Gin

I set my lunch tray down on the table, and Lauren immediately reaches for a fry. I pass her the paper boat full of fries and the chicken sandwich I got for her, and she dives in.

When I told my mom during freshman year that Lauren never had lunch, she started giving me double lunch money. I always buy two of everything and just set the food in front of Lauren. We don’t need to talk about it or anything.

Raj is right behind me, setting his lunch tray and backpack on the table.

“How’s it going?” he asks us.

“Okay,” I say.

“Your nose feeling better?”

I nod. “It’s been three days. It’s not really even sore anymore.”

He looks over at Lauren’s notebook, where she’s holding a pen over a blank page. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

“It’s a list of everything I don’t hate,” she deadpans. “I just finished it.”

I snort-laugh and twist open my bottle of water.

Sam Stockwell is walking past our table with Clay Houser, another football player, and he looks over at us and says loudly, “So two dykes and a terrorist walk into a lunchroom…”

Clay howls with laughter. We ignore him. It has to be so much worse for Raj than it is for Lauren and me. I know no one actually believes we’re lesbians; it’s just their running joke. But a lot of people in Roper are leery of Raj just because he’s Middle Eastern.

He’s not even a practicing Muslim. Raj’s parents died in a car accident when he was a toddler, and in their will, they gave his father’s former college roommate and best friend custody of their son.

They couldn’t have chosen better. Dr. Jim Walker and his wife, Melanie, are great people who have two biological children. They love Raj as their son in every way, and their kids consider him their brother. He feels the same about them. At school, though, he’s always been an outcast. It wasn’t until junior high that he started hanging out with Lauren and me.

Lauren leans in and speaks in a low tone. “Did you guys see the Friday night gang-bang video?”

I wrinkle my nose at her mention of the back-door app the videos are posted on. “I never watch that garbage.”

“I watch that garbage every week,” Lauren says with a shrug. “It makes me feel good about me, seeing girls so desperate for validation that they let the football team gangbang them in public.”

“Well, it makes me sad.”

Lauren rolls her eyes. “Sad for bitches like Taryn and Carmen? Actually, they’re all bitches. It’s part of the football team’s selection process. They want popular, bitchy virgins who think they’re the shit.”

“It’s gross.” I take a sip of my water and shake my head. “And no girl deserves to be treated that way.”

“They’re there because they want to be,” Lauren says with a shrug.

“So, Raj, how’s calculus coming?” I ask, eager to change the subject.

He sighs heavily. “It’s hard. I have a ninety-two.”

“A ninety-two?” Lauren scoffs. “You’re kicking ass.”

“I’m dangerously close to a B.”

“You crack me up. Like a B would be the worst thing that could ever happen.”

“It is when you’ve got a 4.0,” Raj mutters.

“You two are gonna be famous someday.” Lauren looks back and forth between us. “A superstar artist and a rocket scientist doctor. I’ll be able to say I knew you way back when.”

“I’ll never be famous,” I say wryly. “And that’s fine by me.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Lauren,” Raj says. “You’ve got just as much potential as we do.”

She laughs and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll end up in this dumpy little town for the rest of my life, sacking groceries or something.”

“You can do anything you want to do,” I tell her for at least the hundredth time.

We don’t discuss it much, but Lauren doesn’t have an easy life. It’s just her, her mom, and her younger sister. I think she feels an obligation to stay in Roper and help take care of them since money is tight, but she’s never come out and said it.

Raj works on a calc paper while Lauren and I eat and talk about the movie marathon we’re planning for this weekend. Despite her tough-girl exterior, she’s just as much of a sucker for a love story as I am, and we’re going to binge watch The Notebook, The Princess Bride, and the show Felicity.

I’m laughing at something Lauren said when I hear a voice behind me that makes my skin prickle with awareness.

It’s Chase. I don’t turn around, but I unconsciously sit up straighter and tuck my hair behind my ear. Not that he’s going to look at me or anything.

But for once…he actually does. He’s passing by my table with a couple of football players, and he turns my way. Our eyes meet, and I feel mine widening with surprise. The corners of his lips crook up in a smile, and he holds my gaze for a full two seconds before turning to get into the lunch line.

Just that one glance has my heart pounding wildly and my cheeks flushing with awareness. Lauren knows about my crush on Chase, but Raj doesn’t, so she just smiles at me and says nothing.

Nothing’s different between Chase and me. He appreciated me helping Cassie, that’s all. I was invisible to him before and now he’s aware of my existence, but it doesn’t mean he likes me or anything. I tell myself that until my heart slows to its normal pace.

But still, there’s a small shred of hope in my heart. Maybe he’s seeing me in a new light. And if not—even if he never does anything but look at me—I’ll happily soak up those looks.

My desperation is a little disgusting, I know. I’m annoyed that of all people to have a secret thing for, I chose Chase. He’s the golden boy quarterback. I’m sure he stars in the fantasies of most of the girls in this school.

And if there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a conformist. I wish I could have a crush on some obscure guy no one else notices. Like Raj. He’s a great guy, and he doesn’t gangbang girls just because he can. At least, not that I know of.

The thought makes me laugh. Raj is definitely a virgin. Some girl will be lucky to end up with him someday, but he just doesn’t give me that fluttery feeling I get from being near Chase.

At least my feelings are safely locked away in my heart. Lauren would never tell a soul.

When Chase walks by again with a lunch tray in his hands, I force myself to appear preoccupied with my phone. My flaming cheeks will give away my feelings if I’m not careful.

