13 to Life (3 page)

I stalked into the room, my peers’ eyes trying to catch a peek at my expression. I released the door, letting it—and hoping it would—smack into Pietr’s face.

He didn’t even glare in my direction. I made my disappointment obvious: Handing my pass to Ms. Ashton, I rolled my eyes. But she didn’t notice, letting the pass slip through her fingers as she crossed the floor, apologies to Pietr falling from her lips—for
my
behavior!

“I’m so sorry Jessie let go of the door too soon—are you okay?” She scanned his face, her eyes bright and oddly eager. I took my seat and watched the other students’ reactions to our arrogant new class member. The girls were all sitting—literally—at the edge of their seats, fingers white around the knuckles as they gripped their desks and made mooneyes at him.

I couldn’t believe how they all seemed so blatantly and suddenly obsessed with Pietr. I mean, okay—I looked him up and down without feeling a hint of self-consciousness, measuring
and weighing what I saw there. Yep. Not bad looking, sort of had that catalog-model look, good enough for print but not typical runway material.

But he simply didn’t care.
It made me want to scream. But I remembered: Most girls go soft over guys with that dangerously arrogant edge—that distance that marks them as unattainable. I sighed.

Ms. Ashton was still rambling on about the importance of literature to civilization and, of course, to the class. Pietr occasionally said something softly in that too-cool way of his, and all the girls giggled. Even Ms. Ashton. She had taken Pietr by the hand to better lead him to his desk. I was astonished by her utter disregard of teacher-student protocol.

I ruffled the pages of my lit book, feeling a heat growing on my back. I turned and nearly choked on my own surprise. Derek was watching me. He winked at me and motioned with a jerk of his head at Pietr. I rolled my eyes, my insides melting at this small communication with my old crush.

Derek chuckled silently and pointed to get me to turn back around in my seat.

“So, Jessie,” Ms. Ashton was addressing me. “How did you manage to get the assignment of showing Pietr around?”

The girls all turned, glaring at me and yet seemingly hungry to know how they could get their very own new-boy-at-school, too.

“Just luck,” I muttered.
Bad, dumb luck.

I felt Derek’s eyes on me again. Pietr didn’t bother to acknowledge my statement.

Ms. Ashton closed class with a homework assignment. There were groans in response. Someone stated the obvious: “It’s almost Homecoming!”

Ms. Ashton was unrepentant.

I didn’t groan. Homecoming wasn’t my thing. I barely followed our football team’s adventures (other than staring at Derek and listening to people recount his exploits on the field—
that
I could listen to for days). The idea of going to a parade, bonfire, and dance . . . well, what did it matter if I was curious about it? Who would ask me, anyhow? Besides, there were always things to be done at home. A horse farm always had something that needed doing.

The bell rang—a sound even more obnoxious and less bell-like today because I had a special assignment. An especially unpleasant assignment.

I stood and gathered my things. I was annoyed to find a mob of girls hanging around Pietr’s desk. They seemed oblivious to my presence. Nearly as oblivious as Pietr was to me. I cleared my throat.

No response.

I elbowed Izzy aside, pushing my way into their giggling midst. “Come on, Pietr. We’ve got math.”

He rose, slipping his newly acquired lit book under his arm.

“Math?” Izzy sighed. “Who does he have, Jessie? Mr. Belden?” She never once looked at me—his guide and holder of the evidently royal schedule.

“Yeah,” I snapped. “Beany Belden.” Now I
did
groan. Escorting Pietr was making me less pleasant about everything. “
Now,
Pietr.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Izzy offered.

“Good.” I headed for the door, saying over my shoulder, “I’ll lead.”

I did my best to distance myself from the pair of them, but occasionally I’d hear Izzy say something entirely insipid, and it seemed as if she’d shouted it down the hall. She was entirely too easy to impress. Her brightest moment in the very
one-sided conversation was when she said, “You even
smell
good!”

I found myself rolling my eyes so often I nearly walked into a wall. Okay, the new boy was cute. So what if he smelled good? I mean—seriously. I totally get the idea that new things are attractive. New toys are shiniest. New cars smell best. But a new boy? Big deal.

Pietr finally returned her compliment. “You smell—delicious.”

