The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You (14 page)

“Peter,” he wheezed. “Dude, did you hear?”

Peter glanced around at us before looking back at Brad. “Hear what?”

“That you ran laps around the parking lot and then passed out in a Dumpster?” West asked.

“They took down the ranking,” Brad said.

There was a clattering of plastic forks and hamburgers hitting paper plates. Everyone at the table turned to Brad, who was sloughing sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand.

“All of the rankings?” asked one of the juniors.

“No, just ours,” Brad said, wiping his hand on his pants. A wet stain showed dark against his khakis. “The senior list is gone.”

“Why?” Cornell asked.

“Two more APs,” Brad gulped.

“APs?” echoed a frosh from the other end of the table. “Advanced Placement classes? Do we even have those?”

“I took all of them in middle school,” said another.

“Academic probation,” I said, staring up at Brad. “Who?”

“Alex Nguyen and Ishaan Singh. They got a week's suspension each.”

Meg sucked in a gasp, her hand flying to her chest. I couldn't tell if she was more horrified that Ishaan had been caught cheating or that he wouldn't be allowed to attend the winter ball.

“But Ishaan is in the top ten,” Harper protested. “Why would he cheat?”

“Why is anyone cheating?” West asked. “We're a month into term. It's a little early to panic.”

Peter rubbed a hand over his temple in picture perfect presidential concern. He should have been bracing his hands against the desk in the Oval Office.

“Did they pull Ishaan off the cricket team?” he asked.

Brad nodded.

“Shit,” Peter muttered.

Harper gave a small cluck, obviously protesting the use of harsh language in front of his cabinet. Cornell patted her arm.

“How did you find out about this?” Mary-Anne asked, narrowing her eyes at Brad.

“I was in the admin office when they brought in the list.” He looked back at Peter. “Just thought you should know, man. I need to find Jack.”

“He's working in the library today,” Peter said. “Thanks for the update.”

Brad staggered off, pushing his way between tables. Everyone at the table slowly resumed what they'd been doing before. Books were opened, beverages were consumed. Harper leaned her head against Cornell's shoulder, chewing the inside of her cheek in thought.

“I've never seen anything like this,” Cornell said. “Three people caught cheating in a week?”

Peter sighed. “It's senior year and people are starting to get nervous about their college apps. I wouldn't have expected it of Alex or Ishaan, though.”

The sophomores down at the other end of the table, unaffected by the news that the senior class was lousy with cheaters, started chattering excitedly with one another. After some whispering and pointing at each other, one of the girls sat up straight and raised her voice.

“What if we do a masquerade?”

“No masks,” West declared.

The sophomore officers deflated, their thought balloons all soundly pricked. Although West was looking straight at the sophomore girl, I could feel the sharp point of the words aimed at me.

“What about mandatory gags?” I asked. “That would keep the mono threat down and keep West from boring everyone to tears.”

The bell rang, like the triumphant clang at the end of a boxing match. West bolted from the table without saying goodbye. I leapt off the bench and scooped up my bag, a satisfied smile on my face.

“Oh, Trixie,” Meg muttered, sadly adjusting her lime-green bow as we started moving toward the doors.

“What?” I asked.

Harper and Cornell caught up to us, their hands locked together. Again, I was struck by how comfortably they fit together. They moved and spoke without any indication that a week ago they'd been orbiting around each other. Their twin looks of quiet disappointment only added to the overall effect. It wasn't entirely unlike when my parents teamed up against me.

“Come on,” I said, hopping onto the defensive without waiting for an invitation. “I was perfectly nice other than that last bit. I can't control the outside stimuli of the conversation.”

“That's true,” Harper clucked.

“It's just…” Cornell furrowed his brow, which only served to make him look more distinguished. “Never mind. Don't worry about it, Trix.”

 

[7:18 PM]

Me

I need a homework vacation. Can either of you spare half an hour sometime for quality time with the park? (And each other, obvs.)

