He shook his head no.
“I’ll try to get to her at lunch.” She seemed frantic.
Christos came out of the bathroom and gave them the side-eye before wandering off down the hall.
“We better get back to class,” Eden said.
“Why doesn’t he just come here?” Marwan was only realizing how annoyed he was. “I have to work after school. I don’t have a ton of time to be running down to Astoria Park just because Eli said to.”
“He said the device didn’t want to come to school.”
“Oh, come on!”
“What?” she said. “That’s what he said.”
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“Just please come to the park?”
Eden’s friend that he saw her with most appeared in the hallway down at the opposite end and stopped short when she saw them. “Leahy sent me to check on you,” she called out, and her voice bounced and echoed.
Eden walked toward her, then turned and mouthed, “Please?”
Marwan nodded and started to feel like he’d have a hard time ever saying no to Eden.
EDEN
“All right. Spill it.” Anjali threw her lunch tote onto the table.
“Nothing to spill.” Eden took a sweep of the room, looking for Ilanka and not finding her.
Despite Eden’s protests, her mother still packed her lunches, and, every day, Eden was a little bit surprised by what she found. Today was one of those days when the cupboards were apparently nearing bare. Progresso Italian-Style Wedding soup in a thermos and half a piece of past-its-prime pita bread. There hadn’t, sadly, been any leftover pasta Bolognese.
They were at their usual table with Tristan and Thea, both of whom had gotten the school lunch, which was curry chicken. They both only really picked at it, but it smelled good.
“Have either of you ever seen Eden talk to that guy Marwan?” Anjali asked as she unpacked a sophisticated spread of salami and olives and cheese and crackers.
Tristan and Thea both shrugged. Eden thought about offering to trade lunches with one of them.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Why?” Tristan said.
“Twice today, I’ve seen them talking,” Anjali said. “Something’s up.”
“Nothing’s up,” Eden said.
“You’re a terrible liar,” Anjali said. “You have a crush on him.”
“Yes, you figured it out,” Eden said, rescuing a small meatball from her thick soup and hoping she’d never marry an Italian if this was what the soup would be like. “I have a massive crush on Marwan. I’m in love with him.”
It felt weirder to say that than she’d thought it would.
“Sarcasm can’t save you,” Anjali said, then turned to the other two. “She asked to be excused from calculus, and when she was taking too long, Leahy sent me to check on her and she was on the third floor with Marwan.”
Now Thea and Tristan seemed interested. Thea said, “The evidence does appear to be mounting.”
Eden worked fast, fabricating her lie, as she scanned the room again for Ilanka. “I left something in the music room yesterday, and he was there and took it and was giving it back to me.”
“In the middle of class. On the third floor?”
“Yes,” Eden said simply.
“What?” Anjali pressed. “What did you leave?”
“My water bottle.” Eden nodded at her bottle on the table, as if it were compelling evidence.
“But you didn’t have it with you when I saw you in the hallway,” Anjali said.
“I did!” Eden lied.
“Why did he take it? Why not just leave it there, like in case you went back for it?”
“I don’t know, Anjali. I can’t read his mind.”
“I thought you liked Julian Stokes,” Thea said.
A mini-meatball clogged Eden’s throat. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Anjali.”
“You told her?” Eden said after swallowing.
“Didn’t know it was a secret!”
Eden was about to grill her about anyone else she might have told when she spotted Ilanka over Thea’s shoulder. She left her spoon to float in her soup and got up. “I’ll be right back.”
She crossed the crowded room and stopped at the table where Ilanka was sitting. “Can I talk to you for a second?” Eden said.
“I guess?” Ilanka made a funny face at her friends, then stood and turned to Eden.
“We need to meet Eli under Hell Gate Bridge in Astoria Park after school. Something to do with the thing from yesterday.”
“No thanks,” Ilanka said.
“But you have to,” Eden said, feeling it to be true. Had there really been or had she only imagined a sort of panic in Eli’s texts about meeting up?
“No, I don’t,” Ilanka said.
Eden had never really liked Ilanka—for no good reason, really—but now felt her opinion had been confirmed.
Julian was one table away. She could turn his way and casually say hi. If she could only find the nerve. Was he watching her? She hoped so and hoped not.
“Ilanka,” Eden said. “I know we’re not friends or anything, but you were there so you’re part of this.”
“You guys actually took it?” Ilanka shook her head. “You should have left it there.”
“You have to come,” Eden said firmly.
“I don’t take orders from a little black cube, and I don’t take them from you either.”
Ilanka went to sit back down, and Eden’s anger rose from her toes to the roots of her hair. How did you get to be like that? How did you get to be the kind of person who just didn’t worry or care? When she turned to say hi to Julian—or even just smile?—he was looking the other way.
She met eyes with Marwan across the room; he’d been watching. She shook her head no.
They’d go anyway.
Or at least she would.
She was the only one she could control.
Didn’t her therapist say that again and again?
“I’m onto you,” Anjali said when Eden got back to the table. “Something funny’s going on.”
“If you say so,” Eden said brightly, and closed her thermos lid tight.
MARWAN
Marwan had music after lunch. He usually looked forward to it, but if Mr. M was back he’d have questions. Had Eli named them all by name when he’d said who was there? Marwan walked to class with Kartik and said, “Hey, you didn’t stop by the restaurant last night, did you?”
“Why would I do that?” Kartik adjusted his glasses, curious.
“Didn’t think so.”
“Marwan!” Mr. M said excitedly as soon as they walked in. “Come here. Tell me, what was that all about? You got that message from me that wasn’t from me?”
Freaking Eli.
“Yeah,” Marwan said as Kartik drifted away to a seat. “Weird, right?” Acting all casual.
“I don’t even know why the room was unlocked,” Mr. M said, moving their conversation to a corner by the window. “Did anything seem strange or off?”