Chapter 3
Slow Motion
Gracie
The courtyard at our school is always dirty. Candy wrappers glued to the pavement. Trash cans that overflow no matter how many times they get emptied.
For a while, we had a new science teacher. Fresh out of college. Still smiling like effort meant something. She tried organizing School-Wide Cleanups and Wash-the-Walls Wednesdays, like she’d discovered a secret solution no one else had thought of.
Beck and I volunteered every time. We scrubbed desks. Picked up trash. Tried.
Two days later, the courtyard looked exactly the same.
Eventually, the teacher gave up. Transferred to a different school. A better one.
Sometimes I wish she’d taken me with her.
Somewhere the computers didn’t flicker when you turned them on.
Somewhere the tech lab wasn’t just a sad box of grimy Legos.
A place where fixing things actually stuck and where a girl like me didn’t have to bargain with her mom or do extra chores just to buy the science and math books she loved.
I’m reading one of those books now, Physics for Kids, tucked inside my binder so my friends won’t notice.
That’s when Beck walks up.
He got glasses last year. They’re always sliding down his nose, especially when his hands are full. His tray tilts, his glasses slip, and my hands automatically lift to fix them—
I stop myself just in time.
“Hey,” I say after he sets his tray down at our table. The same table we’ve eaten at for six years. Only now it’s full of girls. And Beck. “Can I talk to you for a sec?”
His eyes look bigger behind the lenses, the brown darker. “Sure. What’s up?”
I wave him a few steps away, to a spot near the fence where no one’s listening. My heart is thudding like I’ve done something wrong, which feels unfair, because I’m doing this for him.
“It’s about lunch…” I trail off, my throat closing.
“What, the mac and cheese?” he jokes. “I agree, it’s basically glue.” He notices my face. His brows knit with concern. “You okay, Gracie?”
“Yeah. I just…” I clear my throat. Then clear it again.
Do it for Beck. Protect Beck.
I replay the moment that made me sure this was the right choice.
Gym class. Two weeks ago.
I was tying my sneaker when I heard Mike Watson’s voice drift over from the bleachers. Loud. Confident. Like he enjoyed being overheard.
“Who knows that kid Beck?”
I scooted closer, leaned out so I could see them.
A couple of boys snorted.
“The one with the glasses?”
“The one who always sits with the girls?”
They all nodded. It’s not a big school. Everyone knows everyone.
Mike leaned back like he was settling in for a story. “Yeah. That one. I’m sick of seeing his face. Kid’s a total puss.” He grinned, wide and mean. “I’m gonna kick his ass. Maybe tomorrow.”
My stomach dropped so fast I thought I might puke right there on the gym floor.
Mike got expelled the next morning for swearing at a teacher, which felt like a miracle. But miracles don’t last. Rumor is he’s coming back. Soon.
Which means I don’t have much time.
I need Beck to blend in a little. To stop looking like an easy target.
Around here, being different is an invitation. Being weird is a warning label, a flashing red sign. The kind that gets you noticed by the wrong set of kids.
I can’t make the school safer. I can’t make the boys nicer.
But I can move Beck out of the line of fire.
Even if it means I’m the one who has to push him there.
I gulp down a deep breath, then rush out, “I don’t think you should eat lunch with us anymore…with the girls. And…me.”
Beck blinks at that, then blinks again, like he can’t comprehend what I’m saying.
I go on before I lose my nerve. “I mean, just at lunch. We can still hang out after school. Every day. Like always. It’s just…maybe here we should sit separately.”
“But I always sit with you.”
“I know,” I say quickly. “And it was fine when we were little. But now the boys sit together and the girls sit together. That’s just how it is.”
He frowns. “Girls are nice. The boys only want to talk about sports.”
“What’s wrong with sports?” I ask, even though I already know.
“I don’t like sports, Gracie.”
Now he’s frustrating me. I’m trying to help, and he’s resisting. “Maybe you should try, Beck. It might be fun.”
He shakes his head. “You know that’s not my thing.”
“It should be,” I say, sharper than I mean to. My heart is racing now. “Because otherwise they’re going to pick on you.”
He goes still. “What?”
I sigh, all the air leaving me at once. I didn’t want it to come out like this. “I overheard some boys in gym class. They were making fun of you. For sitting with us.”
He looks at me carefully. “Did that embarrass you?”
Heat rushes to my face. I hate that he knows me so well. “No,” I lie, folding my arms and jutting out my chin.
He studies me for a long moment. Then he nods. “Okay.”
Just like that.
Beck gathers his tray, and I watch, holding my breath, as he goes over to the boys’ tables. He hesitates, evaluating, then chooses a group. Decent kids, not as bad as some. They speak and then Beck sits in an empty chair at the end of the row. My pulse settles.
