Chapter 23
Twenty-Three
Shiloh
After making my way through the lunch line, I slumped down into the chair next to Enoch. Jae abruptly stopped talking and he shared a silent conversation with him for an obnoxiously long time.
“Clearly you were talking about me while I was getting food, so just fucking say it to my face?”
Jae looked away and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Nox was just telling me how Esty thought you were dating,” Jae muttered as he stuffed his mouth with a bite of his sandwich.
I narrowed my eyes at them both, not fully believing the story. I decided I shouldn’t care so much if they were talking shit about me and accepted what was most likely a lie.
“Yeah, it was pretty funny when your mom thought we were having sex upstairs,” I finally said with a smirk in Enoch’s direction.
“What?” Jae’s eyes bugged and he slapped Enoch’s arm from across the table. “Dude, you never told me that part! Why did she think that? And y’all weren’t actually…were you?”
I flipped him off, but that just seemed to make him think we were hiding something.
“No, you fucktrumpet. We were not having sex.”
“Good, because if I was the last to know that my two best friends were hooking up, I’d be pretty damn pissed,” Jae eyed us seriously.
Best friend.
“What’s with the face?” Jae smiled, pointing at me.
I schooled my expression to my usual scowl and Enoch spent a moment scrutinizing my expression as well.
“I thought we established this is just my face,” I said with an eye roll.
“No, no. You were smiling. Don’t tell me you were thinking about Nox naked.”
I kicked him in the shin from across the table, telling him to shut the fuck up, but he managed to dodge it. I guess I was getting predictable with my violent outbursts.
“Then what were you smiling about?”
I glanced at Enoch to see that he was just as interested in my response. I’d never actually thought about sleeping with Enoch, but now that they put the thought in my head my mind was conjuring up images that it probably shouldn’t.
“I was smiling,” I said, shaking away the thoughts of what it’d be like to kiss Enoch, “because you called me your best friend.”
“Oh,” Jae chuckled. “Well, duh.”
I couldn’t help but smile to myself, especially when Enoch threw his arm over my shoulder and hugged me.
“You’ve known me for like a month. I didn’t realize I’d moved up to the best friend category so fast.”
“It feels like I’ve known your grumpy ass forever,” Jae teased. “But we love you, insults and severe case of RBF too.”
I must have made a face at the I love you part because he dropped his fork and pinned me with a stare.
“Friends can say they love each other, too. Just let us love you, alright? It’s part of the friendship code and whatever it is you and Nox are doing behind closed doors.”
Enoch threw a chip at Jae’s head.
“And to think, if I hadn’t sucked at math, we never would’ve been friends,” Enoch said, giving my shoulder a squeeze before letting his arm drop back to his side.
I found myself thinking about what my life would have looked like if we hadn’t met.
After the death of my brother, Enoch and Jae had been keeping me from drowning in grief.
Maybe if my brother was still alive, I would’ve been a better friend, not just using them as a crutch to keep reality from rotting me from the inside out.
If I wasn’t committing crimes behind their backs, I would’ve spent the rest of the school year with them.
Maybe we could’ve stayed in touch after graduation, met up somewhere in the future wherever they end up.
But no. They wouldn’t want to be friends if they really knew me.
Knew all the secrets I was burying and pretending didn’t exist. Sooner or later, I’d have to cut ties to protect us all.
I was leaving, either to marry some pastor or to whatever hell Carlos had in store for me if I didn’t.
I was just too selfish to not pretend for a little longer that I deserved a place in their life.
Deserved to be someone’s best friend. Deserved to be loved by good human beings.
I tuned back into the conversation that Enoch and Jae were having when I heard Enoch mention something about going overseas.
“But it’d be cool to go back and actually see where I was born,” Enoch said between bites.
“Wait, where were you born?” I asked.
There was a moment of silence as Jae and Enoch shared a look before he responded.
“Japan. That’s where our parents met actually,” he motioned between Jae and himself. “Our dads were in the same unit while they were stationed in Okinawa. My dad came home for the holidays one year with him and that’s where he met my mom. Jae’s dad is my mom’s brother.”
“Oh, right,” I nodded. “I think you told me that you only moved here at the start of high school. Where else did you live before that?”