Odd. I sniffed. Well, Izzy did tend to pour on the perfume. I guessed anyone walking with her would eventually notice her scent, probably along with the slow burning of his or her nose hair in response to the olfactory assault. But that didn’t matter because there was no amount of perfume in the world that could overcome the strange smells lurking in Belden’s classroom. The man hadn’t gotten the nickname “Beany Belden” for his choice of hats. At least Pietr would have a different smell to comment on. Maybe then he’d start an interesting conversation.

Pausing by Belden’s door, I reassured myself that at least this weird fascination Izzy had couldn’t last. Everything loses its luster eventually.

I turned to Pietr and Izzy. And saw four other gawking girls vying for Pietr’s attention.

I didn’t get it. What was it about him that they found so mesmerizing? Why didn’t I see it, too?

When Derek came up behind me, I nearly jumped. “What do they see in that guy?” he asked, eyes fixed firmly on my own. I concentrated on breathing.
In-out-in-out-in
. . .

“I don’t know,” I admitted sheepishly.
Good. That was at least coherent.
I tried an endearing smile, but I could feel my lips stretch into a crazed grin.
Oh-god-oh-god-oh-god
. . . I forced my lips back into a less maniacal look, hoping Derek had somehow overlooked my stalker-like smile.

I felt someone watching us and glanced briefly away from Derek to figure out who. . . . Still ringed by my female classmates, Pietr was glaring our way. No. Not
our
way—Derek’s way. Weird. And it wasn’t the glare a guy shoots a rival guy over a girl (not that I’ve seen one personally, but I’ve read about them plenty of times). No, it was like:
I hate that guy and always will.
Like Pietr already knew Derek.

Derek missed it. “So, I’ll bet every girl in class is hoping he’ll go to Homecoming with them.”

I shrugged. “He’s just some guy,” I countered, maybe a little loudly. “But yeah, he seems to have attracted a flock of followers.”

“Not you?”

“What?” I blushed.

“You don’t seem too impressed by him.”

“Yee-aahh.” I tore my eyes away from Derek’s face and looked Pietr over skeptically. Our eyes met, and I thought I read a warning in them. Weird. “Nope.” I shrugged again. “I just don’t get it.”

“So you won’t be going to Homecoming with him?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you going with someone else?”

I blinked.

“Are you going with somebody else?” Derek repeated.

“N-no.”

“All right, children, let’s break it up. We have things to learn, not time to burn. Inside, inside!” Belden herded us into the room, using his yardstick to round us up and break up my conversation with Derek.

I never hated math as much as that day. I watched Derek take his seat in the back and I took mine in the front, Pietr between us.

What had Derek been getting at, out in the hallway? Guys like Derek didn’t waste time on girls like me.

That day in math, nothing seemed to be adding up.

By the time math class wrapped up, my mind was swimming with questions. Most of them had nothing to do with mathematical equations. I packed up my things, noticing out of the corner of my eye that Derek hadn’t passed by yet. I took a moment to arrange my pencils neatly in my backpack, blushing at my sudden and probably pathetically obvious attempt at subterfuge.

I looked up when I heard someone pause beside my desk, but my lips pursed when I realized it was Pietr. And his gaggle of girls.

Derek skirted the group, shooting me a glance I couldn’t quite read as he left class. Left
me.

I nearly growled at Pietr as I rose. His eyes narrowed, accentuating their oddly exotic appearance, and he seemed to weigh me for a moment. I hadn’t realized how distinctly his dark pupils were rimmed with brilliant gold—a bold barrier before the blue. His eyes nearly glowed, giving him a disconcertingly feral look.

The hairs on my arms stood up, but
I
would not back down. “Let’s go,” I snapped, pushing past the girls he’d inexplicably gathered. I knocked into two of them with my elbows out. It was absolutely calculated.

But they didn’t notice, reacting only when Pietr moved to follow me into the hall.

“Where are we headed?” Pietr asked.

What? Was he actually taking an interest in his new school?
I glanced at him. “Lunch,” I said shortly.

“Oh, Pietr, that’s awesome,” Izzy, obviously the self-appointed leader of his flock, exclaimed. “We share a lunch period—we can sit together!”

I half-expected that strange “ee-eee” sound hysterical girls make, when spotting this week’s pop star, to stream from her lips, but, mercifully, she just grinned like a psycho.

