Slide (2 page)

I
speed-walk past the student entrance and almost run into Rollins, my best friend, who has a tendency to show up at school about halfway through first period.

“Vee!” He laughs and grabs my arm. “Where you off to in such a hurry?”

“Back to class,” I say, turning my face away from him so he won’t see the bump on my forehead. It’s no use, though. Rollins sees everything.

“Hey,” he says. “Hey. Stop.”

I let him look me over, waiting for the inevitable questions. Things between us have seemed strained lately. It’s as if Rollins senses that I’m hiding something. He keeps pushing, and I keep pulling away. If only he’d just let me be . . .

Rollins shakes his long brown hair out of his eyes. “Are you okay? Did you just—”

“Mr. Rollins,” a smug voice calls out. “Little late today, I see.” Mr. Nast—“Nasty,” to the students— strolls toward us, his thumbs tucked casually through his belt loops like he’s in some kind of western. It’s the last face-off—Nasty the principal and us, the delinquents.

Nasty glares at Rollins, whose face has settled into a smirk. Rollins’s snarky attitude hasn’t won him any favors with the administration—that’s for damn sure. He gets busted once a week on average. It’s pretty much Nast’s hobby, trying to nail Rollins for smoking in the parking lot or cutting class.

When Nast sees me, his face kind of wavers. I’m a tricky one. With my strange disability and permanent hall pass, there’s not much he can do to me. Rollins, however, is a totally different story. I know for a fact he’s only one tardy away from suspension.

Rollins’s grip on my arm tightens for a moment, and then he lets go. He prepares himself for battle, crossing his arms across his chest and tightening his jaw.

I throw myself between them. “Mr. Nast, Rollins was just walking me to the nurse. I’m feeling faint.” I make my voice wobbly and grasp Rollins for support.

Mr. Nast looks from me to Rollins and back again. I see in his face that he doesn’t believe me, but there’s nothing he can do. Finally, he throws us a severe look and mutters at us to hurry up.

Rollins and I bustle away from him, arms linked, heading toward the nurse’s office. When we round the corner, we burst into laughter, and any tension there might have been between us before has dissipated.

“I never knew you were such a fine actress,” Rollins says, snorting.

“Oh, that wasn’t an act. I really am feeling faint,” I say, pretending to swoon. “I’m such a delicate flower.”

“My ass,” Rollins says, nudging me with his elbow. “You’re about as delicate as an AK-47.” His snicker fades as he catches sight of my forehead. “Seriously, though, what happened?”

I shake my pink hair so it covers my wound. “It’s nothing. I just passed out in the bathroom. But I’m fine. No big deal.”

Rollins can’t hide his worries, though he tries. His eyes narrow. “If you say so.”

I squirm. Concern makes me itchy.

“Look, I gotta get to class. See you later?”

Rollins nods. “Later, Vee.”

When I get back to English, it looks like someone released sleeping gas in the classroom. Almost everyone is draped over their desks, holding their copies of
Julius Caesar
at odd angles in front of their faces so it’s not completely obvious they’re asleep. Mrs. Winger is still absorbed in her game. She doesn’t look up when I ease into my seat.

Samantha Phillips, her hair framing her face in straight red sheets, eyeballs me from across the room. Her cheerleading skirt is yanked up to show off her fake-baked thighs. I can’t believe I once wore one of those skirts. I can’t believe I was ever friends with the girl who is now captain of the squad. Sophomore year seems like a lifetime ago.

She looks at my Oasis T-shirt and sneers. “Nice outfit. What is it, like, 1994?”

I give her a death glare until she looks away and goes back to inconspicuously tapping the screen of her iPhone.

My gaze falls on the crisp, clean copy of
Astronomy: The Cosmic Perspective
, which peeks out from my black school-bag. I had to order it brand-new to avoid the possibility of sliding when I flipped through the pages. People have emotional ties with books more often than you think, and I try to play it safe.

With Mrs. Winger so enthralled by her computer game, it would be easy to pull my book out and continue the section on black holes I was reading the night before. There probably won’t be any questions about black holes on the
Julius Caesar
test, though, sadly enough.

