She cackled. “Yeah, I guessed that much.”
My shoulders dropped. “Was it that obvious—what I was thinking?”
She smirked. “Have you ever looked at your face when you do that—when you disappear like that?”
I shook my head.
“It’s funny. You just…your eyes drift off to the ceiling, and your lips just sit apart like you’re waiting for someone to kiss them.” She tried to hold back her laughter, but it shook her whole body. “Except, that time, you were looking right at David, chewing your lip, kind of blushing at the same time. I think—” She pointed to my chin. “I think you need to wipe the drool off.”
“Stop that.” I brushed her hand away; she laughed. “God, I can’t believe I let my imagination run away with me at school.”
“Yeah.” She hugged her books, looking down the corridor after David. “Maybe next time do it with a book in your hand so people think you’re reading something juicy.”
“Good idea,” I said, half groaning. “Do you think David’s upset with me?”
“Upset? Are you kidding?” Emily laughed, pointing to where he’d disappeared. “Ara, that’s not David upset.”
“So, that’s…offended?”
“No way, not unless he’s g*y. And judging from how his fists just clenched up and his whole body went all rigid, I would guess he is definitely not g*y.”
“So why did he run away?”
She started walking. “He does that. I think he really likes you. And if he got the vibe I got coming off you, then he walked away because you made him feel something.”
“What do you mean by that?” I hoped she wasn’t being rude, implying I made him...you know, feel...something.
“I mean, David doesn’t really do emotions. The few times I’ve ever seen him close to feeling anything—he takes off.”
“Why?”
She just shrugged again. She seemed to pass everything off with that move.
“Well,” I said, “I’m just glad he can’t read minds, or he might never come back.”
Sam caught up and babbled about his day while I nodded and smiled and drifted in and out of consciousness, my mind on my own day—on the fact that David never came back to school after I practically jumped him in the corridor. But I fell back to attention, with the hot sun bearing down, the smell of topsoil and wet grass all around me, when I heard the word David. “Huh?”
“Yeah, you and David Knight. My friend Steve said he heard from Trav that you slapped David in the hallway at school today.”
“What?” I practically yelled, my steps coming to a halt.
“Yeah, they say he left school in a real hurry—tires screeching and all.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s a grape turning into a sultana, Sam.”
He stared at me, blinking.
“I mean, it’s second-hand whispers. David left school today because he was sick.” Or because I wanted to fornicate with him.
“Oh yeah? Well, I saw you two on the stairs this morning—he was standing real close to you. Rumour has it you guys are an item.”
“Nope. Nothing going on there.”
“Nothing going on…yet?” He grinned.
I chuckled quietly. “It’s not like that, Sam. We’re just friends.”
“Do you like him?”
I smirked. If I so much as hinted on the truth, the whole school would know by first period tomorrow. “No. I really don’t. I mean, he’s cute and we have a lot of fun together, but he’s not really my type.”
“Does he know that?”
“Yeah. And what’s it to anyone else, anyway? How does what two seniors get up to become news to Freshies?”
Sam just laughed lightly. “Very little goes on in that school, Ara. Star football player quits the team this year then starts talking to a girl, after notoriously dismissing every advance so far. People are wondering if you’ve got a golden vagi—”
“Whoa!” I held my hands up. “What a horrid thing to say.”
He rolled his eyes. “So, there’s nothing going on with you and lover-boy?”
“God, no,” I said, flooding with fury.
“Liar.”
“Sam, look at me.” I motioned to what my old friends called a twelve-year-old dress sense, then to my scarred face. “I’m never going to be anyone’s girlfriend.”
He went quiet until we reached the driveway. “Hey, Ara?”
“Yes?”
“When we get in, can you peel me one of those apple snakes I saw you do the other day?”
“You saw that?”
He nodded.
“Uh, yeah, sure. I’ll even teach you how to do them.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks, short-stuff.” He wrapped his arm over my shoulder as we jumped the creaky bottom step and ran to the top of the porch.
“Ooh, that’s a good one,” I said to Skittles, scribbling the title down on a scrap of paper.
The cat licked his paw, stopping to eye the movement of my pen for a second.
“Don’t pretend not to care, Skitz. You like him just as much as I do.” I placed the pen by his paw and leaned on my hand, watching the blue sky fade over the horizon. So far, Dad’s project on myths, Mr B’s assignment on playwrights, and the list of numbers I was supposed to work out for math had not been touched. Instead, I had a ten-song list of cry-your-eyes-out-over-not-being-loved tunes for my David Playlist.
I leaned on my other hand then, scraping a thumbnail between two front teeth, wondering where he went after school, if his parents tore shreds off him for ditching, if he even had parents, where he lived, what condiments he liked on his toast in the morning, what the last song he listened to in his car was. So many things. And all the while, my song list grew, pushing homework further and further down my list of priorities.
“That’s it!” My chair nearly tipped back as I jerked away from the desk, scaring the cat and sending the little blue bird on my window into sudden flight. I needed to get out of the house. My nails were stinging down to the quick and all this over-thinking made my brain hurt.
I changed my clothes, grabbed my blue, nylon-string guitar, and headed outside to the oak tree.
Yellow leaves rained to the ground, falling from the old tree as the weight of each sway drew a low creak from its branches, reminding me I was growing up and that, soon, this swing would be a thing of my past.