We Are the Ants(20)

“Just, whatever. My rep’s no better.”

“I doubt that.”

“For real. I’m sure they’ll come up with a nickname for me any day now.”

I shrugged because it was easier to go with him than to continue arguing. “Fine, but if you call me Space Boy again, I’m gone.”

Diego slung his arm around my shoulders. “Deal.”

? ? ?

I hadn’t eaten in the cafeteria since the middle of sophomore year. Jesse, Audrey, and I always sat together. We were a unit. After Jesse, I stopped eating inside.

Not much about the cafeteria had changed. It was loud and jagged, and I made myself small. Most people were sitting in the same groups with the same people they’d known all through high school. We aren’t just defined by who we are, but by who our friends are. It’s funny that we put so much importance on something that won’t mean shit once we graduate.

“You hungry?” Diego asked. “I’m starving. My sister is hardly home to cook, so I’ve been living on delivery pizza and microwave popcorn.” He slid into the lunch line, grabbed a tray, and tossed on a bag of chips, mac and cheese, a pudding cup, and something the serving guy claimed was chicken potpie. “Food here is so much better than at my last school. We were happy if all we got was E. coli.”

I cringed looking at Diego’s lunch. “I’m not sure that qualifies as food.”

Diego shuffled to the cashier and fished money from his pocket. “Sometimes you have to learn to adjust your expectations to survive.”

“How bad was your last school?”

“Pretty much a prison.” Diego grabbed his tray and waded into the sea of tables and chairs. I followed him to a table with a couple of free seats, and watched him tear into his lunch while I dumped mine out of its paper bag.

“Is that meatloaf?” Diego grabbed my sandwich without asking and peeled back the plastic wrap. He sniffed it before I could snatch it back.

“Yeah.” A thick slice of meatloaf rested between the bread, one side slathered with mayo, the other with ketchup. A mixture of sunflower seeds and raisins rolled around freely at the bottom of the bag.

Diego talked with his mouth full of mac and cheese. “My mom made great meatloaf. It was my favorite.”

I tossed the sandwich aside. “We had meatloaf last week, and it was terrible then.” Diego frowned, so I said, “Sometimes my grandma packs my lunch. She’s a little senile. I should be grateful we didn’t have any gravy left.”

“It could be worse.” Diego tossed me his potato chips; I was too hungry to refuse the gift. “You do anything fun this weekend?”

“Mostly hid in my room to avoid my mother and brother. He knocked up his girlfriend and dropped out of college, and my mom’s not taking it so well.” Diego probably didn’t want to hear about my f*cked-up family, but I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about.

“What about your dad?”

“Not around.” I was content to let it drop there, but Diego had this way of looking at me that made me keep talking, like I was afraid to let the silence creep up between us. “My parents divorced when I was younger, and my father disappeared. I haven’t heard from him in years.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Diego had eaten most of what he’d bought, but there was still some potpie he was eyeing like he couldn’t decide whether to finish it. “Did you stay at the party after I decided to see how much of my foot I could shove in my mouth? I tried to find you, but that house is huge. I got lost in a closet for an hour. It was fun.”

“About as much fun as a throbbing hemorrhoid.”

“Tell me how you really feel.”

The last thing I wanted to be reminded of was Marcus’s party. “I don’t really do parties.”

“They’re not my thing either.”

“What is your thing?”

“Painting.”

“That’s right. You’re an artist.”

“When you say it, it sounds like an insult.”

“Artists always seem so self-involved. Everything is about their art.” I chuckled to let him know I was teasing. “I mean, come on. What’s up with all the self-portraits?”

Diego was quiet for a moment, but the empty space was filled by the chaotic noise from other tables. I hoped I hadn’t offended him. “Artists have to learn how to paint what’s in the mirror, even if what they see is a total shit show.” He gave in and scooped up the last bite of potpie. “If you can’t paint yourself honestly, everything else you paint will be a lie too.”

“I didn’t realize artists were so self-aware.”

“Yeah, well, being self-aware only means that we know we’re *s.” Diego shrugged and pushed his empty tray to the side. “Anyway, that’s what my ex-girlfriend used to tell me.”

“Ex-g-girlfriend?” I tried not to stutter, but I couldn’t help it, and ended up drooling. “Shit.” I forced a laugh and wiped my lip with a napkin.

Diego pretended not to notice, but I caught him grinning. “Her name was Leigh. She’d tell you I was the biggest prick in North America. Probably the world.”

Having recovered from my sudden inability to keep saliva in my mouth, I said, “Did you break up because you moved here?”