You'll Be the Death of Me(26)

ISHAAN: He didn’t just die. He was killed. By a blond chick.

ZACK, glaring at Ishaan: You’re getting ahead of the story. That part’s not even confirmed yet. (Looks back at the camera.) Anyway. Boney was elected senior class president yesterday, and was supposed to give his acceptance speech at ten o’clock this morning. We were all in the auditorium, waiting. (Dramatic pause.) But Boney never showed up.

     ISHAAN, crowding into the camera: You know who else didn’t show up?

ZACK: Not yet—

ISHAAN, loudly: That’s right, a blond chick. The one he beat.

ZACK: Damn it, Ishaan, you always ruin my intro.

ISHAAN: You were taking too long. Anyway, it’s weird, right? Ivy Sterling-Shepard never misses a single day of school until today, when the guy who totally humiliates her dies? And nobody’s heard from her. Not her brother, not her best friend— ZACK: I’m not sure we should be saying names here. This is all just speculation, obviously, but— ISHAAN: But that girl is intense. Like, the kind of intense that snaps one day and goes off the deep end. You can see it, right?

ZACK, after a beat: Well. It’s not like you can’t see it.





CAL


I don’t know why I grabbed her hands, under the circumstances. A combination of habit, probably—even though it’s only been a few weeks since we started meeting up outside of class—and the desperate need for some kind of comfort.

I can tell I’ve annoyed her, though, so now I feel even worse. “Sorry,” I say, leaning back and fiddling with her discarded straw wrapper. She’s drinking something pink and iced, and gives me a small smile as she takes a sip.

“It’s all right. Just a very public spot, you know?”

I know. And I know how this looks—all of it.

I never thought I’d be involved with an older woman, or an almost-married woman, or a teacher. It’s not like it was planned. I’ve had a crush on Lara ever since I first took one of her classes last year, but I never imagined anything would come of it. Especially once she got engaged. But when senior year began, I asked her advice about college art programs, and we started talking a lot more. Then she gave me her number, in case I had any questions outside of class. I sat in my room for three hours that night, composing messages until I finally got up the nerve to send one.

    We ended up texting for almost two hours, and every day after that. It went from being about college applications, to art in general, to pop culture, and then about hopes and dreams and plans for the future. I got kind of obsessed with her, I guess. I thought about her nonstop, even when I was with Noemi, and I filled my phone with songs about unrequited love. Earlier this month, I was listening to one of them when she called me for the first time.

“Hello?” I croaked, my heart in my throat.

“Hi, Cal. I was just thinking about your face.”

“Excuse me?” I was positive I’d heard her wrong.

“It’s so interesting,” she said. “Such wonderful angles. I’d love to draw you sometime.”

That’s how I ended up at her studio the first time. She uses it on occasional weeknights, too, so I told my parents I had a study group at the library and took off for Boston. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive as I did that night, every nerve humming while I sat beside her on a wooden bench as she sketched. She kept putting down her pad and pencil so she could touch my cheek or my chin, making slight adjustments to my pose. Nothing else happened then, or since, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time.

I’m not clueless. I know she’s engaged, and my teacher, and older. Only by seven years, though. My aunt and uncle have a ten-year age difference, and nobody cares. I mean, yeah, they met when Uncle Rob was thirty-five and Aunt Lisa was forty-five, and they didn’t work together or anything like that, so I get that it’s different. But are people supposed to abandon potential soul mates just because of a few socially constructed complications?

    Not that my dads would ever see it that way. Like I said, I tell Wes an abnormal amount of stuff—but not this. Even if I’d been tempted, I’d have known better after Carlton College fired that professor for sleeping with his student.

“They’re both adults, though,” I’d said, thinking about Lara and my own eighteenth birthday coming up next spring.

“There’s a power differential between teachers and students,” Wes pointed out. “It’s why we have a policy in place.” Then his lips thinned. “Even if we didn’t, I will always question the judgment and motives of an adult who gets involved with a teenager. Wrong is wrong.”

I know that’s what everyone would say. And it’s how I feel when I pass Coach Kendall in the hall, and he gives me a cheery greeting even though I don’t play any sports and he barely knows me. Wrong is wrong, I think. But then I get a text from Lara that makes my entire body flood with warmth and happiness, and I wonder, Is life really that black-and-white?

Lara breaks into my thoughts by clearing her throat. She adjusts her baseball cap over her blond waves, and I realize I’ve probably been staring dopily for a good thirty seconds. I tend to do that. “So what’s going on, Cal?” she asks. “Why the urgency, and more importantly, why aren’t you in school?”