“Well, we moved every few years. We were only in Japan until I was one and then we were in the States. And we didn’t get stationed abroad again before my dad retired.”
I nodded, now understanding why he wanted to go back.
“Wait, but your mom is Korean, not Japanese right?” I asked Jae, feeling a little confused.
“Yeah,” Jae said with a smile. “My mom and my sperm-donor are both Korean. My dad was stationed in South Korea for a year and that’s where he met my mom.
And me. I was only two when they met and they married within three months of knowing each other.
I don’t remember anything about my sperm-donor except what my mom has told me.
I’m glad I don’t though. My dad is Quintin. End of story.”
I nodded, understanding now why he didn’t look anything like Quintin. I had just assumed his mom’s genes were stronger, like how I didn’t look anything at all like my father.
“I feel you on the whole sperm-donor situation. I’m really happy your mom met Quintin, and you got to be raised by him.”
Jae reached across the table to squeeze my hand. I cleared my throat and turned back to Enoch.
“Where’s your favorite place you’ve lived?”
Enoch hummed in thought, looking off into the distance like he was replaying memories in his head.
“Colorado. Definitely Colorado,” he finally said. “The landscape is awesome. There’s tons of outdoor sports and the people were nice.”
I nodded with a smile.
Sounds nice. If only I were going to get the chance to leave this place one day.
The bell rang and I quickly stood up to return my tray.
With all the free time I had, since Mr. Crane wasn’t allowing me to be a part of the peer tutor team until my grades pulled to a B average, I was actually catching up on sleep for the first time in my life.
Maybe avoiding schoolwork and sleeping was the answer to all of life’s problems.
I thought things were looking up, well more tolerable, until I got called out of the class I was planning to take a nap in.
I grabbed my bag and slowly made my way out to the hall.
I had no fucking clue what they could want from me, other than maybe something regarding flunking my AP class and needed to change my schedule.
I scowled at the secretary who held up her finger for me to wait while she spoke to someone on the phone. The office smelled like hot paper and ink from the copier, making the room feel stuffy and crowded despite me being the only student in the office.
Finally, she hung up the phone.
“Yes, dear?”
“I was called to the office,” I answered.
“Name?”
“Shiloh Tellez.”
She glanced at a notepad on her desk before looking up with recognition. “Oh, yes. Yes. Ms. Gonzalez will see you. Her office is just through the door at the end of the hall.”
I stared at her blankly, confused as to who Ms. Gonzalez was. The secretary gestured for me to get moving and I might have audibly mumbled for her to fuck off. I followed her directions, reaching the door at the end of the hall and reading the placard. ‘Ms. Gonzalez, School Psychologist’
“Fuck you, Mr. Crane,” I cursed under my breath before knocking on the door. Of course, his crusty old ass would send me here after our last meeting.
A moment passed before a ‘come in’ resounded from the other side of the door. I stepped inside, rolling my eyes at the bright colors and motivational posters on the wall.
“Shiloh?”
I nodded and she motioned for me to take a seat on one of the seating options against the wall.
She was much younger than I was expecting, probably barely thirty, with thick, black, curly hair that had red highlights in it.
She wore glasses that seemed a little too big for her face, but maybe that was trendy.
I was never one to really pay attention to that stuff.
I crumpled my body into the mustard yellow armchair, clutching the pillow that was on it against my stomach.
“So,” she said as she took a seat in the matching chair opposite me, crossing her legs. “Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself.”
I let out a huff of irritation. “Look, Ms. Gonzalez, I get that you have a job to do, but I have no interest in talking to you,” I said honestly, watching as her soft expression never changed.
She hummed in response, nodding slowly, maintaining eye contact that was beginning to make my skin crawl.
“How about I talk, and you listen? If you still aren’t willing to participate afterwards then you can stay ‘til the end of the next class and just take a nap,” she offered with a look like she knew I wouldn’t say no.
“Fine.”
She adjusted one of the bracelets on her wrist as she began speaking.
“I’ve read your file, so I at least know whatever they put on paper.
Your birthday is coming up in April, you’ve been a solid student since kindergarten, with the grades to prove it.
Your first language was Spanish but you somehow managed to take Spanish classes with the rest of the student population as if you weren’t fluent.
” She gave me a smirk like she was impressed that I’d somehow weaseled my way out of the native speakers’ classes.