“So who do you think it was? It has to be Max, right?” Kenzie and I were standing by my locker discussing the note and the boys it could’ve come from. I had filled her in on everything that happened during social studies, and now she was doing her job as a best friend and helping me figure out whom they were from.
“Well, it could’ve been Kale, too. He seemed to like you. A lot.”
“But he wasn’t with me during second period, so how could he have passed that note to me?” I wondered aloud.
“I don’t know. He sure does make friends fast. He could’ve asked a guy he knew to give it to you.”
I wanted it to be Max so badly. “But he just moved to this school this morning. Nobody makes friends that fast.”
“Apparently he does,” Kenzie said. “Look.” She nodded to the right, where Kale was approaching with several guys, all of whom were talking to him and joking around.
“But Kale doesn’t like me that way,” I whined. “We’re just friends.”
Kenzie rolled her eyes, and I could tell she was about to say something when Kale told his new friends goodbye and walked over to us. “Hey, how’s it going?”
I slammed my locker, and Kenzie said, “Good.”
“What about you, Lauren? What’s wrong? Are you upset or something?”
I turned to face him. “No, not at all. I’m just starving. You ready to go eat?”
He rubbed his stomach. “Of course! I’m a teenage boy. I’m always ready to eat.”
I laughed, my angst about the note forgotten for the moment. “Right. Well we better get to the cafeteria before you eat Kenzie then.”
He licked his lips playfully. “She sure does look good!”
I giggled. “Let’s go.”
Kenzie gave me a meaningful look, and I could tell that she wanted to talk to me again. However, instead of acknowledging her and ditching Kale, I pretended not to notice.
“So how’s your first day going?” I asked Kale.
“Pretty good. I ran into this guy I know in social studies this morning, actually. We were best friends in first grade.”
“Really? What’s his name? I might know him.” I asked, genuinely interested.
“Jake Smith. ” At this, my eyes narrowed. Jake sat behind me in math, and if Kale had asked him to pass the note to me, he probably would’ve. “He’s pretty cool. He introduced me to like, half the football team. I’m going to ask one of the coaches if it’s too late to join.”
Kenzie noticed that I was concentrating on something and jumped in to fill my place in the conversation. “You play football?”
“Yeah, I was one of the best on our team in Padre.”
“That’s great! We could use some help this year. Boerne South has beaten us like ten times now.”
I tuned the two of them out and thought about this note thing logically. Kale was new and obviously enjoyed hanging out with me, but whether that was because he liked me or because he just wanted a friend, I had no idea. Max had never paid any attention to me before today, but that didn’t necessarily mean he sent the note. Ugh. I was going to drive myself crazy with this if I wasn’t careful.
We were in the cafeteria by now, and I listened to the random conversations of the tables that I passed with my trained ears. What I ended up hearing was something like, “Have you looked at him? He’s gorgeous!—Are you busy Friday night? —So then I asked him why he was being such a jerk—Did you hear about that cheerleader that got kicked off the squad for—.” I loved listening to people talk to each other. It was like taking a snapshot of their life, leaving you to wonder who they were, what they cared about, and how they ended up saying the things they said.
As I passed by the table where Max usually sits, I noticed that he wasn’t there, and a quick survey of the cafeteria told me that he hadn’t come to lunch today. I tuned back in to Kenzie and Kale and found that the topic of conversation was no longer football.
“So, you’re pretty much the first person that’s ever showed up here and made friends with half the student body before lunch time.”
“Really?”
“Yep.” Kenzie turned and pointed to Raven Howertin, a strange looking girl wearing florescent orange converse, neon pink fishnets, a jet black leather miniskirt, and a highlighter yellow hoodie. She was sitting alone on the window seat near the bathrooms, as usual. “See her?”
Kale nodded.
“She was the last new kid to come to our school. Showed up about a month ago out of nowhere. I think she might have one friend in the whole school.”
“That’s awful,” he said as he selected a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and put it on his lunch tray. I thought for a moment that that was all he was going to eat, but he grabbed a bag of jerky and two Gatorades at the last moment before we got to the register. “We should sit with her.”
“Sit with whom?” Kenzie asked absentmindedly, handing me a bottle of water.
