhand embarrassment will claim yet another young life.”
“I didn’t say the word weird to him!” I protested. “Tell Caro whatever you want.”
“Tell me what?”
Caro was just coming in through the glass doors, carrying a huge soda from Del Taco and pushing her sunglasses up onto her head. “I’ll totally believe whatever you say.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “Even if you’re lying, I’ll believe you. That’s what friendship is.”
“Don’t become a lawyer,” Drew muttered.
“It’s a long story,” I told her, stealing a sip from her soda.
“A long story about Oliver,” Drew added. “Where’s my burrito?”
Caro looked at him. “What burrito?”
“Caro!” he screamed. “You were supposed to bring me a burrito! I’m starving!”
“I’m sorry! You know I never remember these things!”
I pulled my sandwich out of my backpack and silently handed half to Drew.
“Thank you,” he sighed.
“That’s what friendship is,” I told him. “Just don’t eat it weird.”