“I’m serious,” he continues. I give in with a sideways look as I poke one pencil through my attempt at a bun; once I feel it’s secure, I take the pencil from my mouth and maneuver it around my head.
“I’m waiting for the misogynistic joke that usually follows everything you’ve ever said to me.” I wiggle the second pencil until everything feels secure then let my hands fall flat to my lap, my focus still on Tory.
A few seconds pass without him saying a word, and while I partly brace myself for a doozy of a comeback, a piece of me also feels guilty for laying into him after a compliment. He eventually shrugs and turns back to the computer, clicking away at card graphics while wearing a flat line on his mouth.
“June, can I get a hand with these?” Mr. Newsome asks. Delighted to leave the close quarters with Tory, I unfurl my legs and stretch to a stand as I take a stack of stapled papers from the teacher. Rather than passing several at a time up the rows, I drop one at every desk, mostly to stretch the activity out a little longer.
There are a few packets left when I get to the last student, so I hold them up to signal I’m done. Mr. Newsome nods for me to leave them on his desk, and I head back to my box-seat only to find it occupied by Tory. The desk chair is turned to the side for easy access, and my papers are stacked in front of the laptop. The asshole makes me grin a little and I glance down at where he’s slouched on the box, back against the wall, as I pass by. He looks up from his phone for a hint and our eyes meet.
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t say I never gave you nothin’,” he says with an uneven smile and shift of his eyes. His thumb scrolls through a series of Instagram images like he’s playing roulette, and my mouth forms the shape to utter “thank you” back to him. Before the words come out, though, he stops on a picture of a woman in barely-there lingerie, and I decide to just be smug about this. Might as well let this class period end with his nice gesture rather than open an opportunity for him to show me all of his sordid follows on social media.
The bell is mid-ring by the time Tory is up from the box and headed to the door. He holds out a fist to pound with Mr. Newsome, who suggests he only go half-speed in football practice and save yourself for the sport that really matters.
Tory laughs quietly and nods, leaving the room without looking back to where he left me the comfortable seat. I wait for everyone to clear out so I can pitch an idea to Mr. Newsome, but as the last few students leave, Lucas slips in and I practically sprint back to the chair. Pulling the pencils from my makeshift bun, I let my hair fall to my left side to shade my face and provide camouflage.
“You have a sec? I need help on something, and I’m not sure how to handle it.” It’s a different tone from Lucas than I’ve been hearing; this one is more like the boy I grew up with. There’s an uncertainty to it, and respect. Our interactions have been far from courteous.
“Sure, you wanna step outside?” I tense at Mr. Newsome’s response. Clearly, he means it’s not private in here.
“No, it’s—” I turn my head and my hair slides apart like a veil, and my eyes hit Lucas’s for a breath. He holds his stare on me and responds. “It’s fine. It’s not anything private.”
Emboldened by being allowed to stay, I tuck the hair behind my ear and offer an apologetic smile that’s quickly dismissed when Lucas turns his shoulder to me and shoves his hands in his pockets. I blink away and return my focus to my papers, drawing the same doodle of flowers and leaves that I started earlier in the day.
“What’s going on?” Mr. Newsome’s tone is lowered, but I can still hear every word. I should leave.
“It’s about Tennessee,” Lucas says. I’m guessing it’s college. Even though I quit attending Public games when I quit going to school here, it was impossible not to hear about them. Lucas started as a sophomore, and they went to state last year. Plus, he’s always been smart, so I imagine his college options are plentiful. A lot bigger than the tiny list I’m left with now that we’re surviving on wedding photos. Not that I have any clue what I want to study or become. I just want to go somewhere different; reinvent myself a little.
“I see. You know how I feel about it, but it’s up to you, really,” Mr. Newsome says. I can’t help the eavesdropping, and the exchange has my curious mind buzzing. Tennessee isn’t that far from here, maybe a five or six-hour drive. Not that I’ll be driving there to visit him or anything. The time I spent on that calculation was wholly unnecessary.
“If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be here, would I?” Lucas laughs lightly, but it sounds frustrated. I tilt my head in time to catch him running his hand through his thick hair then rubbing both palms on his face. “Gah! Maybe I should just flip a coin!”
Mr. Newsome laughs at the joke, but Lucas doesn’t. I turn my head to the side again to inspect his face, in search of those little tells he’s always had that once served as windows into his true feelings. For the briefest moment, his lips twitch, almost as if he’s about to be sick. He’s angry, maybe trapped, but it washes away in a flash when he catches me looking.
He sniffles and his eyes flit back to Mr. Newsome.
“You know what? I’ll figure it out. I gotta get to practice.” He lightly pounds his left fist against the door frame as he takes a step back. Our eyes meet one last time, and I can tell he would rather I wasn’t here for whatever this conversation is really about.
“Let me make a call, talk to him.” Mr. Newsome’s plea does little to break through the guards Lucas has already raised.
“Maybe. I’ll let ya know. Whatever, right?” A deep raspy laugh comes from his chest as he disappears around the doorway. Mr. Newsome steps out, holding the door open with his foot while he throws a Hail Mary.
“It might help! Lucas?” Mr. Newsome’s fingers rap against the door frame, counting down the seconds it probably takes Lucas to walk to the end of the hallway and out the double doors. His chin eventually falls to his chest, and he mouths out “damn it.”
I gather my stack of papers and relocate my doodle to the bottom of the pile along with my list of alternate teachers I could help this semester. It doesn’t feel like the right time to ask.
I’m pushing in the chair when Mr. Newsome turns his focus back to the inside of his classroom, his eyes flashing quickly with shock as he remembers I’m in here, waiting.
“June, sorry. You know Lucas, right? From your freshman algebra class?” He lets the door shut behind him and moves to one of the desks that face his, leaning back to sit on the desktop. I give him a crooked smile and short laugh.
“Yeah, he’s hard to forget,” I say, not mentioning all the ways Lucas and I have history. Even if our relationship was drawn from our time in Mr. Newsome’s class and nothing else, Lucas would have made an impression. He took our extra credit math games so seriously, leaping with pounding his chest when he scored the most points and earned credit he didn’t need. He tested out of geometry and second-year algebra and went right to pre-calc. I’m smart, but I don’t enjoy math, not like Lucas did . . . does. At least, I guess he still does.
“Kid has a chance to go to MIT.” He mutters the words under his breath, but probably louder than he realizes. Lucas is choosing between MIT and Tennessee. He shakes his head out of a semi-trance and palms both his cheeks, clapping them lightly. “Sorry, I was just thinking out loud. What did you need?”