Ms. Mendez finished scrawling on the pass and held up an orange slip of paper with a flourish. “Here you go, Hayden. Hurry on to class.” Her gaze settled meaningfully on Hayden. She would want an explanation later. She might be in Hayden’s corner, but she wasn’t a pushover.
Hayden smiled her thanks and slipped from the room, leaving Ms. Mendez to deal with the dragon.
She felt bad about that, but she was relieved she wasn’t being dragged into the office. By seventh period, she was especially glad she hadn’t been smacked with a detention. Hayden was so hungry, she was feeling faintly ill and her concentration was off. She was counting down the final minutes until the bell rang, anxious to get home and grab something to eat before she headed to work. She tried to take notes on what Mrs. Burke was copying onto the board, hardly noticing the girl who walked into the room with a slip of paper in her hand for the teacher.
Mrs. Burke looked out, scanning the classroom until her gaze landed on her. “Ms. Vargas. You’re wanted in the principal’s office.”
Hayden snapped to attention.
The boy behind her made an ooooh sound. “What’d you do?” he taunted.
She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know any of their names. She only knew that he always picked his ears with the end of his pen.
“More like who did she do,” the kid behind him whispered, inciting a chorus of laughter. Ear-picker turned to high-five him.
Hayden rolled her eyes and gathered her things. As she stood, she bent down toward the boys and said in the most seductive voice she could manage, “Well, it’s never going to be you, is it?”
The boys around the kid laughed.
One slapped the desk. “Oh, she burned you, man.”
The deliverer of the oh-so-clever sexist quips suddenly didn’t look nearly so proud of himself, if his red face was any indication.
Hayden advanced to the front of the room, pausing when she noticed that the girl who had come to fetch her to the principal was none other than Emmaline Martin. The Bambi girl from the party the other night.
Chalking it up to coincidence, she pressed on and followed her from the room.
The moment they stepped out into the hall and the door shut behind them, Emmaline grabbed Hayden by the arm like they were old friends. “Hope you don’t mind me getting you out of class.”
“Wait. You got me out of class?”
She nodded cheerfully. She wore her hair in twin braids. They bounced over her shoulder, making her look more like a middle-schooler than someone in high school. “Yeah.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
She shook her head, her hunger pangs suddenly resurfacing. “Look, I’m kind of in a mood. I haven’t eaten all day and—”
“Oh, I’ve got some snacks in my locker. C’mon. You can have them.”
Emmaline skipped ahead down the hall and Hayden followed, the temptation of food too much to resist.
Once at her locker, Emmaline pulled out her lunch bag and then glanced around. “Where should we go?”
Hayden plucked the bag from her hands. “It was your idea to bust me out of science. You didn’t have a plan?”
She shook her head. “I just really wanted to talk to you. Thought we might go to the bathroom, but that’s kind of a gross place to eat . . .”
Agreed. “You always have to have a plan. C’mon, amateur,” she said teasingly. “I know where we can go.”
This time, it was her turn to lead Emmaline through the halls. They crossed the campus and exited the doors toward the athletic fields. Hayden led her toward the bleachers, keeping an eye out for teachers.
When they were close enough, she cast one furtive look over her shoulder and ducked underneath the stands.
It was a universal truth that nothing good ever happened under the bleachers.
The administration and staff knew this, too, which is why they did regular checks, but that didn’t stop kids from risking it and going under there to skip out on a test, vape, get high, or make out. Lots of firsts happened under those bleachers.
She’d spent her fair share of time there during her tenure at Travis High School, but she never thought she’d have the likes of someone as innocent as Emmaline for company.
From the way the girl looked around, Hayden could tell she had never been under the bleachers before.
There was an almost hushed quality to the shadowed space, like when you entered a church. Not that she had much experience with churches, but Mom’s friend Claudia had been a lapsed Catholic.
Once, after a night of partying with her mom, she took Hayden with her on a run to the grocery store to get them some food, pulling over on the way at a church. Hayden had settled into a wooden pew in the far back, watching the solemn scene of Claudia genuflecting before the altar and then slipping inside a confessional to talk to a priest, presumably hoping to exorcise her ghosts.
It mustn’t have helped. Claudia had died less than a year later. Mom didn’t say much about it except that Claudia got in over her head. Hayden could imagine what that meant. She could imagine all kinds of things, but she tried not to.
Strips of sunlight landed on the ground, marking the breaks in the bleachers. They walked along the ribbons of light until they found a place to sit. Somewhere far enough down where they would have a chance to run away if a teacher decided to look under the bleachers.
They sat side by side. An unlikely duo. There was a reason for that. They weren’t friends.
It was windy and brisk. Snow was even rumored in the forecast for the coming weekend. Snow was a rarity, so when it happened the entire city shut down.
Hayden stretched her legs out in front of her. A breeze ruffled the loose threads edging the holes of her jeans. “What did you want to talk about?”
Emmaline eyed the food wrappers and bits of trash littering the ground, tucking her knees close to her chest. “Lots of kids come here?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.
Hayden nodded. It felt as though she were putting something off. The thing that she wanted to tell her. The thing she’d gotten her out of class to discuss.
“Emmaline. What did you want to talk about?”
“Yeah. Um.” She stopped and cleared her throat. “So I’ve been thinking since we talked the other night. By the way, thanks for that.”
“Thanks?”
“I wasn’t having the best night and it was really nice to talk to you.”
Hayden nodded, still wondering what she had done or said to make this girl’s night better in any way. She couldn’t imagine having the words to make anyone feel better.
There was a scuffing of loose gravel, and she jerked her gaze off Emmaline, ready to bolt at the sight of an advancing teacher.
It wasn’t a teacher.
Beau Sanders approached, sweaty in his gym clothes, but still hot. How was it guys could look good after working out?
Shaking off his surprise, he approached, loose gravel scuffing under his sneakers. “Hey there, Pigeon,” he said to Emmaline. “Vargas.” He nodded to her.
Emmaline’s head jerked up, her expression startled. She almost looked . . . guilty. “Beau.”
She was definitely up to something. Whatever she wanted to tell Hayden, she didn’t want him to hear.
His gaze tracked over Emmaline, in her sweater and hole-free jeans.