 

11

The next two
weeks passed in a sort of time loop. I stayed up late working on homework, came to school twitchy and exhausted, and clenched my teeth during lunch to keep from eviscerating Ben West while he rambled. Harper and Cornell devised yet another meticulous schedule for comic book shopping that would limit an overlap between our shopping and the boys' shopping to no more than three and a half minutes. I should have felt guilty that they were going to such extreme measures to keep me and West separated, but I was too relieved to care. It was one thing to have to deal with him at school. I didn't want to see him bogarting the Marvel shelves.

I walked to school, already daydreaming about getting a full night's sleep. I'd spent two days working on a ten-page paper for History of the American Immigrant. With it finally uploaded to the homework portal, I could sit back and relax. I had three unread comics in my bag and I had every intention of going to the park after school to truly enjoy them. The weather was in my favor—slightly too overcast for me to justify wearing my sunglasses, but no real sign of rain.

Harper and Meg were waiting for me outside the front gate as I strolled up. A jolt of annoyance straightened my shoulders as their heads popped up in unison and their mouths clamped into mannequin smiles. It had become more and more common for their conversation to halt at the sight of me. It'd be easier if they just cornered me and had whatever intervention they were dancing around. I might not like whatever they had to say, but it'd be better than their continued failed attempts at being covert.

“Good morning,” Meg said, quickly jumping to attention. “How are you?”

“Exhausted, as per usual,” I said. “I really should take up drinking some kind of caffeine in the morning. I don't have to worry about stunting my growth anymore.”

Harper gave an anxious cluck. “Well, women don't officially stop puberty until around twenty or so, but you are tall enough as it is.”

“Must be nice,” said Meg with a warbling laugh. “You know, not being Lilliputian. Like me.”

I peered at them. Things had been on the weirder side recently, but this was a new shade of uncomfortable. Harper seemed about ready to start flapping her arms until she took flight.

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “I didn't hear back from either of you last night. Do you want to take a homework break after school? I was thinking we could go—”

“I can't,” Meg interrupted. “I'm doing an extra-credit project for Gender Roles. I'm going to watch three versions of
Pride and Prejudice
back to back to point out the impact that the production date has on the gender normativeness—”

“Is that a word?” Harper asked. “Normativeness?”

“I think so,” Meg said.

“Anyway,” Harper continued blithely, “Cornell and I are going to the library after school. We're going to get a head start on the American Immigrant final. You're welcome to come, if you want.”

I did everything possible not to roll my eyes at her. Being stuck with Harper and Cornell in their love den of a study room at the public library would definitely register as one of the lower levels of the Inferno. Even Dante would have thrown up his hands and said,
Hey Virgil, this is too much. Let's go back to the level where everyone is being stung by wasps.

“You could come watch
Pride and Prejudice
with me,” Meg offered. “I could convince my mom to make something vegetarian for dinner.”

“That's okay,” I said to both of them. “But, if you don't hear from me by tomorrow, make sure I didn't go all Rip Van Winkle.”

Meg's mouth flopped open and her eyes shone with bright and blatant shock, which was a bit extreme in the reaction department, even for her.

“Sorry,” I said. “Too early for a Washington Irving pull? I thought Sleeping Beauty would be too glamorous for the drooling-on-a-tube-slide imagery.”

“No,” Harper said. She jerked her chin in the general direction of my left shoulder. “That.”

I turned and saw the boys walking toward us from the parking lot. Jack had extricated himself from the group, veering in a parabola toward the gate. Peter was limping next to Cornell, whose stride shortened to keep from making Peter strain his knee. They were in uniform, the same pair of pleasant smiling faces that I'd gotten used to seeing across from me at lunch. There was a third boy behind them. His hair was cropped short on the sides and twisted and teased into a messy point above his forehead made up of smaller, messier points. As he fell into step with Peter, his mouth curved to the side in a cocky smirk and I held back a squawk of alarm.