Pietr gazed at her with a look you’d expect from a doting sitcom dad. Then he turned his strange eyes to me. “Where do
you
sit?”

“With my friends.” I couldn’t imagine such a phrase would attract more trouble, but it seemed I had a magnetic personality in just this one way.

“Excellent,” he said softly. “I would like to meet them.”

“Our table is normally full,” I countered. It was true. Most days
I
had trouble finding a seat if I was running behind.

He smiled, and I felt the girls around him try to set me on fire with their eyes. “Has today been normal for you?”

“No.” I crinkled his schedule in my hands. As much as I didn’t care for his attitude, I realized there was something—
indefinable
—about him.

I caught a glimpse of Derek as he sauntered by with his fellow members of the football team. He shot me a look that made my heart stop. But I still couldn’t interpret it. Maybe that was the key to a crush: You had it, but you never understood it.

Pietr slipped the schedule out of my hand, his fingers touching mine and jarring me out of my speculation. My hand tingled where he’d touched it, the same way it had tingled after I accepted the dare to touch the Monroes’ electric fence one wet spring day. I never thought the touch of another person could make the nerves jangle and dance beneath my skin. It was like I had slept the last few months away and now, suddenly, I was waking up.

“We only have thirty minutes,” he pointed out as I rubbed sensation back into my hand. He glanced at the clock and handed back the schedule. “Twenty-nine. Perhaps your normally full table will have an opening today.”

I grimaced at the possibility and led Pietr and his mob toward the writhing mass of teenage bodies we referred to as the lunch line.

Considering the lunch line’s length, for once it moved at a tolerable pace. I was able to separate myself from Pietr, buffering my location with some of the surrounding girls. I spent my time in line wondering about Derek—the same way I wondered about him nearly every minute of every day for the last two years.

I had been obsessed with Derek in ninth and tenth grade and he hadn’t even given me a second glance. Wondering what had changed, I looked down at my hands and encountered my boobs along the way. Yep, that had definitely been a change, I realized, blush stinging high on my cheeks. In tenth grade I’d
still been as flat as a board and then, in summer, more than wild-flowers had sprouted. I pulled out my worry stone and rubbed it.

So was
that
it then? Had my sudden—developments—been all that had caught Derek’s attention? I squashed the doubt down. Surely there was more to me that he’d noticed.

He had dumped that prima donna Jenny. . . . Everyone knew there was nothing to her but bleach, makeup, and some well-structured bras. Maybe Derek realized he wanted a more complete package—someone with a brain. But in the back of my head a voice kept whispering,
Does it matter why he’s interested? Be happy he’s actually interested!

My lunch tray made a clicking noise as it hit the rails in front of the steaming bins of what passed for food at Junction High. The scents blurred and blended—macaroni and pizza, Salisbury steak and meat loaf, shepherd’s pie alongside overcooked peas and rubbery carrots. . . . It all became a nauseating blend of substandard fare. I grabbed a questionable salad plate and a yogurt, pausing briefly to check the stamped date—expiration was imminent, but at least the yogurt and I still had today.

I slid my tray to the end of the line, where Madge waited at the cash register, hairnet pulled tight around her shocking red hair and squeezing her meaty ears, giving her head the appearance of a ham. She tallied my tray’s contents and announced what I owed.

“See you at the Home today?” I asked as I paid up.

“Yep, job number two. I’ll be bringing a new little helper.” She grinned.

I said, “Cool,” and a moment later I was free of the food sauna and heading for my table, forgetting Pietr in my need to discuss the Derek situation with my girlfriends.

I smacked my tray down, wiggling in between Amy and
Sarah on the lunch table’s bench. Sarah set down the copy of
Sense and Sensibility
she was nearly finished reading and smiled supportively in my direction.

Stabbing my milk with a straw, I introduced my plight. “I just don’t get it. Derek actually
spoke
to me today.” I jabbed a cucumber slice with my fork and wondered which of us was older.

“Go ahead,” Amy urged, her eyebrows tugged together in the gravest of expressions. Almost across from me, Sophia dabbed at her mouth with a napkin—her signal she was bowing out of the discussion. She had gone out with Derek once and never again. She wouldn’t talk about it. Ever.