I turn to Icky. “What’d I miss?”

“Hmmm . . . Well, the conspirators stabbed Caesar. You missed about the only good part in this play.”

“Aw, crap,” I say, in mock annoyance. I lean over his desk, careful not to touch the book, and scan the part I missed. Yada yada yada, the conspirators surround him, Caesar is history.

One of the questions on the study guide: What were Caesar’s last words?

I look back at the book, searching for the answer. Aha! Right after Brutus plunges the knife in, Caesar says, “
Et tu, Bruté?
—Then fall Caesar.”

I think of Caesar going to the Capitol, surrounded by men he thought were his friends, only to be stabbed repeatedly in the back. And there’s Brutus, holding the bloody freaking knife. The only thing left for Caesar to do is die, thinking he’s such a shitty person even his best friend wants him dead.

Sophie’s face pops into my head. What will she think when she finds out her two best friends are plotting against her? On her birthday, no less?

People suck.

I shake my head, writing down the answer.

“Pretty sick stuff, eh?” Icky grins.

“I’ll say.”

The bell rings, and everyone jumps to life.

Lunchtime.

I sit in my usual place, underneath the bleachers, and wait for Rollins. From my spot, I spy an empty Coke can, half a Snickers bar, and a Trojan wrapper. Fumbling in my backpack for my lunch, I wonder who in their right mind would want to have sex under the bleachers. Maybe they did it on the football field and the wrapper just blew over here—not that that’s much better.

The brown sugar Pop-Tarts I packed this morning have crumbled to bits, so I eat the big pieces and then tilt my head back and dump the rest of the crumbs into my mouth.

I expect Rollins to sneak up on me and make a snarky comment about my ladylike table manners, but he doesn’t show. This is the third lunch he’s stood me up for. After a few minutes, I pull out my astronomy book and read about black holes in between swigs of warm Mountain Dew.

I’m in the middle of a really great paragraph about how nothing—not even light—can escape a black hole once it’s reached the event horizon when something above me clangs. Two people are working their way down the bleachers. I stick my finger in the book to hold my place and tilt my head up, annoyed by the interruption.

A familiar voice floats down to where I’m sitting. It makes me want to puke.

Scotch.

They sit down above me, and I hear another guy’s voice. “Dude, you have to check this out.” His tone is conspiratorial, like he’s got some drugs or a Penthouse magazine.

Quietly, I stuff my book into my backpack. Maybe I can sneak away without them noticing me.

“What is this? Where did you get this?” I hear Scotch ask.

“One of the cheerleaders sent it out this morning. Hey. Didn’t you bang this chick?”

Scotch snorts. “Yeah, once.”

Feeling like I’m going to be sick, I crawl toward the opening beneath the bleachers. Something sharp slices into my knee, and it takes everything in me to stifle my yelp of pain. When I look down, I realize I’ve cut myself on a broken Budweiser bottle. My jeans are torn, and blood oozes through the opening. I bite my lip and move toward the exit.

After emerging from my hiding spot, I risk one quick backward glance. Scotch and another football player are both staring down at a cell phone, smirking. My heart clenches for the poor girl they’re discussing, whoever she is.

In the bathroom, I clutch a wad of paper towels to my knee, but the blood doesn’t seem to be slowing. Though I’ve been avoiding the school nurse, it’s clear I’ll have to stop by her office. The beer bottle wasn’t exactly clean, and she’ll have some antiseptic cream to smooth on the wound.

Mrs. Price is sitting at her desk, rifling through papers, when I arrive. Her gray hair is falling out of a loose bun, and she’s wearing these glasses on a chain that make her look more like a librarian than a school nurse. She’s so engrossed in her work, she doesn’t even notice me come in.

A boy I’ve never seen before sits in a folding chair in the corner. He looks me up and down, his gaze pausing on the bloody paper towels I’m holding, making me feel suddenly self-conscious. He doesn’t look like the type of guy who goes for chicks with pink hair. In fact, with his perfectly tousled blond hair and green T-shirt stretched tight over his biceps, he looks like the type of guy who dates girls who resemble Victoria’s Secret models. Still, he sits there smiling as if he knows me or something.

