You keep drawing a line farther and farther away, crossing it every time. That’s how people end up stepping off the edge of the earth. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to bust out of orbit, to spin out to a place where no one can touch you. To lose yourself—to get lost.
Or maybe you wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe some of you already know.
To those people I can only say: I’m sorry.
I skip my first four periods just because I can, and spend a couple of hours walking the halls with no real goal or destination. I almost hope someone will stop me—a teacher or Ms. Winters or a teacher’s aide or someone—and ask what I’m doing, even accuse me point-blank of cutting and send me to the principal’s office. Fighting with Lindsay left me unsatisfied, and I still feel a vague but pressing desire to do something.
Most of the teachers just nod or smile, though, or give me a half wave. They have no way of knowing my schedule, no way of knowing whether I have a free period or whether class was canceled, and I’m disappointed by how easy it is to break the rules.
When I walk into Mr. Daimler’s class I deliberately don’t look at him, but I can feel his eyes on me, and after I slide into my desk, he comes straight over.
“It’s a little early in the season for beach clothes, don’t you think?” He grins.
Normally whenever he looks at me for longer than a few seconds, I get nervous, but today I force myself to keep my eyes on his. Warmth spreads over my whole body; it reminds me of standing under the heat lamps in my grandmother’s house when I was no older than five. It’s amazing that eyes can do that, that they can transform light into heat. I’ve never felt that way with Rob.
“If you got it, flaunt it,” I say, making my voice soft and steady. I see something flicker in his eyes. I’ve surprised him.
“I guess so,” he murmurs, so quietly I’m sure I’m the only one who hears. Then he blushes bright red like he can’t believe himself. He nods at my desk, which is empty except for a pen and the small square notebook Lindsay and I use to pass back and forth between classes, writing notes to each other. “No roses today? Or did your bouquet get too heavy to carry around?”
I haven’t been to any of my classes so I haven’t collected any Valograms. I don’t even care. In the past I would rather have died than be seen in the halls of Thomas Jefferson on Cupid Day without a single rose. In the past I would have considered it a fate worse than death.
Of course, that was before I actually knew.
I toss my head, shrugging. “I’m kind of over it.” It’s as though confidence is flowing into me from someone else, someone older and beautiful, like I’m only playing a part.
He smiles at me, and again I see something moving in his eyes. Then he goes back to his desk and claps his hands, gesturing for everybody to take their seats. As always the dirty hemp necklace is peeking out from under his collar, and I let myself think about looping my fingers through it, pulling him toward me, and kissing him. His lips are thick—but not too thick—and shaped exactly how a guy’s mouth should be shaped, like if he just parted his lips at all, your mouth would fit directly on top of it. I think of the picture from his high school yearbook, when he’s standing with his arm around his prom date. She was thin, long brown hair, even smile. Like me.
“All right, everyone,” he’s saying as people shuffle and scrape into their desks, giggling and ruffling their bouquets. “I know it’s Cupid Day and love is in the air, but guess what? So are derivatives.”
A couple of people groan. Kent bangs in the door, almost late, his bag flapping open and papers literally scattering behind him, like he’s Hansel or Gretel and he has to make sure someone can follow his trail of half-completed sketches and notes to math class. His black-and-white checkered sneakers peek out under his oversized khakis.
“Sorry,” he mutters breathlessly to Mr. Daimler. “Emergency at the Tribulation. Printer problems. Malignant paper tumor in tray two. Had to operate immediately or risk losing it.” As soon as he makes it halfway up the aisle to his seat, his math textbook—which was riding higher and higher on a wave of crumpled paper inside his open bag—pops out and slams to the floor, and everybody laughs. I feel a surge of irritation. Why is he always such a mess? How hard is it to zip up a bag?
He catches me looking at him, and I guess he mistakes my facial expression for concern, because he grins at me and mouths, Walking disaster. As though he’s proud of it.
I turn my attention back to Mr. Daimler. He’s standing at the front of the room with his arms crossed, his expression fake-serious. That’s another thing I like about him: he’s never really mad.
“Glad the printer pulled through,” he says, raising his eyebrows. His sleeves are rolled up and his arms are tan. Or maybe that’s just the color of his skin: like burnt honey. “As I was saying, I know there’s a lot of excitement on Cupid Day, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore the regular—”
“Cupids!” someone squeals, and the class dissolves into giggles. Sure enough, there they are: the devil, the cat, and the pale white angel with her big eyes.
Mr. Daimler throws up his hands and leans against his desk. “I give up,” he says. Then he turns his smile to me for just a second—just a second, but long enough for my whole body to light up like a Christmas display.
The angel delivers three of my roses—the ones from Rob, Tara Flute, and Elody—and then keeps sorting methodically through her bouquet, flipping each card over and checking for my name. There’s something careful and sincere about her movements, like she’s super focused on doing everything correctly. As she reads off the addressee she mouths the name quietly to herself, wonderingly, as though she can’t believe there are so many people in the school, so many roses to deliver, so many friends. It’s painful to watch and I stand up abruptly, grabbing the cream-and-pink rose from her hands. She jumps back, startled.