Chapter 8 Harper
“Morning,” Mom mumbles around her toothbrush, rushing through the kitchen to grab a box of granola bars from the pantry. Doing a million things at once, as always, a vital skill for a fifth-grade teacher. “What’s on the agenda for the day?”
I pause at the coffeepot, hoping she doesn’t notice how full I just filled my thermos.
Dad turns his back and lets us all pretend I only drink decaf.
“The usual.” I slide the thermos silently into my bag.
“Chem test this afternoon and an English essay due tomorrow, so I’ll be in the library at lunch.
Then I have a shift at the diner after school. But I can manage it all, as long as I—”
“Develop an unhealthy caffeine dependency?” I freeze.
Busted. Mom spits her toothpaste out in the sink and raises an eyebrow.
“Aren’t you stretched a little too thin?
You are a teenager still, honey. You should live a little this year.
Make some more friends. Find someone nice to date!
Whatever happened to— What was his name? Ethan?”
“Mom. Ethan was just…” A very respectful homecoming date?
A perfectly nice guy and dry first kiss?
A short-lived relationship so forgettable that we can still swap answers on chem homework without a hint of awkwardness?
Ethan was fine, but he didn’t exactly convince me someone nice to date is the thing I need in my life.
And honestly, Mom’s focus on my social life reminds me of all the classmates who don’t take my business plans seriously.
I settle on, “Junior year is not the time to live a little,” hoisting my bulging backpack.
The furrow between Mom’s brows deepens. “Well, I’m proud of you for working so hard. You come by that honestly. But be sure to sleep tonight, okay?”
I smile tightly. “You bet.”
She kisses me on the crown of my head, smiling in relief. But I never said how much.
Before the day of hell begins, Marissa and I have a job to do.
We meet at the front office and exchange a silent nod before heading inside, where Marissa grabs the “petition the principal” paperwork from the appropriate file by the door.
It’s a smooth, well-practiced movement. She doesn’t even have to look around at the beige room, ask for help at the succulent-covered front desk, or search the many labels for what she needs.
“Principal Castillo’s gonna have to print more of those,” I say, nodding at the almost-empty file.
Marissa grins wickedly. In today’s hot pink turtleneck, wide-leg pants, and sterling silver pendant in the shape of a quill (made by yours truly), she looks like Lawyer Barbie, ready to take on any corrupt administration foolish enough to stand in her way.
“She probably didn’t expect to get so much interest in her initiative. What is this, try… forty-seven?”
“Forty-eight, I think.”
She passes me a paper and we get to work.
We’ve filled them out for a lot of things—more accessible testing policies for diabetics like Marissa, later school start times in accordance with the scientific studies on teenage biorhythms and chronotypes, more wheelchair ramps so people don’t have to go out of their way to use the singular accessible entrance—but the subject of today’s petition is simple.
Spread the wealth, Hamilton Lakes. Could you maybe create some funding for more business classes, or a full-time journalism teacher?
And after my conversation with Liv and Miguel, the theater department’s top priority, too.
No wonder I got on the hockey team’s shit list.
I frown, remembering Dawson’s ridiculous line of questioning the other day.
He’s welcome to come here and fill out a petition to get his coach reinstated, but since when do I seem like a possible ally?
Has he been stewing this whole time, convicting me based on one throwaway joke?
It’s insulting. Marissa and I are here to double down on our requests after Red’s firing.
Like, clearly the team doesn’t deserve the funding it’s been getting so far, and do we really think they’re going to deliver on it with a supposedly subpar coach this year?
Even if there’s no reason to think we’re going to gain any ground.
Not with the new hockey facility and, you know, the casual embezzling draining any extra funds that might’ve been lying around.
Not to mention the undying loyalty everyone around us seems to have to the team.
Still, old habits die hard, and this is about the only chance Marissa and I have to hang out these days.
People weren’t joking about how brutal junior year is.
Good thing we still bond over the important things. Like taking down jock culture in service of the underdogs on campus.
“What’re you up to after school?” she asks as she fills out the field asking her to state her concern.
“Working.” I grimace.
“Which working?”
It’s a good question, honestly. If I’m not at the diner, I’m hunched over my computer or my jewelry-making station in my room, trying to keep my business afloat.
I sigh. “Both.” I can feel my scratchy, midnight-oil eyelids and taste the burned coffee already.
“Do your parents ever see you? Or is it only me who dreams of writing you letters at war?” Marissa’s voice is light, but the joke makes me wince.
“Barely.”
My conversation with Mom rings in my ears.
You should live a little this year! Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation, but it kind of stings.
My parents are both working all the time too, trying to make ends meet between Mom’s teacher salary and Dad’s work at the garage.
They’ve never outright told me I need to find my own way to pay for college, but I can read between the lines.
We all know I need to bust my ass to get all the scholarships and grants I can.
Still, I feel bad Marissa and I haven’t gotten more time together lately. “Maybe we can hang out Thanksgiving weekend? The diner will be closed day of. Hopefully we won’t have too much homework?”
Marissa purses her lips skeptically. “A girl can dream. But yeah, let’s. I’m busy this week with Herald stuff anyway.”
I flip my petition over. Please describe the solution you’d like to have implemented. “Have they decided who next year’s editor-in-chief is?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet. I threw my hat in the ring, though.”
“You’re a shoo-in. They’d be idiots not to choose you. You’ve been working on that thing since you were a freshman, everyone there loves you, you’ve done almost every beat—”
“Except sports.” She makes a face. “You know my readership isn’t as good as Logan’s. And if I end up competing with him, there’s no question whose fans are going to be louder.”
“Damn Hawks,” I mutter. Because she’s right, and it’s how things always work in this school, and—
My pencil gouges a hole in the paper. Marissa grabs another copy from the file without saying a word.
