Call It What You Want(38)

No one texts me.

No one apologizes.

I pick up my fork and start eating.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Rob

Maegan isn’t eating with her friends. She’s at a table by herself.

I, however, am not.

“Why do you keep looking at that girl who cheated on the SAT?” says Owen.

“I’m not.” I keep thinking about what she said when we were at Wegmans, how her dad expects a lot from her. I never felt unfairly pressured by my father, but I know Connor did. I put my eyes back on my food.

“Did you know that when they caught her cheating, they had to scrap the scores of everyone in the room?”

I did hear that. “I don’t care.”

“They couldn’t prove whose tests had been compromised, so—”

“Leave it, okay?”

“Okay.” He pulls a bag of chips out of his backpack and tugs it open.

I frown, realizing he doesn’t have a tray of food in front of him. “Wait. Why didn’t you buy a lunch?”

“I feel like we’ve been over this.”

“But …” I hesitate. “Did you give that cash to your mom?”

“No.” He pops a chip into his mouth. “I didn’t realize there was a mandate attached to it.”

I flush. “There wasn’t. I just … sorry. Forget it. Do what you want with it.”

Irritation pricks at me, though. My neck is on the line for that money—not his.

I can’t shake this feeling, though. I’m eating my sandwich, with an orange and a bag of cheese curls waiting, while he’s picking at a bag of chips like they’re being rationed.

“It’s really bothering you, isn’t it?” says Owen.

“No.”

“Liar.”

I set down my sandwich. “Look, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to admit that you want to know what I did with the money so you can judge me for it.”

“Fine.”

“You admit it?”

“Yes.” I do not like this feeling at all. I shove the sandwich into my mouth and take a bite so I don’t have to say anything else.

He shrugs. “Okay. I gave it to Sharona Fains. She sits next to me in history.”

I rack my brain but can’t come up with any idea of who this girl is—or why he’d give her money. I wait for more of an explanation, but he just keeps eating his chips.

“Why?” I finally say.

He shrugs. “She was crying to a friend that she needed forty dollars, and I happened to have forty dollars, so I gave it to her.”

“She didn’t ask you where you got it?”

“I’m a poor kid. She probably assumed I stole it.”

I stare at him. He puts another chip in his mouth.

I sigh, then rip my paper bag in two, then give him half the sandwich.

“Thanks. What is this, egg salad? Do you live in a nursing home?”

“Shut up. Why did she need the money?”

“I have no idea. But she was crying, so it seemed important.”

I’m trying to picture this interaction and coming up with nothing. “But now you don’t have money to buy lunch.”

“And how is that different from any other day?”

I open my mouth. Close it. I have no idea what to say. My brain is spinning with thoughts of Lexi Miter and her credit card number—offered to kids who really didn’t need it. Or the lunch lady who wouldn’t let Owen get a cheese sandwich because she disagreed with how he spent the first money I gave him.

“I have never before witnessed an existential crisis,” says Owen. “I feel like I should take your picture right now.”

“Would you shut up?”

“Look.” Owen puts down the sandwich and sucks mayonnaise off his thumb. “The first day, when you gave me the money. You said you felt bad, right?”

“Yes.”

“Before your life blew up, did you know who I was?”

I did, though only in a passing way. Some of the girls from our group used to call him “Cheese Sammich,” but never to his face. I heard a guy once mutter that he was sick of Owen holding up the cafeteria line. None of these memories are ones I want invading my brain. “A little. I guess.”

“I’m guessing you occasionally had ten bucks in your wallet, then, huh?”

Yeah. I did. I don’t know what to say.

I wish I were still staring at Maegan across the cafeteria. I cut a glance her way. She’s still alone, eating by herself at a table near the far wall.

I wonder what happened with her friends. I’m the cause of it, I’m sure. Did they cut her out? Or did she cut herself away from them? Owen’s words aren’t sitting well with me. I knew what Maegan did, of course, but I’ve never considered how that would affect her social standing, just like my father’s actions affected mine. If I moved across the cafeteria to go sit with her, would that make things better or worse?

“You going to answer me or what?” says Owen.

I shift my eyes back to him. “Yeah. I occasionally had ten bucks in my wallet.” I pause, and an edge enters my voice against my will. “Do you want an apology?”

“Nope.” His eyes flick up and past me. “Prick alert. Twelve o’clock.”