Select (Select #1)(21)

After Novak seemed to promise to take care of the legal issue, I’d willingly forgotten about John. I hadn’t even considered he might go to school here as a remote possibility.

He didn’t look at me again, and I felt smug at the thought that he was intimidated by me.

“John Ford?”

He raised his hand when his name was called for attendance. I could sense the buzz that went around the room at the announcement of his name, especially from the girls in the classroom—as if it gave them permission to look over at him, which they’d wanted to do since he walked in. One blond girl in particular stared. It was obvious to me that she and John had a history. Thankfully Mrs. Bartell just called out “Julia” when she reached my name on the roster and checked it off without fanfare.

The class officially started and the first-day-of-school housekeeping—attendance, general syllabus for the year, grading—took up a good portion of the period. As long as I didn’t need to participate in a conversation, I only had to half-listen to get all the information. For most of class, I tried to act unaware that everyone’s eyes were on me, while at the same time trying to tell if John Ford in particular was staring. I wondered which part of the article had bothered him most. Best-case scenario, he thought, like everyone else, I was a member of a cult. I felt embarrassed by the thought.

“So, All the King’s Men was your summer reading. What’d y’all think?” Mrs. Bartell asked, pretending class was going to have substance on the first day of school. I glanced at the wall clock, surprised to find the period was almost over. John’s presence had distracted me for almost the entire class and at some point I’d begun to calm down.

Mrs. Bartell was only killing time and there was total reluctance in the air, everyone’s brain still clinging to thoughts of summer. Before she said his name, I felt Mrs. Bartell’s attention shift to John, and I knew she was going to call on him. “John?”

Startled, John sat up straighter, moving his hands under the desk to hide his eczema from view. I realized I was nervous for him, assuming he was unprepared on the first day. But he surprised me.

“It was good. Actually, it was great. And that’s the way it works—only a select group of people call the shots and pull the levers. Some we elect—others just use their money.” Ouch. So he did have something to say to me.

“Was there a scene or chapter that stood out for you?” Mrs. Bartell asked, opening the question to the rest of the class.

But John answered. “When Jack finds out about Anne and drives nonstop from Baton Rouge to Long Beach and then sleeps for days.” You could tell this had great self-destructive appeal to John. I’d loved that part too.

Against my earlier resolve, I turned to watch him. You could see remnants of the long scratch from Barton Springs on his cheek. I noticed his full lips, the top lip slightly bigger than the bottom. What struck me were his eyes. He would probably be considered classically handsome, though his almond-shaped eyes were unexpected in a way I couldn’t pinpoint.

He was not my type. With his brown eyes and his dark-brown hair, he was so different from the more exotic-looking boys in our group. He wore jeans and Vans. His T-shirt wasn’t tight but fit him well, in a way that showed he had a hard, well-defined chest, which I’d noticed at the pool. Everything about him was just…not what I was used to. I took all of this in, every detail of him, over the course of one second. When my attention turned back to the whole class again, I was surprised that most of the kids were listening to what John had to say.

Suddenly John snapped his head to look directly at me, sensing I had been staring. Fortunately that’s when the bell rang.

I looked away and began to pack up my bag. I needed to fly out of there to my next class in case he attempted to speak to me. I didn’t even want to acknowledge we’d met before. I needed to be very clear. What happened the other day had never happened.

Walking out of the classroom, I had to cross his path. I picked up on a huge dose of resentment.



During the first week of school, I watched him try not to watch me. I knew he must be mad at me. So mad, he was pretending I didn’t exist. In addition to being angry that I’d lied to the police, he was probably also angry and confused about what he’d seen.

I should have thought it was funny that he ignored me, given that everyone else in the school stared at me and whispered now that they’d heard who I was. I couldn’t believe I was bothered by John’s anger. His parents sweating the expense of a lawyer stuck in my head. My family would consider it a major flaw that I had any concern about an outsider. I was letting it distract me, when my job here was to feel nothing at all.

Every day at school, time ticked by slowly since I had to be vigilant, staying in an almost meditative state so as to remain composed and not fuel the rumors.

I took long, hard runs the first week to see if that helped to relieve stress. Then I told myself I’d just do a few small tricks in my bathroom, that the release was what I needed in order to manage myself at school. That small release turned into more than a few tricks—exploding bottles of shampoo and soap in my shower, sitting on the bathroom floor while moving my phone hypnotically back and forth across the tiles. It helped me stay rash-free.

The few times I couldn’t resist, I tried to read John’s mind again by focusing only on him, shutting out everything else around me, wanting to relive that feeling of oneness I couldn’t forget. I tried multiple times, but nothing. After each failure I told myself I’d stop trying.