Eighteen (18)(13)

No. He’s not a day late all. He’s most definitely right on time.





Day two of second semester goes pretty much like day one, except for the first-period smackdown by Bowman. Fowler doesn’t even bother showing for PE, so Mary and Josie and I walk our laps, slow as sloths, until the bell rings. I sit through economics thinking about how Sunday and I can be in the same grade and yet I have no classes with him.

At lunch I’m nervous. I’m not sure why—he told me to find him. Practically ordered me not to ditch him. But still, my stomach flutters like crazy when I approach the wall.

It’s not a wall. Well, it sorta is. It’s a circle, like some kind of giant brick fire pit, but it’s got benches and there’s no fire pit in the middle. And it’s not all filled with white kids, it just looks that way because everyone is dressed up grunge. Flannels, army jackets, combat boots, Chucks, Docs, ripped jeans, ripped shirts, tattoos, piercings, metal bands, pink hair, blue hair, black hair, black clothes, and lots of chains as jewelry.

We are Hot Topic.

I almost laugh at that.

But we are not all white. Every ethnicity here is represented because people—no matter where they are from, what color their skin, or any of those other bullshit identifiers—people congregate with their tribes.

These are my people. I knew the very first day last month that if I found friends in this school, this is where I’d find them.

Sunday greets me when I approach. Introduces me, includes me. Even puts his arm around me once. Fleetingly. I suspect it was some kind of secret signal to another guy that I’m not available. That even though he and I are not together, he’s claimed me.

I’m surprisingly OK with that.

But when the bell rings and he leans down to—I don’t know, kiss me?—I put my hand on his chest. “I like you,” I say. “But I’m not looking. So…”

“So?” he says.

“So if that’s what you’re after, I’m gonna disappoint you.”

He takes my backpack off my shoulder and says, “I’ll walk you to class.”

The rest of the day flies by with my head in a fog. What is he doing? Does he want to be friends? He wasn’t mad when I stopped his kiss. If he was going to kiss me. I think he was.

At the end of the day I grab Alesci’s jacket from my locker and head to the front of the school. Sunday is there, waiting right where Bowman picked me up yesterday.

“’Bout time,” he says, taking my backpack and giving the jacket a weird look. Please don’t ask me about it. Please, please, please. “Wanna come over? I got a couple hours before work.”

“Oh, I can’t,” I say. “I have night school down at Gilbert.”

“Need a ride?”

I nod, wincing at how dependent I am on people these days. When we get to his car, he opens my door for me. “Thank you,” I say.

He just smiles, gets in his side, and holds out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Your phone. So I can call you and give you my number.”

I fish around in my backpack for my phone and hand it to him. He doesn’t even remark on how old it is, how the screen is cracked, or how all the numbers are practically rubbed off on the outdated keys. He calls himself, then presses end, adds his name to my contacts, and hands it back.

“Call me when you’re done there and I’ll come get you.”

“I thought you had to work?”

He shrugs and starts the car. “My boss is flexible.”





Chapter Eight




As soon as I’m out of Sunday’s car my mind immediately goes back to last night with Mateo. It’s like a switch flips. But his motorcycle isn’t in the parking lot, and I realize I have another class to go to before his.

I sit through science with my leg bouncing the entire time. Science isn’t a class. It’s a room with about eight kids who have a textbook and do tests. You can do them all open-book and get a C, or do the work and study and go for an A. I opt for open-book and complete four tests in two hours.

The teacher, who never even introduces himself to me, shoots me looks each time I turn one in. “Trying to get them all done in one day, Drake?”

“Yes,” I say. “I have very little control over my life at the moment. I take it where I can get it.”

He leaves me alone after test three.

When the class is finally dismissed I am consumed with thoughts of Mateo. We didn’t even set up a time last night. What if he’s not here? Where am I supposed to go? Should I go to the office and ask?

But in the end, he is sitting at that little table desk in room twenty-one. He’s not wearing a suit. Jesus f*ck. His plain white t-shirt stretches across his chest just like the dress shirt did yesterday. And his bare arms are covered in tattoos. His dark hair is neither long nor short, and he’s got a little curl that falls down onto his forehead.

I want very badly to touch that little curl of hair.

“You’re late,” he says.

“I am?”

He nods up to the clock, which reads five minutes after five.

“Was I supposed to be here at five? Because you never said yesterday.”

“Here’s your book,” he says, leaning around to grab a textbook and dropping it on the table with a loud thump. “And here,” he says, repeating the action, “is your workbook. You have homework every night. We meet at five and stay until seven. On the weekends—”