Tease(34)

Schoen looks over at me, and I scowl. I can’t look her in the face and lie like Brielle can, but I agree that this is completely unfair. Maybe Dylan didn’t make a big fancy sign to ask me to the dance, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have plans—big, after-party hotel room plans—that are now going to be destroyed. My knotty stomach sinks even lower, in an even bigger tangle of knots. Which I didn’t even realize was possible until just now.

“Ladies,” the principal says sharply. “If I have to speak to either of you again, trust me, things will be much worse. I don’t want to have to suspend you. I don’t want to bring your parents in. I trust that you can correct this destructive behavior and show me that you embody the inclusiveness and open-mindedness that Elmwood prides itself on. I am holding you both to a higher standard. I expect you to live up to it.”

At the end of this speech Schoen abruptly stands up from her desk, gesturing toward the door.

“I believe you have classes to return to,” she says.

Even Brielle doesn’t know what to say. But she makes a loud huffing sound as she grabs her bag and pushes out of her chair. She’s already throwing open the principal’s office door as I get up and collect my things.

“Sara,” Schoen says, more quietly. “Think about what I’ve said. You can do better.”

I look at the floor again. I don’t know what to say to this. So I just leave.





September


“SO, WHICH ONE did you pick?”

“Pick? What do you mean?”

“You know. To be, or not to be? Wasn’t that the question?”

We’ve just passed our papers forward to Mr. Rodriguez and Carmichael is giving me this totally serious look. A second ago I was sweating, not sure I’d finished the last essay question very well, not sure why I care about my summer school pass/fail status at all, and now I’m looking at Carmichael’s green eyes. Which have—it has to be said—a twinkle in them.

“You’re messing with me,” I say, trying to push down the smile at the corners of my mouth. Trying to not look shocked, though I kind of am. “You’re being funny.”

“I have my moments,” he says.

For a second we look at each other and we both smile, like we’re having a moment. Together.

And I guess we did have a moment—a last one. That was our last test. Carmichael is picking up his bag and getting up now, and I feel my stomach drop. We finished watching the movie on Saturday, but we didn’t really talk after the Emma thing, and now he’s going to walk out and bike away and I’ll be alone again. Or I’ll go back to see Dylan, and just end up feeling worse. Something about Carmichael makes me feel . . . not worse.

“Hey, you want to get, um, a drink?” I blurt, grabbing my own bag and sort of stumbling out of my chair, trying to catch up with him before he’s gone.

Carmichael turns. He pushes his hair back with one hand and raises an eyebrow, and I realize what I’ve just said. “I don’t really drink,” he says seriously. “Not my thing.”

“I didn’t mean drink drink,” I say quickly. “I meant, you know, coffee. Or tea. Or iced tea. Or iced coffee.”

“Or one of each,” he says.

“Sure,” I say, wishing I could just talk like a normal person. Brielle would—well, I already know. Brielle would not approve. But Carmichael is smiling at me again, and nodding, and I nod back at him and we walk together to my car.

We don’t talk while I drive—the closest Starbucks is only about a block away from school, so it’s more like moving the car to another parking lot—and by the time we’re sitting down with our drinks I realize I seriously don’t know what to say to him. I stare at his Occupy This T-shirt and wonder why I never watch the news; maybe I’d have something interesting to bring up right now if I knew anything besides a few theories on Hamlet’s manic-depressive personality.

But of course I don’t watch the news. Sometimes I’m on the news.

“So,” Carmichael says, finally breaking the silence. He shakes his venti iced green tea, rattling the ice, sighs. “Real school in a couple days.”

“Go seniors,” I say, with zero enthusiasm in my voice.

“Are you gonna be there?” he asks, and the bluntness of the question takes me by surprise.

Of course I know exactly what he’s asking. I look down at the ring of condensation my iced latte is making on the table and shrug. “Yeah,” I say. “I mean, I have to go to court in like a month. But for now, yeah, I’ll be in school.”

I can’t look up at him, but I feel him nodding. “That’s rough,” he says.

“Yeah,” I say again. It is rough. I don’t know what else to say.

“People judging you . . . I mean, whatever happened, that’s hard,” he adds.

Finally I look up at him again. He’s staring at me like I might not understand what he means, like I might not believe him. Like I haven’t been judging him since the second I laid eyes on him—first as a hot emo guy, then as a pathetic burnout. I didn’t even know him that whole time. All I know, even now, is that he’s the type of guy who will talk to me—will have coffee with the girl who’s been accused of a horrible crime.