“You forgot your lunch money again?” I rolled my eyes as I said this, because just yesterday she had confessed to me that this was her new dieting plan. If she forgot her money everyday, she wouldn’t eat lunch, and if she didn’t eat lunch, she would end up losing those last three pounds before sweater season started and she needed to pull off the tight baby blue cashmere sweater tunic she had just bought from Forever 21. Of course, she told me this as we were sitting at McDonalds after school, scarfing down burgers because we had each eaten only half of my lunch.
“That girl. The new one.” Kale seemed slightly annoyed that Kenzie wasn’t eating, but he didn’t let it show.
I shook my head. “She’s happy by herself.”
And she was. When we glanced back in her direction, she had her headphones in and her cell phone out. Her lips were stretched into this goofy smile, and I guessed that she was texting a guy from her old school.
“Alright, then lets find someone else to sit with.” Kale tugged on my hand, and before I could point him toward the table that Kenzie and I usually claim, he was dragging me toward a table in the corner that was already occupied by quite a few of the cheerleaders and the few football players that had already made it through the lunch line with their heaping trays of pizza and Gatorade.
Was he crazy? As we got closer, I spotted Maddie and Grace, who were going through Riley’s make up bag while she looked on, seemingly bored. Max wasn’t anywhere to be found yet, but Jason and Cassidy were happily feeding each other french fries, and Tyler was studying for today’s history test while his gorgeous best friend, Rain, looked on longingly.
But of course, none of this seemed to intimidate Kale. He plopped down in the chair next to Tyler and pulled me down next to him. I looked around for Kenzie and found her looking at me apologetically as she sat down at a table with a few of our friends. I contemplated going over to sit with her, but then, to my complete awe, Kale introduced me to everyone at the table. I had spent years going to school with these people, and they still didn’t remember my name correctly, but Kale was smiling easily with the most exclusive group of people in our school as if they’d been friends their entire lives.
“What’s up, Lauren?” A familiar voice floated down from somewhere above my right shoulder, and I looked up hopefully for Max’s model-perfect smile.
What I found wasn’t Max’s signature grin. It was Max, of course. I’d know that voice anywhere. But he wasn’t happy. In fact, the emotion that came to mind when I looked at his face was rage.
I glanced around the table as he plastered a smile on his face and greeted everyone, wondering which couple would be broken up by next week. It couldn’t be Rain and Tyler. They weren’t even together. If Max wanted Rain he would already have her. (Why wouldn’t he? Rain had long curly hair the color of hot chocolate, and piercing blue eyes. She was a five foot six size two and she accented her long legs with short skirts in hopes to finally attract Tyler’s attention.) Then who? Jason and Cassidy? They would be impossible to break up. Jason asked her out almost a year ago, and they haven’t broken up once. I finally decided that it must be Colie and her boyfriend of the week, Nathan. She had dated almost every hot guy in the school, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have a problem in the slightest with adding another to her collection.
“Is this seat taken?” Max asked, and I looked around for a moment to see whom he was talking to before I realized that his question was directed at me.
I had to concentrate mainly on my voice not shaking, so my response wasn’t exactly what you might call creative. “Uh, no.”
Max’s heart-pounding smile hit me like a bundle of Cupid’s arrows. I grinned back stupidly, looking very similar to a puppy watching her full food dish approach. “So, what’s up?”
Kale answered for me, butting into our conversation like a Billy goat. “I was just going to ask Lauren what she liked to eat for dinner.”
Max looked confused, and they began talking to each other, completely leaving me out of the conversation. “Dinner?”
“Lauren is coming over tonight so we can work on our science project. My mom is cooking and wants to know what she likes.”
Max’s face twisted into a grimace, but as I explained, his signature grin returned to his face. “We got paired up to work on the science project, and Kale wanted to get started early. I thought it was a good idea.”
“Sounds fun. What topic did you get?”
Kale’s easy smile danced across his face. “We’re supposed to do a research project on human relationships. I was thinking we could do a ladder with the different levels of friendship. You know, enemies at the bottom and soul mates at the top.”
I could see the gears turning in his head as he pulled out a piece of paper and began jotting down ideas. He was definitely getting into this.
Just then, the bell rang, and the cafeteria turned into complete chaos. I weaved my way through the crowds and made it to the art room. A sigh of relief escaped my lips as I breathed in the familiar scents of paint and canvas. When Mrs. Jacklyn announced that we would be working on sculpting for the next couple weeks, I was the first person in line for clay.
The lump in front of me had some serious work to be done to it, and I began to pound it into the shape I desired. With each drop of my fist, I left this morning a little farther in the past.
