First & Then(64)

The next day, I found myself in the lunch line, scanning the cafeteria to see if Cas was around. We had managed to avoid each other all week; whether this was intentional or not, I wasn’t quite sure. And while I looked, I couldn’t tell if I was hoping to see him or hoping not to see him.

When the search turned up fruitless, I let out a sigh. The girl in front of me glanced back and gave me a quizzical look.

“New York deli again,” I said, pointing to the cafeteria menu by way of an explanation. “They’re hitting the pastrami really hard this month.”

“True facts,” she said, and then faced forward again. A beat later, she turned back. “We have gym together, you know.”

For all the marbled rye in the world, I couldn’t have told you that this girl was in my gym class. I tried picturing her in the uniform, maybe with the T-shirt tied up, but I drew a blank.

“Yeah,” I said, and tried to pretend that wasn’t the case. “Hey. Sorry. How’s it going?”

“Good.”

To try to make up for not recognizing her, I gestured in the direction of another gym class–goer up ahead in line, the hard-core PT slash future valedictorian, Amanda Jeffers. She and another girl in line were taking a selfie. Hashtag lunchtime, hashtag adorbs, I could only imagine.

“It’s, uh, like a gym class meetup in here today, huh?” I said.

The girl followed my gaze. “Guess so.”

“It’s funny,” I said, watching as Amanda fiddled with her phone, no doubt choosing the best filter to capture that cafeteria glow. “She’s actually really smart.”

“I know. I have Biology with her. She always scores highest.”

I shook my head. “Crazy, huh?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because … I mean, look at her.”

“Just because you like hair and makeup doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”

She said this like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And I started to say, “I know that,” but then I swallowed it back, because … did I?

We slid our trays onto the runner, and I glanced over at the girl. I had a nagging feeling that she was judging me, and I didn’t like it, which was probably very hypocritical of me.

“Um … what’s your name again?” I asked, reaching for some fries.

“Sophie,” she said.

“I’m Devon.”

“I know. We all know.” She didn’t say this as if it was a bad thing, but again, a glaringly obvious thing. This seemed to be one of Sophie’s special skills.

“Sorry, I didn’t … sorry.” I shook my head. “Sometimes you get in, like, a bubble.”

“A senior bubble?”

“Maybe. Or just like … a person bubble.”

A two-person bubble, maybe. Me and Cas against the world. We had always had each other. And with him, I didn’t have to bother to have anyone else. I had never really thought about it before, but it was easier to lump people together that way. Like Amanda Jeffers and the PTs—roll them up, an undifferentiated mass of glitter, and relegate them to the periphery. Stick Sophie and all the other Sophies in my life back there, too, indistinguishable, inconsequential. That’s what I was used to doing. But that wasn’t even remotely fair, was it?

We neared the end of the line, and I scanned the room one more time. Finally, I saw him—Cas, sitting alone at a corner table with an egregiously large pile of cheese fries. We were the last two seniors in the whole f*cking world eating cafeteria food, because it was greasy, and more important, it was cheap. But perhaps most important of all, it was convenient. It didn’t get easier than crappy TS cafeteria food for lunch. And Cas and I, we were good at what was easy.

I wanted to go over there. But at the same time … I don’t know. It’s a f*cking cliché. But maybe easy wasn’t good enough anymore.

I looked at Sophie. “Do you want to eat together?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Popping the bubble?”

“I don’t know if we can be friends if you’re continually sassing me, Sophie.”

She grinned. “Can’t make any promises. Sass levels are high.”





34


On Friday after school Rachel Woodson approached me in the hallway, positively beaming.

“I’ve been looking for you all day,” she said.

“I’m just about to head home—”

“Don’t. Come with me.”

Rachel was brusque and kind of intimidating, but at the same time that made everything she said sound like a good idea. So I went with her to the writing lab.

“I found it this morning,” she said as she stuck a sheaf of paper under my eyes. “The piles got mixed up, the Herald stuff got stuck under the yearbook stuff, so I didn’t see it, I don’t know when he even dropped it off, but—”

“What are you talking about?”

“Read it. Read fast.”

I looked at the top of the page, which said:

To the editor of the Herald:

This letter is in response to your article in last month’s issue about the politics of high school football. I was featured in that article, and there are a couple of points concerning myself that I’d like to address. That probably sounds pretty egotistical, because it probably is, but I heard from someone recently that a few details here and there aren’t so terrible. So here are some details.