Twenty-Nine

Total Shocker

Quinn's POV

After I got a Caesar salad and grilled cheese from the cafeteria line, I was happily enveloped back into my usual table of girls, sitting between Julia and a redhead with a spray of freckles named Chelsea. Nobody mentioned Andrew Summers or asked about our breakup as I slowly emptied my plate, even though occasionally Julia glanced over at me as if to see if I was really okay.

I had just stuffed my face with a too-big bite of Caesar salad in order not to look at the group of junior boys that exited the cafeteria when Andrew Summers split from the bunch and headed over to our table, his blonde hair bright in the sunlight. I swallowed quickly and stared at him, but he didn't even glance at me as he came to a stop in front of us.

"Hey," said Julia, turning around to smile at him.

What?

Andrew smiled down at her, not even looking at the rest of us. "Hey, can we talk for a minute?" he asked. His deep voice was the same as it had always been--he was talking to her like he used to talk to me. How did they know each other? Then I remembered. They were lab partners.

"Sure." Julia smiled, her cheeks illuminated the faintest shade of pink, as she stood up and followed him away from our table.

I turned back around to see every single girl sitting on the benches surrounding me staring at me with wide eyes and half-open mouths. "I'll be right back," I said, tossing my napkin onto the table and striding away. It didn't take me long to reach the area where Andrew had taken Julia, and I peered around the wall to see that he had grabbed a bouquet of flowers and was now offering them to her. Red roses. What she'd wanted Cody to give her if he asked her to Homecoming.

Slowly, I brought my hand up to my mouth to try and stifle back my gasp as he said something I couldn't hear, his eyes glowing. She squealed and threw her arms around him and he lifted her off her feet, twirling her in a circle before setting her back down.

I felt like I'd been punched in the gut, because my best friend had a date to Homecoming with my ex-boyfriend. And she hadn't even thought to tell me that they were a thing? That was why she'd asked if I was over him earlier. I thought I'd meant it, but looking at them now, my stomach felt completely sick.

My hands still cupping my mouth, I slowly slid down against the brick until I was sitting on the hard concrete, taking deep breaths over and over. Andrew Summers was going to Homecoming with another girl. I'd dreamed of him taking me for so long.

Eventually, they came back around the corner. Julia held her bouquet in one arm and was grasping Andrew's hand tightly in hers, staring up at him adoringly as he said something that made her laugh. When they passed me, I doubted they saw me at all.

I watched as they disappeared around the corner and went back to the table I'd just vacated--Andrew took my seat next to Julia and curled his arm around her as she dug back into her soup. As I turned away and stared down at the pavement, I tried to make sense of what was going through my mind. Did I really still like Andrew? I didn't think so. But he'd moved on from me so quickly, it made me wonder if he'd even cared at all. And Julia--couldn't she have waited a little longer before she went running to him right after he'd broken up with me? I knew Homecoming was in less than a week, but still.

Someone sat down beside me, and I looked to see Cody reaching out and brushing a piece of hair back off my shoulder. "Someone doesn't look happy," he said.

I forced a smile, because I didn't want him to know I was upset about Andrew. "I'm fine," I said.

He followed my gaze to the picnic table, and to Andrew's arm which was still wrapped firmly around Julia, and his lips parted a little bit. "Oh," he said. Then he glanced over at me and added matter-of-factly, "You're not crying."

"I know," I said.

As I brought my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, he said, "Well it probably still hurts a little, doesn't it?"

"Yeah."

Exhaling loudly, I rested my cheek on my knees, angling my head so that I could still see him as he kept watching me. His brown eyes never left mine once as I made myself take deep breaths. Slowly, I realized the pain in my chest was more shock than heartbreak. After all, Andrew had never, ever looked at me the way Cody was now. It didn't matter how many love letters he'd sent me or how much he used to tell me he cared--all that was over now.

"I'm going back over there," I said suddenly. When Cody's eyebrows furrowed together I explained, "I can't let them force me away from my own lunch table."

He smiled at me as I smoothed down my t-shirt and headed back over to the full picnic table, where everyone was interrogating Andrew and Julia about their recent status. Forcing myself to calm down and act casual, I strode up to them and bumped Andrew with my hip, saying, "Hey, Summers, you took my spot."

