If I'm Being Honest(17)

I frown. It’s not the first casual display of budding friendship I’ve observed over the week. Every day there’s something—a wave in the hallways, a brief conversation about the night’s readings, a shared glance when someone says something particularly stupid in class. I don’t like it. Not that I’m jealous in a romantic sense. I’m reasonably confident Paige isn’t Andrew’s type, considering he’s had a crush on me since freshman year. However, the better friends they become, the more important it will be I win over Paige before she further turns him against me.

I get into the hallway to find Paige already finished with her locker and heading to the dining hall. I hate that I know exactly where her locker is and where she sits for lunch.

“You’re working on your Econ assignment again today?” I hear Elle ask behind me. She walks up next to me, scowling at the couple of junior boys who cross her path.

I’ve been telling Elle I have an Econ project not because I think she’d be judgmental about what I’m really doing. It would just take plenty of explaining. I don’t enjoy being dishonest with my friends—and once when I told everyone I was spending spring break in Avignon like the rest of my classmates, I ended up running into Elle and her entire family in a restaurant near my house. That didn’t feel great.

Desperate times, however.

“Unfortunately,” I lie.

“How much longer is this assignment going to take?” Elle asks. I recognize the playfulness under her pointed tone. It’s a distinction I’ve picked up over years of overhearing her peeved conversations with vendors and promoters versus having her pester me about hanging out and helping with videos. “Why do you care?” she goes on without waiting for my answer. “I know you hate Econ.”

“I don’t hate Econ,” I protest. I don’t love the late nights and eye-watering spreadsheets. It’s worth it, though.

Elle eyes me. “How much longer?” she repeats drolly.

“Today,” I say. “I promise.” I’ve devoted nearly a week to the Paige project. If something doesn’t come along in the next couple hours, I’m going to need a new strategy.

“Good,” Elle says emphatically, opening the door to the dining hall. “I don’t know if I can take two more lunches with nothing to do but watch Brad and Morgan eye-bang each other.”

“Please. You didn’t practically walk in on them,” I reply, remembering a uniquely unpleasant encounter in Morgan’s bathroom at the end of the party. “Puppy-dog eyes in the dining hall is nothing.”

Elle laughs. We walk together toward where Morgan and Brad are—of course—gazing goofily at each other. “Oh boy,” Elle mutters. She shoots me a stern look. “For real, Cameron. Finish this Econ project.” It’s not a question.

“I will. Promise,” I repeat. “Do you . . . you know”—I nod toward Morgan and Brad—“need a barf bag? I have a Ziploc from my lunch . . .”

Elle rolls her eyes. “Get to work, Cam.”

With a grin, I pull away. I enter the dining hall as Paige is leaving the kitchen. Instead of heading for her usual table, she turns toward the science wing. Walking against the crowds coming from classrooms to the dining hall, I follow her. She stops in front of the robotics room. I linger a distance away while she pulls open the door and goes inside.

I wait for her to finish her errand, not looking forward to another day of eavesdropping on her friends’ conversations about video games and Japanese TV and probably learning nothing. There’s a new episode every Thursday of one of the group’s favorite shows. They’ll probably be preoccupied with that today.

Ugh. I feel like a psycho. Except instead of Beyoncé or Ryan Gosling or someone reasonable, my stalkee has weird taste in hats and an anime obsession.

I check my phone, realizing it’s been over five minutes since Paige went in. That’s way longer than you need to drop off homework or pick up a test. There are only a limited number of reasons a person would want to be in an empty classroom during the middle of lunch, chief among them: hookups.

If it’s Jeff, gross. If it’s not, it might be someone I’m less morally opposed to helping her with. It could be the first useful piece of information I’ve learned. While I don’t exactly want to witness whatever’s going on in there firsthand, I have no choice. I have to peek.

Pulling my bag over my shoulder, I walk nonchalantly to the window. I notice a poster on the door for BPR—Beaumont Prep Robotics—over a design resembling men’s and women’s restroom identifiers, except the figures have square heads instead of round. Robots. Clever design.

I press my face to the glass, preparing for the worst.

Okay, this would be a morally objectionable pairing.

I have only an obscured view from the narrow window. The room is dark. On one end, a bare bulb dimly illuminates a table and a desk chair, with heaps of old robotics equipment and extension cords in the corner. In the chair sits Barfy Brendan.

Paige lingers by the desk. I watch the two of them. BB’s busy with the computer, typing, his face turned from his sister’s. On hers is written a complication of emotions I don’t recognize from Paige. Not the exhilaration and skepticism that wage war when she’s geeking out about whatever she and her friends geek out about. Definitely not the ire I exclusively earn.