What to Say Next(54)

“But you had his back. I dig that,” Lauren says, and the part of me that still hasn’t outgrown the insecurities of freshman year gets a thrill from her approval.

“To Kit!” David’s mom says, and the entire Drucker family raises their milk shakes and toasts me.

—

Later, when we are leaving the restaurant and David’s mom stops to say hello to some lady she knows and David and his dad are debating whether it was fair of astronomers to demote Pluto from the status of planet, Lauren pulls me out of earshot of the rest of her family.

“I owe you a big thanks,” she says. “For getting the notebook back. For talking to the principal. Seriously. It’s hard not being at school to help him—I really hate being so far away—so thank you for stepping in. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss him. Or here, actually.”

“You don’t have to thank me for being David’s friend,” I say. “I like hanging out with him.”

Lauren’s eyes narrow and then widen again, and for a second I wonder if she’s tearing up.

“You’re right,” she says. “He’s good people. The best, actually. Just one more thing, though,” Lauren says, putting her hand on my arm to stop me from walking away. I notice that her feet are encased in unfashionable men’s furry snow boots, which somehow look fashionable on her. How does she do that? She’s just made of magic. There’s no other explanation.

“Yeah?”

“You’re probably good people too, but just so you know, I love David more than life itself, so if you hurt my brother in any way, or if you even think about hurting him, I will ruin you. I may not still live here, but I can still do that,” she says in the hurried whisper of a Mafia don, which come to think of it is not unlike a homecoming queen, even an ironic hipster version. Her eyes are dry now and cold. “Understood?”

“I think so.”

“Good,” Lauren says, and then she throws her arm around my shoulders in a weird, semi-friendly half hug. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

—

I am at the weekly newspaper meeting, but no actual newspaper business is getting done because all anyone can talk about is the Fight. People are gossiping about it so much it has earned capitalization.

“Did you see that headlock move? It was like something out of UFC,” Annie says.

“I really thought he was going to kill Mangino. Like ten guys from the football team are in the hospital,” Violet says, who despite being our chief news correspondent tends not to always hew to the facts.

“More like Man-gina,” says a puny freshman boy I’ve never noticed before, making the kind of joke that would have been suicidal if Joe weren’t a safe distance away in the ER.

“How’d he learn to do that, Kit?” Violet asks.

“I have no idea.” I’m only half listening. Mostly I’m trying to come up with a way to ask Mr. Galto to add my name to nominees for editor in chief. Since I’m not skipping town to Mexico after all, I need to get into a good college, preferably one on the other side of the country. I bet I’d like California: sunny skies, boys in shorts year-round, reading my textbooks while lying out on a beach towel. When I imagine West Coast Kit, I am the kind of girl who can rock a bikini and sunglasses and whose entire existence can be described by the word frolic. In other words, the opposite of who I am now.

Mr. Galto, please consider me for EIC. I realize I haven’t been as reliable lately, and I missed the meeting, but I’ve worked my butt off for the past two years, and if you give me this chance I’ll do better. Yes, I’ll ask him afterward, just like that. He’s the type to respond to groveling.

“Unless we’re doing a feature on the fighting prowess of one Mr. David Drucker, which we are decidedly not, I think we need to get this meeting back on track,” Mr. Galto says, and I sit straight in my chair and have my laptop out as if I’m poised to take notes. Taking position as the model student I used to be. I can still fix this. “First order of business, the new EIC. Drumroll, please…”

My stomach drops. I’m too late. My three years of hard work and ass-kissing all down the drain because I couldn’t keep it together and was too distracted to ask Mr. Galto to consider me. I had lost track of the timing.

“Congratulations to Violet and Annie, our new co–editors in chief!” The room explodes in applause and Violet and Annie squeal and hug, because the only thing better than being editor in chief is sharing the position with your best friend. I force myself to smile, to pretend I’m not about to cry, that I didn’t completely and totally self-sabotage.

I’m happy for them. I really am. Still, I not only feel like I lost something, but even worse: I’ve accidentally solidified my position as the odd man out in our threesome. Made something I just couldn’t deal with at the moment permanent.

Violet looks over at me, and though she doesn’t say anything, I know she’s asking me for permission to be excited about this. I make my smile brighter. Give her some teeth.

And when Annie gives me a tentative Brownie salute, I give it right back.

Only later, when I’m back home, locked in my room, hiding from my mother and the rest of the world and wondering what my dad would have thought about me screwing one more thing up, do I allow myself to cry. For the third time since he died. That seal is officially broken.