“I’ll be there.” Mom couldn’t always make it to her soccer games, so he made a point to be there when he could.
“Me too,” Emmaline said.
They all piled into his truck. His sisters sat in the back seat, leaving the front passenger seat open for Priscilla as was customary. It was habit. For all of them.
Heading for Pris’s subdivision, he felt a twinge of something. He flexed his hands on the steering wheel and stared straight ahead, trying to ignore the discomfort pinching at the center of his chest as he wondered what would happen if picking up Priscilla every day wasn’t his normal anymore. The world wouldn’t end. It would just be different. Isn’t that the way life worked? Nothing ever stayed the same.
He pulled up to the curb of her house. In seconds, Priscilla was hurrying down the walkway. She hopped in beside him. “Hey there.”
The girls murmured a greeting from the back seat.
“Study for the math test?” she asked.
He’d forgotten all about the test they had today. Last night he had forgotten about everything the moment he walked inside Hayden’s house.
“Yeah,” he said, wondering when had it become so easy to lie to his girlfriend.
Lesson #13
A full stomach makes everything better.
x Hayden x
Hayden splurged on pizza in the cafeteria.
It cost two dollars and seventy-five cents a slice, but she couldn’t resist. The large gooey squares were laden with nitrates and deliciousness.
They served pizza every other week, and she sacrificed hanging out in Ms. Mendez’s room during her lunch period, enduring the cafeteria so she could enjoy it. It was an indulgence, and she felt like indulging today. Nolan’s request earlier this morning that she not mention their time together still rang in her ears, a bitter reminder that she might have been good enough for him last night, but in the bright light of day she was just a dirty, shameful thing to be kept buried and secret.
Who would she even tell?
Holding her tray, she wove through the crowded lunchroom and picked a spot in the far corner, near the doors. Quick entry and exit. She sat at the end of the table, alone, scrolling Instagram, happily sinking her teeth into saucy, cheesy, greasy goodness.
Her thumb swiped over the screen. She followed several of the country’s leading tattoo shops and they regularly updated their portfolios on social media. She liked to keep up with current trends.
A tray clattered in front of her. “Hey there.”
She looked up, startled as Emmaline sank down across from her.
“Hey,” Hayden said slowly, glancing around as though Emmaline had maybe picked the wrong table and meant to sit somewhere else—at another table full of perky, chirpy girls like her. There seemed to be plenty of those tables around.
More trays slammed down. Suddenly perky, chirpy girls were on each side. She was surrounded. Emmaline Martin and her friends circled her, invading her space.
“I can’t believe you’re all eating that slop.” A girl with disapproving lips critically eyed Hayden’s and everyone else’s pizza as she opened her lunch bag and took out her turkey on wheat.
Hayden glanced around. “Um. Are you sure you’re at the right table?”
“Oh. Were you saving these seats?” Emmaline motioned to the chairs she and her friends now occupied.
“Um, no.” Clearly they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that she preferred to eat alone. She didn’t want bubbly girls around her. She wanted pizza and solitude.
“You get my text?” Emmaline asked as her friends broke into overlapping conversations. She picked up one of her pizza squares. She’d bought two.
“About the slumber party?” Hayden hadn’t replied to the message. She had assumed her silence would be taken for a decline.
“Oh, fun! Are you coming?” One of Emmaline’s friends piped in like Hayden was just one of the girls—one of them.
“No. I don’t think—”
“Of course she is.” Emmaline looked at Hayden in rebuke.
Hayden opened her mouth to set the record straight. She was not going to any slumber party.
Suddenly, the cafeteria fell quiet. Hundreds of voices ceased talking.
“What the—” Emmaline twisted around in her seat as a guy walked down the middle aisle. He was hard to miss. He carried a sign and at least a dozen pink balloons.
“Oh God,” the girl with a sandwich groaned. “Spare me.”
People stood up from their seats, craning their necks to get a better view.
“What is it?” Hayden leaned forward in her chair, trying to peer through the obstructing crowd.
“It’s started.” Sandwich Girl shook her head.
The balloons the boy held bobbed in the air as he walked. There was something drawn on them in black sharpie.
“They’re pigs! The balloons have pig faces drawn on them. How cute,” Emmaline exclaimed, clapping in approval.
Ah. Hayden could see the faces now. Bubble eyes and piggy noses were boldly outlined against the pink latex.
“What’s the sign say?” Emmaline asked, straining to read.
It all clicked then. The balloons. The sign. The guy with the purposeful stride. He was asking someone to the winter formal.
It was that time of year. Dance proposal season.
It actually happened a few times a year. Homecoming in the fall. The winter formal in February. Then prom in the spring. Three times per school year Hayden witnessed this teenage of rite of passage. In the halls, in classrooms, in the parking lot. Vomit.
She couldn’t think of anything stupider than getting worked up over a dance. Not when there more important things to worry about. Things like food and clothes and clean sheets.
Emmaline hopped in place. “It says: I’d love to go to the dance with you . . . when pigs fly!”
The boy must have reached the girl he was targeting. The cluster of balloons stopped their advance.
“Clever,” Sandwich Girl announced blandly, delving into a bag of carrot sticks and biting into one loudly. She looked as unimpressed as Hayden felt.
Suddenly, the balloons were released and lifted up into the air.
Girls squealed in delight. The cafeteria erupted into applause.
“So cute! The pigs are flying!” Emmaline stared up at the pink balloons as they bumped into the ceiling. Hayden stared at her, marveling at the joy all over her face and knowing she had never felt that. Well, maybe she felt that kind of joy when Ms. Mendez oohed and aahed over one of her designs or when she stumbled onto a new zombie movie. She definitely didn’t feel joy over balloons and a boy with a cheesy sign or a dumb dance.
Unlike everyone else, Hayden stayed in her seat and finished her pizza. Swallowing the last bite, she sipped her chocolate milk and stared down at her empty tray unhappily. Emmaline was still totally wrapped up in the proposal. So wrapped up she hadn’t even touched her pizza.
Not about to let it go to waste, Hayden reached over and plucked one of the squares off her tray.
She sank her teeth into the fresh slice with a delighted moan. Hayden was halfway through the pizza when the girls all settled back in their seats, immediately chattering about the proposal.
“I want someone to ask me to the dance.” The girl with the beautiful dark hair and eyes pouted, picking at her pizza as though it were to blame.