Underneath the Sycamore Tree(5)

I don’t bother correcting him on my name.

Logan would have.





Chapter Two





There’s a freckle on my wrist that keeps my full attention during last period. It’s been a quiet, uneventful day and I’m glad. Minimal staring, no trouble getting a table at lunch, and nobody to ask me to recite fun facts about myself.

I’ve made mental notes to myself throughout the day. There’s no time to stop by your locker in between the morning periods, so just carry your bag. The lunchroom is like a mosh pit scattered with rectangular and circular tables, with no particular cliques like the high schools in movies. UGG boots are making a comeback.

Personally, I’m not sure how I feel about any of those things. My shoulder aches from carrying my backpack on it all morning, the lunchroom was too loud from the chatter, and UGG boots have always been hideous. Then again, my pineapple Toms get just as much judgmental glances.

What strikes the most interest to me is watching Kaiden interact with his peers—boys in letterman jackets and girls who twirl their hair and bat their lashes at them. He’s popular here, an entirely new person. He talks and jokes and argues. People seem to love him despite equally seeming to envy him.

I wonder why he isn’t that way at home. Does his mother know how he acts at school? I heard a pink-haired girl tell her friend at lunch that he’s going to take the lacrosse team to the national championship this year. She said it’ll be his farewell, his sendoff before graduation. Does Cam go to his games? Dad mentioned he played, but never said if they attended any events.

Brushing the thoughts off, I focus back on my surroundings. Ninth period. Two twenty-five. There’s twenty-three minutes left until my first day at Exeter is complete. Only two hundred and sixty-nine more to go until junior year is over.

Advanced English drags. Between exhaustion seeping into my bones from first day jitters, to the noise level of the packed classroom, it puts me on edge and keeps me glancing up at the black clock on the wall off to the side. I swear barely five seconds pass each time. I can feel a flare forming, which hopefully a nap before dinner will ease before it gets worse.

Instead of focusing on the mindless conversations Mr. Nichols, a young twenty-something fresh out of grad school, lets us have after he explains class expectations at the beginning of the period, I look at the artwork littering the colorful walls. They’re scenes from books, I realize. By the looks of it, each wall is a different novel ranging from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Hunger Games.

Someone drops into the seat beside me, scraping the metals legs against the tile floor. I peel my gaze off the walls to see Kaiden staring at me with indifference. The redheaded boy that occupied the chair before is now across the room, staring wide-eyed in our direction.

“What are you doing here?” A few onlookers are invested in the exchange between us, peering back and forth between me and him.

“I’m in this class.”

Advanced English for juniors must mean regular English for seniors. I was stuck in an Advanced Biology class full of freshman last year and felt like the dumbest kid in class.

I don’t answer him. I’m not sure how I didn’t notice him when I came in. When I saw how swamped it was, my main focus was on finding an empty seat, not examining who was occupying the others. When Mr. Nichols did roll call, I obviously didn’t pay attention to names until I heard mine.

My eyes go back to the wall and focus on the mixture of greens and blues. I wish I could paint. Mama used to spend a lot of time in the spare room painting pretty pictures of still lives and landscapes. Sometimes, she would paint Lo and I. After Lo…she stopped painting altogether.

“They did a vote on what books to put on the walls a few years back,” he explains, catching me off guard. “People were miffed that the majority choice didn’t make it because of some bullshit that happened in the book.”

My nose scrunches. “What book?”

“Hell if I remember.”

The brunette girl sitting in front of me turns around after dutifully ignoring me the entire period. “It was the Jodi Picoult book about the sick girl who needed a transplant to survive.”

Wetting my bottom lip, I nod. My Sister’s Keeper was one of Lo’s favorite movies to watch because the ending didn’t match the book. It was sad because the sick girl didn’t survive, but happy because her pain no longer made her suffer.

“Anyway, the student counsel nixed it because there was a girl who was going through the same thing and they wanted to be considerate of her feelings,” the girl explains, flipping her brown hair over her shoulder.

I blink in disbelief. “That’s why they didn’t go through with it?”

She shrugs. “Plus, it’s sad.”

One of my brows twitches. “The Hunger Games is literally about kids killing other kids for sport. How is that not sad?”

Kaiden snorts as the girl rolls her eyes at me like I’m the one being ridiculous. “That isn’t real. Duh.”

Not sure what to say, I shake my head and stare back at the wall. People hate realistic stories like Picoult’s because they could happen to anyone. People die—of cancer, accidents, there’s no discrimination in death. I guess wearing rose-colored glasses is easier than dark shades.

The girl goes to speak, but Kaiden cuts her off. “You might want to stop talking, Rach. You’re not coming off very intelligent. Plus, you know what I told everyone.”