Is this Amberlyn Miller?
No.
Gaetan Kelly?
It’s Link.
Link is dead.
Yeah.
Can you call me?
No.
Link was never so difficult.
I’m sorry.
And I was a little difficult.
• • •
The morning before the new school year started, after a weekend of avoiding Jonas as best she could, Noemi had entered the kitchen only to discover Matt Lake’s son drinking milk directly from the carton. Jonas stood in front of the fridge in sweatpants and a white crewneck T-shirt. He looked surprised when he saw her, though not as embarrassed as he should have been to be caught defiling a shared food item with his saliva.
He wished her a good morning and she responded by saying, “That milk is for everyone in this house to share.”
Jonas wiped his mouth on his wrist and gave the carton a look of earnest curiosity, as though searching for the words DO NOT DRINK WITHOUT GLASS on its surface. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m used to living with my mom. She doesn’t drink milk.”
Noemi had been considering inviting him to ride to school the next day with her and Lyle, and though she had not yet mentioned the option, she now considered him uninvited. She huffed and made a great show of loudly slamming cabinets and thrusting the faucet on at full blast as she made her oatmeal with water.
As Noemi dressed for school the following day, she relished knowing that Jonas, having been sentenced to taking the bus, would have had to wake and leave much earlier. On her way downstairs to wait for Lyle, she stuck her head into his room. Rosencrantz lay in a pile of T-shirts on his bed, the traitor. She woke the sleeping cat and called her as much, then plucked her from the quilt and carried her out to the hallway on principle.
Only Matt was awake at this hour, even though he worked from home and had the most flexible schedule of anyone in the house.
“Hey, kiddo. Didn’t you miss the bus?” His brows arced over the rim of a Louvre coffee mug that Cesca had purchased during a semester abroad in college.
“Juniors can drive, so Lyle is taking me.”
“That’s right.” He set his coffee back on its coaster and spun the two of them together along the woodgrain in the table he had made. “I guess Jonas didn’t know that,” Matt mused. “He left to catch the bus a little while ago. Could have hitched a ride with you two.”
Noemi avoided his eyes. She bent to unearth the toaster from one of the lower kitchen cabinets. “Well, he’ll meet more people this way.”
“True. By the way—do you know why our milk is sorry?”
“What?” Noemi stood, still empty-handed. On the table in front of Matt, alongside a near-empty cereal bowl, sat a carton of milk and a box of Shredded Wheat.
“Not this one.” He nodded toward the table. “There’s an unopened one apologizing in the fridge.”
Noemi tugged at the stainless-steel door. Sure enough, there was a fresh container of 2 percent milk on the top shelf, identical to the soiled one Matt had used in his cereal but for its expiration date, presumably. It proclaimed in black Sharpie, I Promise I’m New Sorry! with every word capitalized as though it were a title. A very round smiley face hovered beside the exclamation point. Noemi didn’t need to recognize Jonas’s handwriting to know who had written it.
“No idea. Probably Diana. You know she anthropomorphizes everything.” Noemi would not be drinking from this milk. Rightfully, Jonas should have replaced the old one, but something about the fact that he had actually done so didn’t sit well with her. She’d ended up being the brat.
• • •
Because the school year had just started, even the seniors and juniors who had driven were at school early enough to join the bus riders in the gymnasium. That’s where everyone waited until all buses were present and accounted for, at which point they were dismissed to homeroom. Most students who drove timed their arrivals so that they wouldn’t have to wait with the underclassmen, and by this time next week, that’s exactly what Lyle and Noemi would do. But today they had arrived earlier than necessary and fended off compliments on Lyle’s dip-dyed hair and Noemi’s handmade jewelry (which had been assembled out of parts from old Barbies).
She led Lyle to a stretch of bench that was just two rows behind where Jonas sat. They filed in next to Tyler Olsen, who, during sophomore year, had begun wearing a shirt and tie every day. He brightened when he saw them and shifted his guitar out of their way.
“Hey, Tyler,” Lyle greeted him.
“Hey. Hi, Noemi. I like your skirt.”
“Why thanks.” She wore a patterned skirt and a black crop top, the latter in victory after her outspoken criticism (or “rabble-rousing,” to the administrators) of the school dress code a year prior.
Gaetan Kelly’s broad-shouldered form cast its shadow in Noemi’s peripheral vision, between their row and Jonas’s. Gaetan turned at the sound of her voice and gave her an exaggeratedly lascivious once-over. His hair had grown in since he’d shaved it last spring. Now it was dark and lush again, loose waves pushed aside in a way that could have been very lazy—or could just as easily have taken a good deal of time.
Next to Gaetan, a shorter senior with acne, Steve Warton, mimicked his expression, and Noemi couldn’t help but groan in disapproval. “Nice” was Gaetan’s eventual evaluation.
“It’s somehow creepier when you say it,” Noemi said.
For a second she thought, He wouldn’t have said that if Link were here. But before she could feel Link’s absence, she realized that wasn’t true. Link’s disapproval had never really stopped his friend from being rude. People considered Gaetan devastatingly handsome, but Noemi mainly found him devastatingly difficult to tolerate. She sometimes searched for his attractive qualities by pretending she was looking at him for the first time, letting his face fall into its separate parts until it was no longer familiar. Never much success.
“By the way,” she said to Lyle, “that’s Jonas sitting in front of Gaetan.”
“Milk-defiler,” Lyle told Tyler, though he would have no idea what she meant. “Dark hair, navy tee?”
Noemi nodded.
Word had spread of the newest addition to the town of Shivery, to Lamplight, and to Galaxie Regional High School. Having heard Noemi point out her famed new housemate, Gaetan blurted, “This kid?” with no attempt at subtlety, just beside Jonas’s right ear. Jonas turned to regard Gaetan over his shoulder.
“Wasn’t talking to you, man.”
“Oh.” Jonas diverted his attention back to whatever game he was playing on his phone.