Although he seemed surprised to see me, he obediently scooted away, withdrawing his arm from around Julia, and without another word to each other I sat down and he stood behind us on the pavement. I glanced back over to where I'd slid to the floor after seeing him ask Julia out and saw that Cody was smiling at me, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his khakis. Then he winked at me and turned away, shoving his baseball cap on backwards as he headed into the main school building.

I closed my eyes for a second to compose myself and then submerged myself in the current conversation at the table.

"He got you roses?" Chelsea was saying, her green eyes wide. "That's so sweet of him! If a guy got me flowers when he asked me to Homecoming I'd freak out."

Andrew placed his hands on Julia's shoulders as she smiled. She was looking up at everyone through her eyelashes, and she still had a demure smile complementing her tinged-pink cheeks. I had to admit she looked happier than she'd looked in a while.

"He just seems to read my mind," she said simply.

"So how'd you guys get together?" pried Chelsea, resting her chin on her hands. "When'd you start dating, anyway?"

All of this Andrew-and-Julia related conversation was starting to test my resolve, but I made myself keep a smile on my face as Julia said, "Well, we've been lab partners. And we just started getting closer. We're not dating, anyway, Chels--he just asked me to Homecoming."

"Seems like you're dating to me," piped up Hazel, a girl in my theatre class.

Julia blushed a brighter shade of red and I took a bite of the salad that I'd abandoned. So they'd been flirting and "getting closer" while Andrew and I had still been dating--it made me mad, but I knew I couldn't be furious at either of them. After all, Cody and I had done the same thing.

I thought of Cody and wondered what we were, exactly. We had kissed, but I hadn't been fully conscious. And since then, he hadn't asked me out or anything like that. I didn't really know how I'd react if he did ask me out. After all, I liked him--he was smart and sweet and really cute--but I couldn't decide if it would last or if I was still just rebounding off of Andrew and the heartbreak he'd given me.

I spent the rest of lunch trying to be happy for Julia and Andrew, but when I went to French class and Julia walked with her new boyfriend instead of me, I couldn't help but be a little upset. I slid into my seat next to Cody a little dejectedly, pulling out my textbook and trying to be fascinated with the homework Ms. Sonatra had assigned us.

Finally, Cody pushed a piece of paper my way, and I glanced down at it to see it was a little yellow Post-It note. When I unfolded it, I saw that he'd written hey :) in his messy handwriting.

Smiling, I tugged my pen out of his grip and wrote back hey, you :) before slipping it back at him.

You gonna talk to me? he asked next. I dropped the Post-It note into my pencil case, for safekeeping, and then looked up at him for the first time since I'd walked into the room.

"Hey," I said.

He smiled and swiftly took the pen back from me. "I think we've established our hellos already."

Rolling my eyes, I asked, "Well then what do you want to talk about?" When he shrugged, I stuck out my tongue at him and went back to studying my textbook.

"Don't make me write you another note," he said. "They're way too much work."

"You slacker, you."

He looked like he was about to reply with a sassy comment but Ms. Sonatra chose that moment to take her regular position at the front of the room, saying, "Books away and pencils out, everyone!"

"We just had a quiz!" protested Cody from his seat.

Ms. Sonatra turned her narrowed eyes on him, and it seemed like she was spitting darts. "Monsieur Marlett," she said icily, "hat off and pencil out. Now."

He whipped off his hat and put it on me instead before reclining back in his desk, twirling my pen around.

"Excuse me," I hissed, "that's my pen. And I don't want your hat." When I shoved it back at him, he flicked my pen across our desks at me, his eyes dancing. He didn't move towards his backpack and I added, at my wit's end, "And let me guess. You don't have a pencil."

He didn't respond and I tossed my bird-patterned pencil bag at him as Ms. Sonatra began passing out the quizzes. Across the room, Julia took hers with a sweet, "Thank you, Madame!" and immediately began working on it. Her cheerful mood seemed impenetrable today.