“Uh,” I say.

Mrs. Price looks up, her eyebrows jumping when she spots the blood. “Vee! Another accident?”

“No biggie,” I mutter, avoiding eye contact with the guy. “It’s a shallow cut. Just needs to be cleaned.”

Mrs. Price frowns and pushes back her chair. She glides over to me and stoops down to examine my wound. “Did you get this during another episode, Vee?”

“No,” I say, shaking my hair over my face so she won’t notice the bump. If she finds out I’ve been passing out, she’ll have to call my father and he’ll have to call my doctors and they’ll ask about the Provigil and the whole thing will be a big pain in my ass.

Mrs. Price pulls on some latex gloves and tells me to sit down and pull up my pant leg. She wipes my knee with an alcohol pad, dabs on some Neosporin, and then wraps it with a clean bandage. The whole time, I am intensely aware of the hot guy staring at my bare leg.

Mrs. Price strips off her gloves and tosses them into the trash. She stands and looks at the guy. “All your records seem to be in order, Zane. What class do you have now? Vee here can show you the way. Sylvia, this is Zane Huxley. This is his first day.”

The guy steps forward and shakes my hand. “Nice to meet you.” He pulls a crinkled paper from his pocket and squints at it. “I’ve got AP psych with Golden.”

“Oh, good.” Mrs. Price claps her hands. “That’s where you’re going. Right, Vee?”

“Um, yeah.”

As we walk to Mr. Golden’s room, I keep my eyes straight ahead, though I can feel Zane’s eyes on me.

“So, Sylvia. Got any advice for the newb in town? Cool places to hang out? Teachers to avoid?” He reaches out and trails his finger along a poster that says STAR in bubble letters. Safe, Tolerant, Accountable, Respectful—all the things teachers wish students were, but we can’t always be because we’re human beings and not robots.

“Not really. Get salad bar on Chef’s Choice days.”

He laughs. “Well, that’s a given.” He unfolds his schedule. “I’ve got Winger first period. Have you had her?”

I risk a glance at Zane. His face is open and friendly and interested. To him, I’m a perfectly normal girl. Well, a perfectly normal girl with Pepto-colored hair. But still.

“Yeah. Actually, I’ve got her first period, too. Just don’t bother her when she’s playing solitaire, and you should be fine. She gets cranky.”

“Solitaire, eh? What about this guy? Golden? He cool?”

“Yeah, he’s really cool,” I say. “He’s young, which means he hasn’t burned out yet. And he always tells these weird stories, like the time he helped a woman give birth at the Omaha zoo.”

“Ew,” Zane says, but he looks fascinated.

“Yeah. So where are you from?”

A girl in a flippy skirt skips down the hall toward us, her eyes lingering on Zane, but he doesn’t even look her way. His eyes are fixed on me.

“Actually, I used to live here when I was little. But then my dad died and we moved to Chicago to live with my grandma.”

Awkward. It’s always so
awkward
when someone mentions death, especially when you don’t know them very well. Strangers always say they’re soooooo sorry when they hear my mother is gone, but it’s wrong that death is a loss. It’s something you gain. Death is always there, whispering in your ear. It’s in the spaces between your fingers. In your memories. In everything you think and say and feel and wish. It’s always there.

I know there’s nothing you can say to make death okay. It is what it is.

“That sucks,” I say.

He nods silently.

We’re standing in front of the door to Mr. Golden’s classroom.

“Well, here we are,” I say feebly.

“Try to contain your excitement,” he says, smiling as he pushes open the door.

The room we walk into looks more like a lounge than a classroom. Mr. Golden likes to rescue and reupholster couches and bring them in for us to sit on during class discussions. He’s decorated the walls with seemingly no rhyme or reason. Mixed in with the posters of Freud and diagrams of the human brain are old concert posters for The Doors and Jimi Hendrix. He even has a black light he turns on for special occasions. A large green plant that looks like it could swallow me hulks in the corner.