37. Iris Men 101
Iris Men 101
Ben was one of the only people in the world that I pretty much never felt awkward around. I mean, he was my best friend. He knew me better than anyone, so I never had to sit around and wonder if what I said was weird or if he took something the wrong way. And part of that was the beauty of guy friends in general. They didn’t jump to being offended. They tended to give you the benefit of the doubt. So that was why, even when everything was falling apart, even when the world felt like it had turned against me, I thought of him, I wanted to run to him. Ben was my safe place; Ben never let me down. And I had realized in my exhausted, devastated haze: That meant something. That was everything . And I needed to let him know how much it meant to have someone who was always there for me.
Or, well, that was what I’d thought. That might not necessarily be the case today. Usually Ben met me outside, but I didn’t see him this morning. So I stalked through the halls, avoiding the swarms of teenage bodies, and found him at his locker, outside his homeroom, talking to Lily Woods. She was flipping her hair, and I was surprised to find that I was suddenly, intensely jealous. Was Juniper Shores Socialite right about them? Ugh. What if he asked her to homecoming? The idea made me nauseated.
I had woken up this morning feeling like I wanted to give things with Ben a shot. Yes, I was worried about losing our friendship. But maybe that wasn’t a good enough reason to not see how things went between us. Plus, even though he hadn’t come out and said he liked me, he kind of had. I mean, things were going to be weird between us now regardless. The fact that he hadn’t waited for me outside this morning? Exhibit A.
“Hey,” I said, coming up to the two of them. Lily was giggling, and her braces were hot pink and her uniform blouse was, in my opinion, so tight it made her look super desperate. It would have made me feel slightly better if she weren’t totally rocking it.
“Hi, Iris!” she said.
“A Lily and an Iris,” Ben said, smiling at her but definitely not me.
Gag.
“Yeah. Flower names must have been in the year we were born,” I said, aiming for a bored tone but sounding maybe a little shrill.
If Ben noticed, he didn’t let on, because he didn’t. Even. Look. At. Me.
“See you around,” Lily said flirtatiously, giving him this little wave.
“Can’t wait,” he replied.
Can’t wait? Fine. Be that way. Cool. I took back all the thoughts I’d had this morning about telling him I liked him.
Ben finally turned to me like it was paining him, and leaned his back against his locker dramatically like he was creating the maximum space between us.
“So, last night was crazy, huh?” I ventured.
“Yeah. I guess,” Ben said. “Is that, like, your norm?”
He didn’t seem worried for me or any of the usual friend things. He almost seemed annoyed, like I had somehow caught him and trapped him in this with me. “No, Ben, it isn’t the norm,” I said. Now I was annoyed. “It’s usually really fun. We, like, laugh a lot and stuff.” He wasn’t smiling at all, and I suddenly felt warm. “Is it hot in here?”
Normally he would have made a joke about me being hot, but instead he said, “Maybe you’re getting Covid.”
“Thanks.” I smirked. “That’s really helpful.” Then I couldn’t help myself. “What’s with you? I know it was a weird night, but it was weird for me too. It’s not my fault all the adults were acting like lunatics. And, if you’ll remember, it was kind of traumatic on my end. It’s not like I want to leave.”
“You don’t want to leave Merit,” he said like he didn’t care.
Fine. If he was going to be a jerk, then so was I. “No,” I said. “I don’t want to leave Merit. Or Emma. Or Brenna, Audrey, Jamie, Grace, Alice, or Julie.” I looked at him pointedly, raised my voice, and said, “And up until this moment, I didn’t want to leave you !”
Then I spun around and headed toward my history class, grateful that Ben and I didn’t have it together. But Lily was in my class. I’d had basically no opinion about Lily until five minutes ago. And now I loathed her and her hot pink braces and her little streaks of gold fairy hair.
“Hello, Miss Sitterly,” Mr. Baldwin, the history teacher, said. He was probably like my mom’s age, not that old, but he wore these sweaters with leather patches on the elbows and horn-rimmed glasses and had this accent like he had been born in a movie about the South in the early 1900s.
“Hello, Mr. Baldwin,” I said, dropping my heavy backpack with a thud and slumping down into a desk in the front row.
“Are you all right, Miss Sitterly?” he asked.
“Well, Ben said I looked like I was getting Covid, so maybe not.”
“Oh my God! You have Covid!” piped up Annabelle, this really annoying girl beside me who looked like she was ten.
I rolled my eyes. “No, Annabelle. I obviously wouldn’t come infect our entire class like some self-centered abomination.”
She looked relieved.
“If you need to visit the nurse or the counselor, you have my permission,” Mr. Baldwin said.
“I feel fine,” I sulked. He probably thought I was having my period and needed to be examined by a woman. Men . I hated all of them today.
We were studying the Spanish flu outbreak during World War I, which was, honestly, not a super upbeat topic. Not helping my mood. And I noticed Annabelle scooting farther away from me, so it was obviously giving her Covid paranoia too.
I wanted to get out of here. It would be easy enough to fake being sick, but between classes I realized I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t call my mom. I went to meet up with Ben by our lockers, where we normally did, so I could call Mom from his phone, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he was avoiding me. Maybe I was being paranoid. Then something hit me: You’re going to miss Merit . That’s what Ben had said. I gasped, standing there in the hallway. He had seen me kiss Merit. That was why he was so mad. He thought Merit and I were a thing now. The simplest thing would be to tell him the truth, that I’d had a crush on Merit and he had rejected me. But, come on, Men 101. They don’t want you when they think no one else wants you.
I had to get to the third floor, where Merit’s next class was. I couldn’t be in love with him anymore, but he could still drive me around. Or maybe I could be in love with him as long as I was honest with myself that he would never love me back? I had a friend in New York who was determined she was going to turn this guy straight, but that didn’t seem to work really well, so I was going to let that be. Merit and I were friends. And housemates. And he was my chauffeur. And that was it.
I was super out of breath by the time I ran up a couple of flights of stairs to find him. “Merit,” I gasped. “I need you to take me home.” I took a deep breath.
“Now?”
“Yes. Now.”
He shook his head. “Um, no.”
“Please?” I whined. “I’m having a bad day, and I want to get out of here.” The look on his face told me that wasn’t compelling enough. “I thought you loved me, and we were best friends and mommune siblings.”
He rolled his eyes. “I punched a judge for you, Iris. I’ve done my part.”
I glared at him. “Merit, I’m trying to put my family back together. I would think if anyone in the world would understand that, it would be you.”
“I care about your family, Iris, but I have mandatory football practice. If I get caught skipping school I can’t go, and then I can’t play on Friday.”
The warning bell rang, meaning I had two minutes to get all the way to the first floor and into the A hallway. No way I was going to make it to my next class on time. I had one last shot. “Merit, Dad mentioned something last time I saw him, and I want to see if I can sneak into his office to dig around a little.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Fine.”
“Wait, seriously?”
He started walking.
“You won’t just skip school, but you’ll commit, like, a felony with me?”
“I have to.”
“And why is that?”
“Because no one is going to arrest me two days before the West game.” He stopped and gave me a once-over. “You’d be in juvie for sure.”
As I followed Merit out into the parking lot, the sun on my face feeling like freedom, I realized something: I’d lied to bust out of here. But now I was going to have to follow through. I stood up straighter and took a deep breath. I was going to be a hero today. Merit and I were going to save my dad.