"Madame," tried Cody as Ms. Sonatra handed him his quiz, "Is there an extra credit option for this quiz?"

"Don't try your luck," she said, dropping my paper on my desk before moving on to the next row of seats, where a girl who always wore sky-high heels always sat next to a guy who wore graphic tees despite the dress code.

Smirking at Cody, I wrote my name at the top of my quiz and got started. The questions actually didn't seem that difficult, and I finished in about ten minutes before I was able to turn in my paper. Cody, who always worked at almost the same pace as me, handed his quiz in only seconds later and then turned to me.

"So," he said, "you feeling better?"

I glanced at Julia, who was still furtively scribbling on her paper. "Yeah," I said, and this time I didn't doubt myself. Then I added suddenly, "What was dating Julia like?"

"Seriously?" he asked, his eyes intense. When I nodded, he said, "Completely awful, actually. She was always trying to boss me around and telling me not to wear my baseball caps, and whenever I tried to tease her she took everything way too seriously. We fought all the time." His eyes drifted up to the ceiling. "Somehow, though, she wouldn't break it off. I don't know why she asked me out in the first place."

I unexpectedly had an urge to reach up and run my hand through his wavy dark hair, but I sat on my palm instead so that I wouldn't do anything I didn't mean to do. "I guess she liked you from afar," I said. "Sort of like I liked Andrew Summers."

"Is that 'liked' as in past tense?"

Chewing down on my lip, I said, "Yeah, it is."

"You can't do that."

"Do what?" I asked, glancing up at him.

"Chew your lip like that," he said, biting down on his own lower lip for emphasis.

I squinted my eyes at him. "Why?" I asked, lowering my voice when Ms. Sonatra shot us a warning glance before turning back to her work.

"Because it's too frickin' adorable," he said, glancing at me before turning back to his desk and staring at the wood as if it were thoroughly fascinating.

The shade of pink that quickly overcame my cheeks rivaled Julia's as I forced out a laugh. "Look who's bossy now," I said.

When he glanced out of me out of the corner of his eyes, he looked so much like a little puppy that had just been scolded that I wanted to hug him. "I'm joking, loser," I said.

He stuck out his tongue at me and promptly snatched my pencil up from my desk.

In the time that we'd been talking, most of the class had finished their quizzes, and Ms. Sonatra gathered the last few before launching into one of her infamous grammar lectures. I obediently took notes in my composition notebook, sneaking glances at Cody out of the corner of my eye every once in a while. Sometimes I caught him staring back, and I'd quickly turn back to my paper.

By the time class let out, I was actually really cheerful, and my normal bubbly energy was back as I headed down the hallway and towards history. I thought of the Post-It note I'd gotten in my locker that morning--the meeting it had suggested was only a few minutes away. But I didn't even think about skipping class to go as I climbed the stairs towards Mr. Anderson's room, completely ready for a quiz he might throw at us.

My teacher ended up giving the class a worksheet to complete while he went to a department meeting, and I finished it in the first ten minutes of class before twiddling my thumbs absentmindedly for what felt like forever. The clock on the wall near the door ticked closer and closer to 2:15, and I kept thinking of room 705 and who might be waiting for me in there.

Finally, I could stand it no longer, and I slipped out of the classroom and down the stairs, praying I wouldn't run into Mr. Anderson even though he was supposed to be in his meeting. I reassured myself that I wasn't technically skipping class, because after all, I'd finished all the work.

I burst open the door to room 705, which belonged to an English teacher I'd never had a class with. The room was entirely empty, and I pulled my phone out from the pocket of my shorts to see that it was still only 2:13.

I perched up on a desk and waited for a few minutes, scrolling through various apps on my phone while I waited for someone to appear. When the minute hand on the clock near the door hit 2:25 and I was still the only one in the room, I decided nobody was going to show.

Was there something else in the room I should see? I scanned the desks and the whiteboard and saw nothing, even though I didn't know what exactly I was expecting.

Dejectedly, I left the room and went back up the stairs to history class. I hadn't left in order to try and fix my relationship--I'd really wanted to know who'd been leaving me the Post-It notes. And even though I hadn't found out yet, I was determined not to stop until I did.