And that was when, just as I was about to laugh, the very subject of our conversation walked into the cafeteria. The laugh caught in my throat. My pulse stuttered.
He eased across the cafeteria smoothly, as if on ice, and never once glanced my way. Taylor Allen raised her slender hand in a flirty wave, and he was gone—sucked into a seat at the long, rectangular table owned, stamped, and certified by the elite of Lakebrook High.
My friends, of course, missed none of this.
Jims shook his head. “We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been is over. From this time forward, you will service us.”
“Jims,” Raphael moaned. “No Star Trek references while we’re eating.”
“Listen, the Borg isn’t simply an alien cyborg race that roams the universe in search of people to conquer. The Borg is really about human society.”
Lily raised her eyes to the ceiling, begging it for patience.
“Seriously,” Jims said. “The Borg is a commentary on the way humans form cliques, and how cliques, when they find someone they like, do their best to make him just like them. See? The popular crowd is the Borg.”
“He was like them already,” said Raphael. “That’s why Taylor invited him to sit at their table. Birds of a feather.”
“Catch avian flu together?” Jims supplied. “We can hope.”
“Misanthropy suits you,” I said, doing my best to keep up with the conversation—and, above all, act as if what had happened didn’t matter one bit.
“Misanthropy. Is that, um, turning into a werewolf?”
“That’s lycanthropy. Misanthropy is the hatred of people.”
“I don’t hate Taylor’s followers. I just like avian flu more. Is it so wrong of me to want it to thrive and prosper? Viruses are living things, too.”
Jims launched into a tirade about how we were virus-phobes, how he bet we used antibacterial soaps, too, and did we ever stop to think that flu shots meant that, every year, sad viruses had to watch their babies suffer? I was the worst, he said. “Darcy never gets sick. She’s where the common cold goes to die.”
I let his words wash over me. I smiled when it seemed appropriate. I tried to never once show on my face what I was thinking, which was this:
Typical. This was just typical of me. A normal girl would have been giddy at the thought that a beautiful stranger had noticed her. Me, I had felt instantly threatened. And now it seemed that I had made a huge drama over nothing.
I told myself I was relieved. But relief doesn’t feel like a chunk of lead in your heart.
That’s disappointment.
4
I was stepping through the door of AP English, weary and glad that this was the last class of the day.
Then I froze.
He sat in the exact middle of the class, tracing a long finger across his desk, lost in thought. He frowned, then raised his dark blond head. His eyes flashed to mine.
My nerves sparked and flared. I should have been prepared, I thought. I should have guessed he might be in a class that mixed juniors and seniors. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t have been so easily snared by the intensity of his gaze.
Then his eyes skipped away. His expression cooled. Gone was the gunslinger from this morning. Gone was that curled smile. He looked, if anything, bored.
I edged toward the back of the room, sank into a seat, and barely listened as Ms. Goldberg asked us to introduce ourselves. I wasn’t the only girl staring at him, and maybe they, too, had noticed that he wasn’t quite so perfect up close. His nose had been broken.
Somehow, though, even that—that slight crookedness—was appealing.
And then it was his turn.
“My name is Conn McCrea.” He spoke in a low voice, as if those three syllables were the most unimportant on earth. Despite the spelling, which I saw at a much later date, his last name was pronounced “McCray.”
Taylor Allen, who was sitting right next to him, gave him a coy look. He didn’t seem to notice. He slouched at his desk, but there was something a little calculated in his slumped shoulders and stretched out legs. I got the impression that he had riffled through his closet, found his Typical Teenager costume, and was trying it on.
And now we come down to it. My suspicion: Conn McCrea wasn’t exactly normal.
My reasons? Let’s just say it takes one to know one.
Ms. Goldberg leaned against the blackboard, ignoring the chalk that dusted her clothes, and said, “Our first text will be ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,’ by T. S. Eliot.”
“Great. A love poem,” muttered Jason Sloane. He added in a falsetto, “Smooooochies!”
The class tittered.
“Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Sloane?”
“Nope. I like smooches.”
“Then you may be disappointed to know that there are none in this poem. You might wonder, in fact, if there is any love at all. The main character, J. Alfred, can’t decide if he should tell a woman how he feels about her, but he’s just as concerned about whether he belongs to a world of dirty one-night hotels or to the chic society of tea parties.” Ms. Goldberg opened a slim book and began to read:
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky…”
I wish I could say I was instantly wowed by “The Love Song.” But the truth is that I was inventing a poem of my own:
I will not think of Conn McCrea.
I will not, cannot, in any way.
Gradually, though, “The Love Song” crept under my skin. I listened as J. Alfred Prufrock wandered down deserted streets. I didn’t forget about Conn, but I forgot to forget about him, and let myself study him as Ms. Goldberg’s voice rose and fell.
I was in the back. He couldn’t see me.
Why, then, would I have bet anything that he could feel me, could sense my stare on the nape of his neck like I had his in those minutes before the first bell?
“So, what do you think of him?” Ms. Goldberg closed the book. “What kind of man is J. Alfred?”
“He really likes tea,” someone offered.
“He likes Michelangelo? Or hates Michelangelo? I don’t know.”
“He repeats himself a lot.”
“Why doesn’t he quit moaning? J. needs to man up.”
“He cares about the way he dresses.”
“He’s a loser.”
When Ms. Goldberg came to Conn, he hesitated. Finally, he said, “He’s uncertain.”