Seven Ways We Lie(30)

Something about him in general soothes my nerves, although I can’t pinpoint what.

I take a bottle and draw out a cylinder from the second bucket. Beside me, the kid’s pale hands move in jerks and starts, impatient, hyperefficient. “Rinse them three times each,” he says, “then line them up overhead. Got it?”

I nod.

He turns to me.

“Got it?”

“I nodded.”

“Ah. Right.” He goes back to washing. “Didn’t see.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“Worrying,” he says. “I’m not worrying about it.”

I look at him for a second, wondering how long it’s been since he spoke to a human being. I’m not a master of small talk by any means, but this kid is something else.

I go back to my cylinders. We lapse into blessed silence, but it doesn’t take long for him to break it. “Valentine Simmons,” he introduces himself. “Junior.”

“Sure,” I say, putting a cylinder into one of the cabinets.

“Despite common belief,” he adds, “Valentine is a boy’s name, since Saint Valentine was a man. So. So it’s not weird.”

“Okay,” I say. “I didn’t say it was weird.”

Another silent minute trickles by before Valentine asks, “What grade are you in?”

Jesus, this guy won’t take a hint. “Same,” I say.

He squeezes a thin jet of water from his bottle’s nozzle, his expression carefully neutral. Still, I get the sense he’s disappointed I won’t bite.

It hits me why he seems disarming: this air hovers around him, and I only recognize it because it’s familiar. He’s one of those kids who, like me, has zero friends. Nice to know my superpower is detecting social failure.

I make a peace offering. “So, how about that assembly? What a waste of time, huh?”

“Waste of . . .?”

“One email, and they go batshit crazy? It was probably someone trolling.”

“If that’s what you choose to believe,” he says, an air of superiority cloaking him so thickly, I can almost smell it. He goes back to his cylinder, silent at last.

“I’m Kat Scott,” I say. “So, why’d Norman put you on cleaning duty?”

“He didn’t. I offered.”

“Best buds, huh?”

“Well, we ate lunch together today, if that qualifies.”

I eye him. “That’s, uh.”

“You think it’s strange.”

“I mean, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong.”

“Yes, well.” Valentine shrugs. “It was raining, so I couldn’t eat outside.”

“And you couldn’t just go to the cafeteria because . . .?”

His nose wrinkles. “I don’t particularly enjoy the company of my peers.”

“. . . right. That didn’t sound rehearsed at all.”

“Well, it’s true. I just don’t do it. The last time I ate with someone my age was four hundred and ten days ago.”

“Um.” I look over at him. He doesn’t seem to register exactly how bizarre that sentence was. “Why do you remember that?”

“I don’t know. I like keeping count of things, and . . .” He frowns. “Yep.”

Holy shit, that is sad. After a long minute of searching for an appropriate response, I go back to washing graduated cylinders. I can’t imagine a torture more excruciating than eating lunch with Dr. Norman, that condescending prick. I’ll take being roasted over a slow flame any day.

Then again, how long has it been since I had lunch with anybody? I sure as hell don’t keep track, but my score is probably in the hundreds, too. My corner of the courtyard is my lunchtime sanctuary, and when it gets too cold, I resort to empty classrooms or the back section of the library. No company needed.

I can’t remember the last time I sat down to dinner with Dad and Olivia, either. Eating alone seems so sad on Valentine. Is that what I look like from the outside? Some pariah, doomed to sit, untouchable, away from the rest of the world? I hope to God people can tell it’s my choice.

Valentine finishes his bucket first. But he doesn’t leave or find some reason to move away from me. Instead, he stands there, looking like the embodiment of everyone who has ever been awkward.

I tuck the last graduated cylinder into the overhead cabinet and shut the door, checking the clock. “Great.” The bus is always long gone by four fifteen, and it’s raining today. If I catch pneumonia walking home and die, I hope Olivia sues the shit out of Dr. Norman.

As Valentine takes the empty buckets up front, I head to one of the windows and look down at the junior lot. It’s a pleasant surprise—Juniper’s car is still sitting there. I shoot my sister a text. Hey, missed the bus. Can you wait for me? Be down soon.

Valentine stops by the window, shrugging his backpack on. He breathes on the glass and draws an indifferent-looking face in the fog. “Is something out there?”

“Just, my sister’s still here. So I have a ride.” I point out through the drizzle at the silver Mercedes. “That’s her.”

Valentine’s finger freezes over the fogged-up glass. “Oh,” he says, packing more meaning into that one syllable than I would’ve thought possible.