I frown. “It’s enough to make a girl want to knock them out of the sky.”
Someone makes an outraged noise behind me. I turn around, eyebrows raised, which maybe doesn’t do much to convince the freshman in the Hawks baseball cap that I was just joking and am not actually contemplating violence against the hockey team. Again.
“No one can stop the Hawks!” the kid finally manages. He’s about my height, but he’s got major take down the bullies energy, squaring his shoulders and glaring at me accusingly. I guess I’m the bully.
Marissa and I exchange a glance. The brainwashing starts early, huh?
“We’ll see, I guess,” I say, turning back to my petition. I need to concentrate if I’m not going to rip this one in half, too.
But he won’t let it go. “I know you’re trying to sabotage them, but it’s not going to work! We’ll get Coach Red back! Or they’ll be even better without him!”
I look back up, astonished at the persistence. “Yeah, I’m sure they will. Because this school will apparently do anything to save their beloved sports teams, even if they’ve been caught doing some pretty messed up shit.”
The guy shakes his head in disbelief. “You have no heart. Have you even seen the way Luke Dawson looks these days? He’s dead on his feet.
He’s a shadow of his former self!” Could’ve fooled me.
The guy still somehow manages to find plenty of time to mess with me.
“He was headed for an amazing future before this, but now that’s all gone.
And you don’t even care? Their first game is this week! If they lose, it’ll be all your fault!”
My mouth hangs open. It’s not like I want people’s dreams to be ruined—but really, he’s going to bat for Dawson, a guy he doesn’t even know? The guy who was trying to get me fired? What did Dawson ever do to deserve that much loyalty?
He shakes his head. “Everyone was right. I was going to buy one of your bracelets for a Hanukkah gift, you know that? But not anymore!”
Marissa takes a step forward then, advancing on the guy until he cowers.
The kid seems to think she’s going to beat him up, but she just brushes past him to file the petition in the appropriate folder.
“Harper didn’t do anything, okay? Now, run along,” she says in low tones.
“Don’t you have some sort of pep rally to bleat at? ”
The guy takes a few backward steps to the door. “Your jewelry isn’t even that pretty!” he calls as he turns around, fleeing down the hall before the big bad journalist attacks.
I turn to Marissa, mouth agape.
“Your jewelry is the prettiest,” she reassures me with a soft pat on my arm.
I file my petition with considerably less panache than usual, and we head back out into the halls. Marissa links arms with me loyally, glaring at anyone who happens to look our way as we weave our way through the crush of traffic outside the office.
It’s always been like this with us. It was hard for me to find my people in middle school, when everyone was talking about sports that I didn’t even understand—and then Marissa and I were on the same team during the flag football unit in ninth-grade gym class.
When I ran in the wrong direction, making everyone far more infuriated than you’d think possible at the result of a stupid game, she’d insulted their knobby knees and patchy stubble and stupid running gaits until they’d backed down.
She’s fierce, and we have each other’s backs, and most of the time, that’s all I need.
But sometimes, when I watch how people like Dawson move through the school greeting people right and left, I ache to have a few more friends on my side.
Maybe even a full team of people who would defend me without a thought.
Jewelry’s the thing that’s always brought people I’d never otherwise talk to into my orbit.
What if this year I lose even that? Get stuck working double shifts at the Lakeside to save up tuition money, move through the hallways in my own silent bubble, Marissa the only one talking to me?
Spend my free time dodging mean comments from Dawson and his team and their groupies? The vision makes me shudder.
“You okay?” Marissa asks when we turn the corner of the main hallway and can finally talk to each other again without shouting. “Don’t let him get to you. The masses with ESPN for brains aren’t worth your time.”
I force a laugh, but it rings hollow. Maybe because I keep thinking about sitting next to Dawson in the library. He was working hard, and he’s under a lot of pressure. Insulting his intelligence isn’t quite fair. Even if he is too susceptible to Noah’s witch hunts.
And the electricity that jumped between us when I grabbed his problem set and accidentally brushed his hand—
“Let’s go to the game,” Marissa says.
Nothing could have more effectively startled me out of my thoughts. I flinch guiltily. Did she read my mind? “What?”
“Don’t you kind of want to see what the deal is?
If Coach Red leaving is really going to ruin them, like everyone thinks?
I mean, come on, Harper. This is the kind of season we’ve been waiting for all this time.
A season where the Hawks will fall flat on their faces and show everyone what we’ve known all along—that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.
” Her eyes are sparkling with the usual determination, and I let out a slow, guilty breath.
My weird, inconvenient flashes of attraction toward Dawson are still safely repressed and secret. Thank God.
But… “I don’t know,” I say, wincing. As overblown as this town’s school spirit is, I’m not as stoked as Marissa to revel in someone else’s disappointment.
“It could also be a good piece for me,” she presses. “I wouldn’t take the sports angle, obviously—gotta leave that for Logan—but maybe something more about the politics of the school, the scandal of it all, the poor allocation of funding…”
Newsprint floats behind her eyes. She’s a goner.
“Okay, okay, when you put it that way.” I grin. “Anything to dethrone Logan as editor-in-chief.”
Marissa grins back. “We can keep a count of the number of times Dawson almost gets concussed. Could make a great drinking game.”
I cough out another laugh. Even if everyone else makes destroying my life their mission this year, at least my enemy is always automatically Marissa’s too. At least we’re outsiders together. “For sure.”
But as I head to my shift at the diner, I can’t deny the little thrill of anticipation running through me at the idea of watching Dawson play.
It definitely has everything to do with seeing him get beat up, and nothing at all to do with seeing how good he really is on the ice.