At some point between calling me a hag at lunch the day before and now, Ben West had shaved his mustache and had a haircut. He may also have grown an inch or so, if that were possible. Or maybe he was just standing up straight without his facial hair weighing him down.

“Hey,” Cornell said as they reached us. He wrapped an arm around Harper's waist and bent to kiss her.

“Oh my God, Ben,” Meg squeaked as West and Peter approached.

“Oh my God, Meg,” West parroted, hooking his thumbs in the straps of his backpack. He hazarded a glance at me. “Morning, Trix.”

I tried to remember the last time I'd seen West clean shaven. Junior year, he hadn't had the silly mustache, but he had taken to not shaving his scruffy face as some signal to the general public that he was a pubescent male.

“Well spotted. It is, in fact, morning,” I said, schooling my face so that I wasn't gaping at him along with the girls. “Were you attacked by a deranged barber?”

He reached up and touched his bare upper lip with an unmistakable longing.

“Something like that.”

He looked away from me quickly, as though afraid of what I'd say next. Which wasn't entirely unfounded. I could have made endless jokes about his makeover.
She's All That,
The Princess Diaries,
My Fair Lady
—my friendship with Meg was a continual source of chick-flick-related insults, even if they pandered to gender normativeness. But none of them seemed entirely appropriate.

“You look great, Ben,” Harper said, her head pressed to Cornell's shoulder.

West grinned at her. His smile seemed broader without the mustache to impede its progress. “Don't flirt with me in front of your boyfriend. He might go all Othello on us.”

Cornell laughed, folding his fingers through Harper's. “Shakespearean racism. Great job, Ben.”

“Just trying to keep it classy,” West said.

“I'll try not to drop a handkerchief anywhere. I'd like to avoid being strangled, if it's all the same to you two.” Harper giggled and Cornell nudged her, chuckling into her hair.

“You look like the ninth Doctor,” Meg said, still beaming at West.

“The tenth,” West and I corrected in unison. I shot him a dirty look and continued, “The ninth was shaved head, big ears. You're thinking of David Tennant, Megs.”

Peter scrunched his face. “I'm totally lost. Is this another
Star Wars
reference?”

Harper craned her neck back to look at Cornell. “How can you be best friends with someone who thinks the Doctor is from
Star Wars
?”

“He means well,” Cornell said. “He was born without the geek gene. He's getting good at playing Magic, though.”

“The Doctor,” I explained to Peter gently, “is the main character on the long running BBC series
Doctor Who
. West's new product-heavy look is reminiscent of the tenth actor who played him.”

“Oh,” said Peter. “Is that good?”

“There are worse things,” I said, refusing to jump on the “let's all congratulate Benedict for grooming himself” bandwagon. “Can we go in now? I have notes to take and ranking to secure.”

Everyone agreed, although Meg made a derisive noise at my mention of the ranking. We moved through the gates in V formation with Harper and Cornell's clasped hands operating as the apex.

“Are we still on for this afternoon?” Cornell muttered to her.

“Definitely,” she said. “How did your rough draft go?”

“Oh, I'd say it's pretty solid.”

“Are you going to let me peek at your notes before I write mine?”

“That's completely unfair,” I said. “You can't join forces against us.”

“That's collusion,” West agreed.

Harper and Cornell shared a smile while Meg swallowed a series of giggles. I goggled at them, not understanding the joke.

“Sorry,” Harper said with a delighted shiver. “We're all in the same class. Our notes should be about the same, right?”

We hit the front door and Cornell held it open, motioning all of us through. Meg and Peter waved to us and joined the throng heading toward the quad. Harper and Cornell veered toward the American Immigrant classroom, whispering to each other and giggling like little children. West passed me with his head down. I sighed and followed him into class.

 

[2:51 PM]

Me

Hulk smash. Must eat sandwich.

 

Don't say I told you so.

[2:54 PM]

Meg

The Thought Experiment proved that breakfast was fundamental to metabolic stability.