We Are the Ants(9)

Faraci was reviewing the different types of chemical reactions when the door at the front of the class swung open to admit a guy I didn’t recognize. He was tall and dangerous with spiky black hair and a f*ck-you grin. Lean muscles danced under his crisp shirt. He stood in the doorway, his thumbs hooked through the belt loops of his gray shorts until the entire class was staring at him.

“Someone called for a nude model?”

Ms. Faraci sputtered as she tried to reply. Those students not gaping at the strange kid whispered to one another about him. Marcus wore a wolfish smirk, which caused something savage to rumble in my chest.

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Faraci said, “who are you?”

“Diego, obviously.” He spoke with an ease that was probably rehearsed; no one could be so composed under the wither-ing scrutiny of twenty sets of eyes. “I’m not really a nude model. Yet.”

I wondered if Ms. Faraci was having trouble speaking because the interruption had thrown her off her game and she was trying to figure out where in her lecture she’d left off or because she was imagining what Diego would look like naked too. Finally she rushed out from behind her desk and ushered Diego into the hall. I strained to listen but couldn’t hear anything over the din of excited conversations.

After a few moments Ms. Faraci leaned into the room and said, “Henry, can you come out here? Bring your things.” I gathered my books, wishing, not for the first time, that I could turn invisible. Ms. Faraci patted my arm when I reached the door. “Henry’s one of my best students. He’ll show you to your class.”

“I will?”

“Diego’s new.” Ms. Faraci handed me a crumpled printout. “He got a little turned around.”

Behind us, the class was descending into chaos without supervision.

“I’ll do him . . . it. . . . I’ll take Diego to his class.” At that moment I wished I were a dickless alien, but my verbal diarrhea only made Diego smile. It was a cute smile, lopsided and charming.

Ms. Faraci mouthed thank you and rushed inside as Dustin Collier fell out of his desk and crashed into the supply locker where Ms. Faraci stored the volatile chemicals.

I slung my backpack over my shoulder and led Diego toward the exit. “You’re supposed to be in history with Mrs. Parker this period. It’s across campus in the social studies building.”

Diego took his schedule, folded it neatly, and slipped it into his back pocket. “Lead the way, Sacagawea.”

“What?”

“Because you’re my guide? And we’re going to history? Forget it.” Diego’s voice was deep and hummed like the constant vibration of the sluggers’ ship.

The humid air pummeled us as soon as we left the air-conditioned science building, but I was still grateful for the excuse to escape the classroom. I took the long way to the social studies building.

“So,” Diego said, “your science teacher’s a little out there.”

“Yeah.”

“But she seems cool.”

The confidence Diego exuded when he’d burst into my class appeared to be waning, and he fidgeted, shoving his hands into his pockets, then crossing his arms, then putting his hands back into his pockets. I was never good at small talk, preferring not to talk at all. Talking is how bad things happen. But Diego seemed uncomfortable with the silence, so I gave it a try. “Science is my favorite. It’s precise, and everything has an explanation. Plus, sometimes we get to blow shit up.”

“I can see the appeal.”

“It’s so weird.” Once I began babbling, I couldn’t stop. “Like, the smaller things get, the crazier science becomes. When you start talking about p-branes and quantum immortality and entanglement . . . Well, it’s just cool is all.”

Diego stared at me with X-ray eyes. It was like he could see through my clothes and skin, straight to the meat of me. I quickly changed the subject. “You just move here or something?”

“Or something.” Diego quickened his pace. The way he avoided looking at me reminded me of Jesse at the end—the odd hesitation before each smile, the sudden silences that rose between us. At the time I hadn’t thought much of them, but that’s what makes hindsight such a bitch.

“I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s not you,” Diego said. “It’s just a reflex. I moved from Colorado.”

The first thing that popped into my mind was, “Jack Swigert was from Colorado.”

“Who?”

“Jack Swigert? Apollo 13 astronaut? Nearly died in space trying to reach the moon?” I stuffed my hands into my pockets when Diego shook his head. “I read a lot.”

“Books are for ugly people.”

“And old women. My nana reads a book a day. Of course, she’s got Alzheimer’s, so she could read the same book over and over and it wouldn’t make a difference to her. She used to write in her journal every day. I kind of picked up the habit from her.”

“So you’re a writer?”

“I write sometimes—mostly about stuff that happens to me, and occasionally different ways the world might end—but I’m not a writer.”

Diego laughed, and the rich, sincere sound of it made me smile. “That sounds . . . odd. I paint.”

“Landscapes?”