Shuffle, Repeat(55)

We arrive on the second floor to find lanterns placed all around and students everywhere. There are tons of senior athletes and—surprisingly—tons of nonathletes, too. Ainsley is there (natch). She is at a table piled high with combination locks and is handing them out to a line of perky cheerleaders. She waves me over. “Bo Reeves scored the universal key. We took the locks off every single locker in the school and now we’re mixing them up and putting them back.”

I stare at her—“That is genius.”—and she beams in return.

“I know, right? Everyone will have to try all the lockers in the school just to find their own lock. We could use some more hands, but before you jump in, go check out the third floor. It’s seriously magical.”

“Go on,” Shaun tells me. “I’ll help with the lockers.”

I hesitate only a second before running off.

? ? ?

Apparently I’ve been kept in the dark for a long time, because a lot of work has been done. A lot. It looks like our seniors have enjoyed some major crafternoons, because there are zillions of snowflakes stuck to the walls and dangling from the ceiling. Shaun will love it. Students are going in and out of several open classroom doors, so I peer inside one of them.

It just keeps getting better.

The first thing I see is a glittery silver disco ball that I’m sure was once a globe of the world. It sits beside several glittery silver pens and what appears to be a stack of individually wrapped glittery silver documents. All of those are perched atop a glittery silver desk, which is beside a glittery silver trash can.

Suddenly, I understand why Cash had to make a special trip to his local market on the way to our house for dinner. This is why there was no aluminum foil at the store near school. Everything in this room—like, everything—has been individually encased in foil. Desks, whiteboard, wall hangings, dry-erase markers. Everything.

I walk all the way inside and stare around. Not only is it pretty—in a strange, spacey kind of way—but absolutely nothing was hurt in the creation of this prank. No property—school or personal—and definitely no animals.

There’s a noise at the doorway and I look over. It’s Itch. “Oh, sorry,” he says, and turns to leave.

“Wait!” I say really fast and a little too loudly. Itch stops moving but he doesn’t come any closer. He slumps against the doorframe and waits. “I haven’t seen you around,” I tell him.

“Really? Because we go to the same school.”

I try again. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

He folds his arms. “Oh, you can suddenly be a joiner, but I can’t?”

“Itch.”

“Let me guess,” he says. “You want forgiveness. You want us to be all friendy.”

“I broke up with you,” I remind him. “I didn’t stab you.”

Itch lets out a short bark of pissed-off laughter. “Right. No stabbing, no big deal.” He shakes his head. “Forget it, June.”

This time when he turns to go, I let him.

? ? ?

I finally find Oliver after Theo points me in his direction. (“You know his girlfriend’s here, right?” “Bite me, Theo.”)

There are orange traffic cones placed at the entrances to North Hall. Oliver is there alone, in the lobby, threading yellow caution tape around the entire area. He smiles really big when he sees me. “How’d you get here?”

“Shaun.” I watch Oliver loop the tape around the radiator twice and tie it so it stays in place. “Do you need help?”

“No. I’m almost done.”

“Oh. Okay.” I’m disappointed but I can’t complain. After all, I’m the one who showed up late. “I’ll see if they need anything on the third—”

“Don’t go,” Oliver says, so I don’t. “How do you like it?”

I duck under the caution tape and join him in the center of the North Hall lobby. There are snowflakes taped to the walls here, too. “It’s pretty.”

“Pretty? That’s all I get?”

“Someone spent a lot of time with paper and scissors.”

“For sure.” He stretches his right hand toward me and points to his index knuckle. Because he seems to expect it, I run my fingertip over the small hard spot. It’s polished smooth. “I cut roughly a million snowflakes while waiting for you to take your turn in Mythteries.”

I get a sudden flash image of Oliver on one of the stools in his basement, hunched over the bar with a pair of scissors, and I go clenchy inside. I realize that I’m still sliding my finger gently against him and I start to pull away, but Oliver catches my hand before I can. I look up into his eyes and the clenchiness increases.

“You could have called,” he says. “I would have come back for you.”

And that’s when it happens.

In that moment, the world turns and everything around us dims. Oliver’s eyes are focused right on mine and his shock of angel-blond hair is the only light in the room. It’s not just about how he looks; it’s about who he is and my heart cracks wide open. I am slammed with the absolute, painful knowledge that somehow, accidentally, this boy has squeezed in. Against all my plans and denials, I missed a spot when I was setting up barriers around myself. There was an opening somewhere, and then there was Oliver.