“Elyse!” I hear him behind me, and then he catches up with me. “Aiden’s lunch.”
Somehow it ended up back in my hands, and I thrust it at him. “Oh, um, yeah. He—he forgot it.”
Jamie takes it from me, fiddling with the metal clasps, his eyes on mine. “I’ll get it to him.”
“Thank you.”
I get into my car and drive away, a little too quickly for safety. I glance in the rearview mirror and see Jamie in his starched and pressed gray chinos, well-worn dark leather dress shoes, and a pale blue button-down dress shirt with an explosively colorful tie. His hair is neatly combed, his face carefully shaven. He’s watching me even as he lifts the walkie-talkie to his mouth to reply. When I turn out of the parking lot, he goes back inside.
Somehow, I can still feel his eyes on me.
The surprise, the intrigue.
The attraction.
I’d half hoped I’d imagined everything that had happened that night—or that my buzz had played it up to be more than it was.
But no…
I felt it, he felt it. There was a definite charge in the air between us.
I park in the teacher lot at the high school and hustle inside, working hard to put Jamie out of my mind. I whirl into the office, out of breath and flustered. My appointment, Jen, is sitting in one of the uncomfortable gray chairs lined up outside the guidance counselors’ bank of offices.
She smiles at me brightly, waving. “Hi, Mrs. Thomas!”
I smile back. “Hi, Jen. I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. It’s been one of those mornings, you know?”
She shrugs. “Oh, it’s not a problem—trust me. I’m missing AP Calculus, so feel free to take your time.”
I laugh. “We’d better get you back to class as soon as possible, then, shouldn’t we? Wouldn’t want you to get behind in an AP course.”
Jen rolls her eyes. “Please, I was doing calc for fun in tenth grade. Math is kinda my thing, you know? If it was history or Lit, it’d be different.”
I unlock my office and usher her in, flipping on the lights and setting my purse under my desk as I settle in. I look Jen over—she’s grown up a bit since junior year, matured some since the last time we saw each other. Somewhat plus-sized, Jen’s struggle with body image and body positivity is a constant factor in our ongoing discussions. She’s a beautiful girl, with long black hair and beautiful, expressive green eyes and clear, pale skin, but she’s struggled for years to accept herself because of her weight. She comes from a troubled home, as well, and I suspect—though she’s never outright said so—that someone in her home is constantly berating her and beating her down emotionally, especially in regard to her body. She’s a brilliant girl, one of the top students in our school, and a school favorite in our peer tutor program.
Jen gathers her long, thick, loose black hair in her hands and settles it over a shoulder, shifting uneasily in the chair while I close my door and wake up my computer. Logging into my system, I find my notes from the last conversation I had with Jen, at the end of last year. I bring up her schedule. “Wow,” I tell her. “You’ve really piled it on for yourself this year, Jen—AP Calc, AP Physics, Ancient Civ, Modern Lit, fourth-year Spanish, peer tutor hour, and independent study with Mr. Lakoda.”
Jen nods shyly, ducking her head. “Yeah, it’s a little ambitious, I guess.”
“The independent study with Mr. Lakoda, that’s advanced math, right?”
She nods again. “Yeah. He’s going to take me into math beyond what’s taught in even the AP curriculum. I’ve already taken most of the tests for calc this year—I did them over the summer. I basically don’t have to go to first hour at all if I don’t want to, because the real work is coming from the independent study hour, but I had to take the course to have enough credits for graduation.”
“I imagine your peer tutor schedule is already filling up. You had a waitlist last year, didn’t you?”
She smiles, hesitant and unsure. “Yeah, I guess. I helped Rob Krasansky pass math last year, and he was about to fail out completely and be put on academic probation from the football team.”
I laugh. “And that sealed your fate as the best tutor ever, because without Rob, the football team wouldn’t have had a season at all.”
“I don’t do sports,” she says, “but that’s what they tell me.”
“I went to a few games with Aiden,” I say, “and his name was called every other play.”
She rolled her eyes. “He told me he set a record for rushing yards and most sacks in a season, but don’t ask me what any of that means, because I have no clue.”
I frown. “My dad watches football with Aiden, so I know a tiny bit. I think rushing is how many yards he ran with the ball, and a sack is when someone tackles the quarterback before he can throw the ball.”
She snorts. “Sounds like Rob—running around and hitting people.”