I’m mindlessly scrolling when I get a message from Lauren.

He looked at you again.

And like that, my heart rate flies right back into overdrive.

Ronnie got suspended from school over our fight, and people are still staring and whispering when they pass me in the halls. The freshmen who work on the theater crew are in awe of me, which is funny. At least, until they ask me to tell them what happened for the third time. Then I put in my earbuds and ignore them.

We finish practice early because Mr. Douglas has dinner plans. It’s the first time I’ve been home before five since school started.

The driveway that leads to our house is made of stone, and Michael, the local guy Mom hires to do maintenance on our house, is on his hands and knees scrubbing the stones with a brush as I pull in and park.

“Hey, Gin. How’s senior year treating you?” He looks up at me as I step out of my car.

“It’s good. How are you?”

“Can’t complain.” He grins and goes back to work.

Michael is in his fifties, and he’s been taking care of our house for almost ten years. It’s his full-time job, because our house is…well, enormous. It’s a ninety-year-old red brick mansion that was built by an oil tycoon back in the day. All the woodwork is original, and Michael painstakingly cleans and polishes every bit of it.

The oil tycoon was named Richard Olney, and the Olney Mansion is the reason we live in Roper. Mom found out it was for sale, and the beauty and history of the sprawling six-bedroom house spoke to her. Twenty years ago, she bought it. And around eighteen years ago, she went to a sperm bank and picked out my father.

I don’t actually know him, but she tells me he was handsome and had a great smile. She doesn’t know him either, because the sperm bank protected his identity. He was a research scientist with auburn hair, blue eyes, and no genetic predisposition to any serious diseases.

So, obviously, I look like him, which is weird since we’ll never meet. But I made my peace with it a long time ago. It’s been Mom and me forever, and I can’t imagine it any other way.

“You’re home early,” Mom calls out from the kitchen when she hears me walk in.

“Practice let out early,” I call back as I set my bag down.

I walk through the sunroom, filled with potted plants that Michael waters and carefully dusts, and then the large living room, complete with an antique piano Mom bought with the house even though no one ever plays it.

When I walk into the kitchen, Mom is peering over the dark rim of her reading glasses, looking at a cookbook propped up on the counter.

“What are you making?”

“Hmm?” She looks up at me. “Oh, chicken and dumplings.”

“Yum.”

“How was school?”

“The usual.”

She brushes some flour from her hands and reaches for her wooden rolling pin. There are flecks of flour in her dark curly hair, and I brush them away as she rolls out dough.

“If you needed to hide a body and a deep freezer wasn’t an option, what would be your next choice?” she asks me, her brow furrowed as she concentrates on her task.

“Depends. How long will it be there?”

She considers. “You aren’t sure. But you need to hide it well.”

“I guess…bury it?”

“No, because the dirt would be disturbed, and someone would see it.”

“Hmm…trunk of my car.”

She shakes her head. “That’s too clichéd.”

“It’s clichéd for a reason. It’s a good hiding place.”

Morbid conversations like this are a regular occurrence in our house. Mom’s real name is Julia Fielding, but she writes thriller novels under the name JD Morris. JD Morris is one of the top five grossing authors in the world. I’m proud of her, though I wish she’d work less and give a social life a chance. I worry about her being all alone when I leave for college. She doesn’t need to write anymore, we’re set for life, but it’s such a part of who she is that she does it for love of the stories.

“How’s the book coming?” I ask her.

“Still plodding along.” She sighs. “I just can’t figure out what to do with this body.”

I take a bag of tortilla chips from the pantry and open it. “Famous last words, Mom.”

She smiles. “How’s the fireplace coming along?”

“It’s almost done. I’m pretty happy with it. The glowing embers are the best part.”

“So what will you paint next?”

I suppress an eye roll. “An abstract pumpkin.”

“Oh. How will you make a pumpkin abstract?”

“That’s a great question. One I’ve asked Mr. Douglas a few times. He just waves his hands around and talks about swirling colors.”

“If anyone can pull it off, you can, Gin.”

I shake my head as I reach for another tortilla chip. “We’ll see. Surprisingly, this whole reboot of Cinderella is actually really good. The script, I mean.”

“Madison Grayson is Cinderella, right?”

“Yeah. And when she remembers her lines, she’s good.”

“Well, I can’t wait to see it.” Her eyes sparkle with happiness as she looks at me. “I’m just so proud of you.”

“I just paint scenery, Mom. It’s no big deal.”

She gives me a pointed look over the rim of her glasses. “Artistic talent is a very big deal.”

“Hopefully, NYU will think so.”

“I’m positive they will.”

I roll up the top of the bag of chips and put it back in the pantry. “I’m sending in my application next month. Remember you promised me you wouldn’t use your influence to get me in.”

Her sigh is flustered. “If that’s what you want. But considering the amount I’ve donated to that school—”

“Mom, you promised.”

“I know.” She puts her hands in the air, feigning innocence, and bits of floury dough drop down onto the kitchen counter.

I love her belief in me, and so many other things. She stops writing every day to cook a nice dinner, no matter how intensely she’s into her manuscript.

Wrapping my arms around her from behind, I give her a hug. “Do you need help?”

“No, thanks. But will you run out and ask Michael if he’d like to stay for dinner?”

“Of course he will. He loves your cooking.”

“Just ask him anyway.”

I was right—Michael wants to stay for dinner. If nothing else, I guess Mom will have his company when I leave for college. But I already know it won’t just be her who misses our nightly dinners together. I will too.