Pride and Prep School (7 page)

“Los never got the chance to thank Michael for what he did,” Shondra says. “And he wasn’t sure Michael would even want to see him, so when he found out I know Michael, and you know him even better, he asked for some help.”

“Wow.”

We sit there for a few moments in silence as I try to sift through all of my feelings. I’m angry with everyone who spread those stupid rumors about Michael, including Brick and Cassie for believing that Michael abused his dad’s prescription pad, and Willow for being half right about the cause of the expulsion and telling me, and I’m sure many others, that Michael had been expelled for cheating. But I am most angry with myself for doubting him, for misreading him, for writing him off as a snob, pure and simple, when he is obviously much more complicated than that. He rescued me from a night of drunken stupidity and he had saved Los’ academic career. He runs track and cross country and has a very lovable, very un-pedigreed dog. And he reads animal rights literature in his spare time.

I’ve gotten so much so wrong.

When Michael and Los find us after a few minutes, I find myself staring at him as if I’ve never seen him before. I study the sharp planes of his nose and cheekbones, and the loose black-brown curls that dip over his ears. The way his mouth is fuller on the bottom than the top, and how mobile it is when he speaks. How long and refined his neck is nestled in his hoodie sweatshirt.

We all sit on the stone bench and the big mossy rocks beside it and Los pulls a joint and a lighter out of his pocket and looks at Michael for permission.

“Is this cool, man?”

“Yeah,” Michael chuckles. Another surprise.

I watch as Los lights it and passes it to Michael, and Michael breathes it in and holds it, his dark eyes half shut, then exhales slowly, passing it to Shondra. After a few passes the pot makes me feel fuzzy and less urgent in my confusion, like everything is good whether I know it is or not. I keep looking at Michael—I’m vaguely aware that I am openly staring at him, in fact—but he never seems to look in my direction.

We sit and chat about nothing in particular. Mostly Los catches Michael up on all the news at Pemberley. The sun’s a little warmer and a little brighter today, and there are the first hints of spring in the little buds popping shyly from the tree branches and some plants peeping out of the soil, waiting to bloom. Somehow, I feel like I am, too.

Michael says he might go to Boston with his dad for part of Spring Break and Los answers that he is going back to Puerto Rico for the week to visit his grandmother. He invites Michael along.

“Both sound like more fun than I’ll have. I’m retaking the SATs,” Shondra offers. “I need a higher score for most of the schools I want to go to if I want them to give me any aid. And I do!”

Los puts his hand on her knee and smiles. “I hear that. But I’m doin’ all right this semester,” he says, looking at Michael.

Michael closes his eyes and smiles like a sleeping child having a really good dream. He looks really beautiful, and I want to reach out for him, to touch him, really lightly and casually, the way Los touched Shondra.

But I don’t.

I really want to say something to him, though I don’t know what.

So I don’t.

After about forty-five minutes go by, I realize I have to get Los and Shondra back to Netherfield so I can pick my dad up at Meryton, so we all say goodbye. As I drive back around the edge of the park, I think that Michael didn’t seem angry with me—or terribly interested in me and my being there. But I guess neutrality is better than contempt.

It’s not until I drop Los and Shondra off at the Blue Rooster that I finally figure out what I wanted to say to Michael but was too pot-foggy to think of when I was at his house.

It’s, “I’m sorry.”

I hope it’s not too late for that. I know that I’ve misjudged him. I know that I’ve been wrong about everything.

Now I have to figure out how to make things right.

STEPHANIE WARDROP

Stephanie Wardrop grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania where she started writing stories when she ran out of books to read. She’s always wanted to be a writer, except during the brief period of her childhood in which piracy seemed like the most enticing career option—and if she had known then that there actually were “girl” pirates way back when, things might have turned out very differently. She currently teaches writing and literature at Western New England University and lives in a town not unlike the setting of Snark with her husband, two kids, and five cats. With a book out—finally—she might be hitting the high seas any day now.

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