But, of course she didn't.

Maybe I should have expected that, but she had seemed so confident that I was shocked when she avoided him.

Arson and Brooklyn glanced at each other in class, as they always did. But this time, there was an odd "something else" between them that I couldn't decipher.

They were sitting at their usual seats, next to each other, but they didn't exchange any words.

I decided there was not much that I could do about them, so I leaned back in my seat and got comfortable as I watched them.

Matthew plopped in the seat next to me in the very last row of the psychology classroom.

"Trouble in paradise?" he asked, nodding towards Arson and Brooklyn.

"Something like that. They don't really look like they're planning on fixing it."

He took my phone from the desk and twirled it between his fingers. "Blank phone case? Seriously?"

"What's wrong with a blank phone case?" I asked defensively and took my phone away from him. "I like it."

He took his phone from his pocket and showed me the case that had the six-fingered sword imprinted on it in an elaborate design.

"Isn't that a little bit obsessive?"

His face scrunched up slightly, and he almost looked offended. "Oh, please, don't act so cool. I know you liked it too. I can get you a matching one if you insist." He grinned.

"I am definitely not insisting. Speaking of childishness," I said and he playfully scowled, "how's our amateur Inigo doing?"

"He's doing okay, according to the little he ever says. He befriended Buttercup and she comes over to play video games all the time."

I smiled as I pictured Marveen struggling to keep up with her.

"Have you heard from your Dad?" I asked, and maybe it wasn't the right question to ask because his expression completely changed the second I spoke.

His smile morphed into a frown. "No. Turns out my uncle has a working restraining order against him. He shouldn't be a problem."

"Good," I said and looked away to try to appease the strange awkward silence that settled between us.

Victoria had just walked in and to my surprise, she walked up to Jayce's chair where she was chatting with Henry about some book.

She placed a cheerleading uniform on her desk. Jayce stared at it then back up at her without saying anything.

"I'm sorry," Victoria finally said. "I sucked this year. I failed the team by focusing too much on my own problems."

"What do you mean? We won regionals."

"Thanks to you," she said. "I wasn't as good of a captain as I wanted to be and your talent scared me."

Her honesty shocked me. She didn't even look away while she spoke. She owned up to her faults and if I had had that ability, that would have saved me a lot of headaches.

"I get it if you don't want to come back. You would be totally right. We didn't treat you fairly. But I thought you might want this," she said, motioning to the green and silver outfit on the desk.

"Thank you." Jayce ran her fingers over the cotton fabric of the outfit in nostalgia. "I'm not planning on coming back. I'm busy with something new now," she said, turning to smile at Henry then she shook her head as to chase away some intruding thoughts. "I mean, the philosophy club. I'm its co-president now. But, yes, I do accept your apology."

Victoria sat on the seat next to her. They started chatting about dance and sports, and I watched them, stunned.

"Am I seeing this right?" Brooklyn asked me, making a gagging face.

Arson turned to Brooklyn by reflex the second she spoke, as though her voice was a shrill alarm that could wake him from the deepest of slumbers. Her ears reddened and she stopped talking.

Mr. Andrews finally came in with a sheepish smile, wiping the sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief. "Sorry I'm late," he said, setting down his bag on the desk. "Okay then, are we ready?"

He received groans as a response, but that didn't deter him.

He walked to each desk, placing a thin paper slip face-down on each one.

As he walked, he continued to speak, "So, it's been a month. I can only assume you guys remembered the assignment, especially with the number of emails I get daily—longer than your essays, by the way—explaining why you guys should get to pick your own partners."

The students laughed and he walked to the front of the class to lean against his desk.

"You can look at your slips now. This is randomized for the most part, though I may have been a little biased about a few. What can I say? I'm human. So, does anyone want to start?" he asked, optimistic.

I don't know if he actually expected any answers but he received none.

I glanced down at the slip in front of me, hoping it wouldn't be Victoria because I still didn't know her well. I turned it over and Jayce's name was scribbled in Mr. Andrews's familiar handwriting. I sighed in relief.

I looked around to try to figure out which of my group mates had my name, but their expressions gave nothing away. I didn't miss the anxious glances that Arson and Brooklyn exchanged and I wondered if they had gotten each other's names.

