Home > What's Not to Love(4)

What's Not to Love(4)
Author: Emily Wibberley

   “Do you want me to get you a trash can from Mrs. Cordova’s room to walk to the nurse’s with?” Dylan asks.

   “I think it’s out of my system now. I’m going to class,” I say decisively right as the bell rings. I reach for my bag.

   Dylan blocks the door. “Either I call your mom now or we go to the nurse.” She issues this ultimatum like she was prepared for me to want to return to class.

   I eye her, weighing how serious she is. Her expression hardening, she meets my gaze.

   “Fine,” I say. “Let’s go to the nurse.”

   Dylan turns toward the door, looking pleased. I follow her into the quad, where everyone’s walking to their next class, catching up with friends, or heads down, reading their phones. It’s chaotic, the fragments of conversation and countless patterns of cross traffic, in harsh contrast to how quiet the campus was when I left English and how quiet it will be in five minutes.

   I notice Ethan, his head turned in my direction. His eyes find me, and he looks smug I’m not walking toward our next period. I meet his stare for long enough he knows I know he was looking, then face forward to show him I couldn’t care less.

   Dylan and I walk down the cement pathway leading to the nurse’s office. “This is your fault, by the way,” I remind her. “If you hadn’t dragged me on your date, I wouldn’t be sick.”

   She tosses her hair. “I’ll admit I’m somewhat to blame. Did I mention how much I appreciated you coming?” she asks, nudging my shoulder.

   I soften. Even if Dylan is demanding, I know she would drop everything for me, despite the cooler-than-thou version of herself she presents to everyone else. She did just two months ago during Winter Formal when the freshman class president forgot to help me with cleanup. Dylan ditched the yearbook after-party, opting to spend the rest of the night mopping and picking up trash with me. It ended up being more fun than the dance itself.

   “It’s fine,” I say. “How’d things go after I left?”

   “We kissed in his car.” Dylan pauses, pursing her lips. “I don’t know, though. It wasn’t . . .”

   I don’t need her to finish the sentence to know what it wasn’t. Who it wasn’t. Dylan’s ex-girlfriend Olivia dumped her unceremoniously a month ago when Dylan went to Berkeley to visit her. Olivia’s a freshman there, but they started dating when she was a senior here. I can’t say I’m not happy they broke up. The eleven months they were together weren’t my favorite. Their relationship was intense for high school, fraught with fights and little spats, over which Dylan would inevitably be distraught. I watched her change into what Dylan imagined Olivia wanted her to be, wearing the clothes Olivia preferred, liking the bands Olivia thought were cool, hanging out with Olivia’s cultish crowd of theater friends, all of whom have stopped inviting Dylan to things since the breakup.

   When Olivia dumped her without explanation, Dylan was destroyed. But over the past weeks, I’ve gotten my best friend back.

   Last night with Nick was her first effort to move on. I’m glad she went, regardless of the food-poisoning ramifications on my day. “Not that I have a wealth of experience to draw from,” I venture, “but give it time.”

   Dylan’s soft smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah. I know.”

   We reach the nurse’s office. Dylan holds open the door for me. Inside, Nurse Sharp’s working on her computer, tattoos visible thanks to the pushed-up sleeves of her white Fairview sweatshirt. Her eyes flit up from the monitor when we walk in. “Nurse Sharp,” Dylan starts, “Alison’s—”

   I rush to the trash can to heave into it.

   “Sick,” Dylan finishes.

   When I raise my head, Nurse Sharp’s watching me unhappily. “Sit on the table,” she instructs me. “I’m calling your parents.”

   I protest immediately. “Couldn’t I just—”

   “No,” Nurse Sharp and Dylan say in unison.

   Scowling, I climb up on the exam table, the paper crinkling noisily under my palms. While Nurse Sharp takes my temperature, I sternly study the STD classification chart on the opposite wall.

   “Slight fever,” she says, “probably caused by exhaustion and a stomach virus.”

   “It was food poisoning,” Dylan volunteers. Then she fixes me with a look. “Though I’m guessing the exhaustion didn’t help.”

   Miserable, I say nothing. Nurse Sharp shakes her head. “I swear, Miss Sanger, you don’t know how much easier my job would be if you and Mr. Molloy had the sense to stay home when sick.”

   I’d openly debate the recommendation if it weren’t coming from Nurse Sharp. She’s not someone to be messed with. In her thirties, she’s younger than most Fairview teachers, and she’s covered in tattoos from her years in the military, where she was a medic. Or possibly from whatever she did before—probably patching up broken bones and bullet holes for a biker gang. She’s never impressed with my hypercompetitive efforts, in particular when I volunteered to fill in for a sports photographer for the paper sophomore year, and my pursuit of an award-worthy on-field shot of the soccer game left me with a ball to the face and a broken nose. I got the photo though.

   Dylan grabs a tardy note from the desk. “Feel better, Alison.” She walks out the door, waving behind her.

   I wait, knowing I’m a prisoner here until Nurse Sharp decides my fate. She pulls up the directory on her computer. “How angry will your mom be when I call her this time?” she asks.

   Even though I know it’s useless to protest, I try nonetheless. “You could always not? I could call an Uber home.”

   “Nice try.” Nurse Sharp picks up her phone. Instead of dialing, she pauses, glancing up with an unreadable expression. “Did you at least beat him on whatever had you here for an entire class with food poisoning?”

   “Oh yeah,” I say, proud. This is why I don’t resent Nurse Sharp, despite her repeatedly sending me home and complaining about my “reckless disregard for my physiological well-being.” While she doesn’t condone Ethan’s and my competition, she’s definitely on my side. I don’t know if it’s because she understands how hard it is for young women to prove themselves intellectually, or if it’s just because she knows Ethan’s a dick.

   Nurse Sharp nods, no longer looking entirely unamused. She picks up the phone and dials what I know is my mom’s work number. We wait while it rings.

   It’s the first free moment I’ve had the whole morning. The weight of how punishing the past eight hours have been drops onto me hard, but it doesn’t feel smothering. It’s rewarding. The feeling of essay margins free of red ink, or the perfect interlocking of every variable in a complicated equation. Even though my mom will imminently be pissed at me, even though I spent more time than I ever wanted on the floor of a high school bathroom, even though I’m completely exhausted and could very well pass out without warning—it was worth it. Every nauseating, draining second. They were all worth it to beat Ethan.

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