“Night,” I say, shouldering my backpack with both straps.
Then I swing onto the bike, careful to wrap my skirt so I can ride. I try not to think about what he’s seeing, but I have on leggings, so it’s totally fine, even if it’s not pretty. I realized a long time ago that some guys are assholes and they’ll do anything to peek at your underwear, which makes a skirt hazardous.
Shane doesn’t answer. When I turn the corner, he’s still standing in front of the library watching me ride away.
CHAPTER THREE
At school the next day, Shane pretends he doesn’t know me. When I spot him in the hall before lunch, his gaze slides away; he’s back to playing the invisible boy. I understand why … the jocks have targeted him as their latest victim. Since JFK is a small school, serving a number of rural communities, the sports program is streamlined. There’s no fluff—no lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, certainly nothing European like soccer or fencing. We have football in the fall, basketball in the winter, then baseball and track for spring. That’s it. That means the athletes often double and triple letter, participating in more than one sport. This creates a tight clique and when a new guy drops into the mix, he better find a crew in a hurry. Otherwise, he’s fair game. Dylan and his cronies blow by; and it happens so fast, even I’m not sure what went down.
Shane hits the ground, his backpack smacking open. His iPad doesn’t bounce out, but everything else does: dog-eared notebooks, nubs of pencils, and what looks like sheet music. Only it’s not the professional preprinted kind. This is blank white paper with lines, notes, and bars drawn in. I’ve never known anyone who wrote music before. I break away from Ryan and Gwen, who’re talking about logistics for the cleanup next week. Shane doesn’t even glance up as I help him gather his stuff; he snatches his music, shoves to his feet, and strides away.
Ryan watches with a faint frown. “He seems pretty antisocial.”
“It’s hard being the new kid.” I remember how hard I tried to hide my desperate fear that people would sense that I wasn’t like them … and how much I wanted to make friends, but I couldn’t show it, not like grade school when you can hand over a juice box and seal the deal. By high school, there’s so much judgment.
“You did okay,” he points out.
“Because of you.”
Ryan laughs. “It wasn’t a hardship. In case you didn’t notice, in junior high, I had exactly one friend, who was sick that day.”
I remember. “Then Phillip moved to Cleveland. Do you talk to him much?”
“Online sometimes.” Ryan slings an arm around my shoulders. “Let’s get to lunch.”
People act like we’ve been dating for two years, but in fact, he’s never asked me out. Early on, I obsessed over it, trying to decide if he like liked me, but eventually we settled into a comfortable routine. Now he’s my best friend; since I got my laptop, we’re always on Skype when we aren’t together, but I can’t imagine making out with him anymore.
We stand in line, so I can get what passes for a veggie entree at this school, macaroni and cheese with a side of withered green beans. I’m offered Jell-O, but that has pig parts in it, so I pass and follow Ryan to our table. Gwen from Green World doesn’t eat with us, but the freshmen do, and we let them because we remember how much it sucked. Sometimes Ryan’s other friends join us; he’s a Renaissance man these days, so in addition to all the academic clubs and the debate team, he also takes pictures for the yearbook and the school blog. Which doesn’t sound cool, maybe, but everyone knows who he is. I’m definitely the sidekick in this relationship.
As I take my first bite, Ryan asks, “So what’s with you and the new kid?”
I can’t place his tone, but I’m feeling squirrelly. “Huh?”
“You invited him to join our stuff?” He says the last two words like some people say “our song,” as if it’s private and privileged, just for the two of us. But he’s never been exclusionary.
“He was there when I showed up,” I say, puzzled. “So I told him about the meeting. Was I not supposed to?”
Ryan snaps, “He’s a grunge kid. Like he cares about the environment. Right now he’s probably writing song lyrics about how nobody understands him.”
Wow. He seems to have it in for Shane, which is so not like him. I frown while Tara and Kenny glance between us, wide-eyed. They’re not sure what’s going on, and neither am I.
“Maybe we could talk about this later?”
“Come on,” he says, gathering up the remnants of his lunch.
I’m not sure I want to, but following Ryan has become second nature at this point. So I trail him into the hallway. I fold my arms, waiting for an explanation.
“I just…” Here, Ryan pauses, at a loss for words as he never is. “He doesn’t seem like our type, that’s all.”
“How can you tell, just by looking?” I ask incredulously. “You’ve hardly talked to him.”
I can’t believe I’m hearing this from him. He should know, better than anyone, how it feels to be picked on and excluded, based on factors beyond one’s control. Until the summer after freshman year, he was five foot four and routinely got shoved inside lockers. So Ryan knows damn well how Shane must feel; apparently he just doesn’t care.
“Well, I’m not letting you decide who I can be friends with,” I tell him.