"Everyone remembers the directions?" Mr. Andrews asked and received a few affirmative nods. "Good."

As students stood and presented, I stared down at the name on my paper. The letters faded and Riley's name emerged where Jayce's name had been.

I fiddled with the ballpoint pen on my desk. It was easy to figure out what would have represented her accurately. A pen. She wrote her own story and she didn't ever need to use a hesitant pencil like I did. She was bold even with her illegible handwriting.

"Riley, you do realize that there are at least ten errors in just this one paragraph, right? I can barely even read the words. What on earth is this?"

She would continue to scratch hastily on her paper, barely staring at the lines. "No time to erase."

And that was her attitude with life as well. Too busy moving forward to look back on past mistakes.

I put down the slip of paper that hosted Jayce's name once again and noticed Arson stand up from the corner of my eyes.

He picked up a marker from his desk and turned to Brooklyn with a deep sigh.

"Lyn," he started and perhaps I was even more nervous than she probably was. "You're a highlighter," he said and some students burst into fits of laughter at the deadpan look on his face.

Even Mr. Andrews looked amused as we all waited for Arson to explain what he meant.

"You light up the room when you walk in." He closed his eyes and looked as though he was banging his head against some figurative wall at his own words. "You make everything brighter... better. You're full of energy and you make all my scribbled notes much clearer."

She grinned at the silly description as he sat back down, but he didn't turn to her.

"Ms. Hernandez?" Mr. Andrews called her and she stood up, searching through her pouch.

She held up a correction pen. "I think you're like a Wite-Out," she said. "You forgive easily," she added this part tentatively as to ask him if he forgave her.

He kept his eyes trained on his notebook in front of him and didn't look up.

"And it's convenient because I mess up all the time," she continued. "I make the stupidest mistakes and you don't hold them against me. That's why we are such good... friends. If you had only been an eraser, you wouldn't have been able to ignore the boldly-written in pen and all-caps mistakes I make every day."

She sat down, dejected at his expressionless face. He was still upset and I couldn't blame him.

By the time it was Matthew's turn, I already knew he had my name because of the odd stares he shot me every so often like he was analyzing me. It made me anxious. I knew Matthew would be honest. And I wasn't sure I wanted to hear it.

I heard his chair shift and squeak next to me and my heart creaked along with it, pounding with uneasy anticipation.

He turned towards me and held up the sticky notes that he had probably borrowed from a classmate because he never came to class prepared.

Not a trace of his usual humor or mischievousness was left on his face.

"I know that these have a specific meaning for you—" he said, spinning the sticky notes in his hand— "but I also thought they were convenient for a different reason."

He paused to collect his thoughts and I nervously waited for him to go on, suddenly very aware that thirty-something pairs of eyes were fixed on us.

"You like to have your entire life annotated for you with specific tips and guidelines because you don't trust yourself to find your way alone. So, it disorients you when you get to a chapter you're not familiar with. No notes. No tour guides. No shortcuts."

His eyes never left mine as he spoke. "And that's what you're going through right now, unfamiliar territories. But, you know, that's most of life. We don't really get any walk-throughs. But no worries, there's no rush. Take it one page at a time."

One page at a time.

I repeated the phrase in my mind, trying to imprint it in every corner of my brain.

Matthew fell onto his seat again and leaned against the backrest of the chair. He returned my smile and for once, it seemed to be an authentic smile, free of pretense and jokes.

It was a simple smile in an 'I know you' sort of way and it concealed nothing behind it.

Soon, it would be my turn to speak and I knew what I would say about Jayce. My hand browsed my bag and found a glue stick, hiding in between the books.

I would say that she was a much stronger glue than this one in the way she held us all together. She stuck to her friends, even the least friendly ones, and she didn't give up on them no matter what they did. She knew who they were even when they didn't seem to know themselves.

I wouldn't add that my friends all mirrored glue in my life, holding me together, picking up and uniting back the scattered pieces of me I didn't notice I lost.

I wouldn't add that they had appeared when I really needed them, that I loved them, and that I would always be grateful for them.

I wouldn't add all that because this was still a public presentation and it had gotten much too weird already. I could only guess that love confessions in the middle of class would be frowned upon.

But as I glanced at the familiar faces that stared back at me, I knew they knew.