I turn back to my girlfriends and sit down. I expect the lunch to be fun, full of gossip and laughter like it usually is, but it’s not.
Not for me.
I barely hear the chatter. I keep looking at the empty chair beside me.
Wishing Beck was back in it.
Gracie
Present
“Want another beer?” Beck asks, nodding at the empty mug in my hand.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I pass it over, and he stands.
“How about you ladies?” he asks Kirsten and Trish. “I’m heading to the bar. Can I get you anything?”
“Me,” Trish chirps immediately. “Rum and coke, please.”
She hands him her empty cup and, unless I’m hallucinating, lets her fingers drag against his for a beat too long before she lets go.
Wait.
Was that…on purpose?
My head snaps up, suddenly way too invested in Beck’s reaction, like I’m watching a slow-motion science experiment I did not consent to.
But Beck is Beck. He just takes the cup like it’s a normal cup. Like her hand didn’t just do a little twirl on his.
No flinch. No smile. No “Oh hey, you’re flirting with me.”
Nothing.
Which is either very reassuring…
…or very annoying.
“Thanks!” Trish calls after him, loudly enough for half the pub to hear.
Beck lifts a hand over his shoulder in a lazy wave without turning around and keeps walking.
I turn back to find Trish staring after him.
“Wow,” she says, “he has a really nice ass.”
Then she freezes. Slaps a hand over her mouth and looks at me, eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Gracie. Is he yours?”
“What? Who?” I ask automatically, glancing back at Beck like I genuinely don’t know who she means.
Except now that she’s said it—
Yeah. He does have a nice ass.
And…has he always been built like that?
I don’t remember his T-shirts fitting so snug across the shoulders. Or the way his sleeves cling to his arms when he moves. There’s a flex there when he reaches the bar, muscle shifting under cotton, and suddenly I’m very aware of my collarbone, my heartbeat, of how warm it feels in here.
I tug lightly at the neckline of my shirt, trying to breathe like a normal person.
“Beck. The hot guy? With the Clark Kent glasses?” Trish says, slower this time. “Is he yours?”
“No.” I laugh, a little too quickly. “No. Not mine.”
Friends. Just friends.
“We’ve known each other forever,” I add, like that explains everything. “Since kindergarten. We grew up close, same neighborhood. Our moms are best friends.” I shrug. “They’re basically inseparable.”
Which is true. Suzy and Marie are still rock solid. They’ve survived bad boyfriends, breakups, money problems, all of it. Whatever life threw at them, they stuck together.
I used to think Beck and I would be like that too.
Until he disappeared for the last couple of months and left me staring at my phone like an idiot.
Now I don’t know what to think.
Trish squints at me. “You’re sure?” She tilts her head. “All that history and you never…slipped? Got drunk one night and things got messy?”
“No,” I say firmly. “Never.”
I don’t tell her about that one kiss.
The stupid, soft, harmless kiss from years ago. The one that didn’t count. The one I absolutely do not still think about.
Except sometimes, maybe, I do.
Sometimes, in dreams I don’t mean to have, I remember how his lips felt, gentle and familiar. How he tasted like fruit punch and rum and safety.
I shake my head just slightly, like I can knock the memory back into the basement of my mind.
Locked away.
Where it belongs.
Trish clearly doesn’t believe me. She turns to Kirsten, eyebrows lifting in a silent tell me the truth.
Kirsten holds up her hands like she’s being interrogated. “Not as far as I know. And I’ve seen them together a lot.” She glances at me. “Beck practically lived in our dorm freshman year. Half the time he’d crash on the floor if we were watching movies and it got late.”
I smile before I can stop myself.
Freshman year. When Beck and I decided to come to the same school, both of us on scholarship, both pretending we weren’t terrified to leave our moms alone.
We’d stuck together, the way we always had.
Studying side by side. Late-night takeout.
Movie marathons. The blanket I’d gently lay over him when he fell asleep.
We were close.
Closer than anyone else.
And yet somehow, over the last year, we’d drifted apart.
Kirsten shoots me a look, the kind only good friends can pull off, the one that carries an entire argument without a single word.
He likes you.
He always has.
She’s said it forever. Fought with me over it. No matter how many times I told her it was ridiculous, that Beck was just Beck, that we were just friends.
She’s always questioned it. I’ve always said no.
“He must have a girlfriend,” Trish says, cutting into my thoughts.
“He did,” I say, deliberately not looking at Kirsten. “They broke up. I just found out.”
“Oh.” Trish’s eyes brighten. “So you wouldn’t care if I went after him? Like…tonight?”