Chapter Twenty-Six
OfficialEndeavourHigh: The traffic cones have once again gone missing, and their tracking software has been disabled. If you have any information on their whereabouts, please contact Principal Hinshaw ASAP.
Thank God it’s Friday, or whatever.
We’re exactly one weekend away from our midterm, and the vibe in the room is right on the edge of panic.
It’s all internal panic, though. The entire fifty minutes was eerily silent.
I spent that time answering messages in our class group chat.
Every single one was a question someone should’ve asked her, and yet no one spoke a word.
And then it’s over. People file out, walking past our table with discreet waves and mouthed thank-yous and a couple of exaggerated eye rolls in Lowry’s direction. As for her, she can move quickly when she wants to. Typically, that’s only when she’s leaving.
It’s just me and Hayes again. My head flops forward onto my crossed arms, and I swear I could take a nap right here.
This has all been way, way too much. I’m in one of those moods where I hate myself for doing too much, but I also can’t imagine doing anything else, because what was I supposed to do—not help? Let everyone fail?
Now, though, it feels like the weight of an entire class’s success is on my shoulders, and it’s crushing me.
Maybe this is something you learn when you’re studying to be a teacher, how to deal with the pressure of so many minds under your care.
Or maybe you don’t learn anything like that at all, and that’s how professors like Lowry come to exist.
“You okay, Novella?” His cool fingers come to rest against the back of my neck.
“I’m fucking exhausted,” I mumble into the cave of darkness I’ve created with my arms.
“I know.” His thumb rubs against the skin below my ear. “I wish I could help you more. Did you eat?”
The question catches me off guard. I don’t know how he’s still doing that. I sit up, and the room’s bright light and the blood rushing from my head are a dizzying combination.
“I had coffee,” I tell him. Another possible reason for the dizziness, I guess.
“Of course.” He shakes his head. “I should’ve known you’re one of these people who think iced coffee is food.”
“It is.” I roll my eyes. I’m not sure why we’re still sitting here in an otherwise empty classroom. It’s possible that I just don’t have the energy to get up.
“Let’s go get brunch.” He stands, extends his hand, and wiggles his fingers.
That’s so cute. I clutch his palm and use his strength as much as my own to stand.
I throw my backpack over my shoulder, and we make our way out of the building that I’m slowly starting to hate.
On the sidewalk, I see my favorite bench through the wall of windows at the front of the school.
I don’t know when it stopped feeling like home.
I don’t know how this place went from the center of my world to somewhere I just want to run from.
“What do you want?” Hayes asks, still holding my hand as we reach the edge of the parking lot.
There are many things I want right now, all of them seem devastatingly simple. Sleep. A break. A hug. Some more caffeine. A type of food doesn’t make the list.
“I don’t know,” I mumble.
“I’ll pick, then. Something good. I promise.”
We get in the car. He hums along to the music he’s playing, and the sound is oddly relaxing.
I’ve always been that person who could fall asleep in two minutes flat in a moving car.
He could drive across the country like this, and I’d be more than content.
The idea of being Hayes’s sleepy passenger princess is kind of hilarious.
“What’s so funny?” He looks over at me as we’re stopped at a red light. “Why are you laughing?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m just getting delirious.” I seriously don’t remember laughing. Doesn’t mean I didn’t, though. He smiles like I’m amusing or charming or … I don’t know.
We end up at the tiny café next to a gas station across from where I went to elementary school.
It’s the kind of place where retirees meet with their friends and people go after church on Sundays.
Hayes holds the door open for me, and I have the oddest urge to pinch his cheek, right where that dimple is.
I don’t know where that came from, but it’s weird, so I’m not gonna do it.
We sit down, and he starts looking at the menu, and I just look at him. At that windswept hair. Those crinkles in his forehead. That dimple that appears when he chews on his lower lip.
“What?” He catches me staring. “Figure out what you want.” He nudges the menu I still haven’t picked up. “I’m worried about your blood sugar.”
“Okay, Dr. Collins.” I pick up the menu, and he freezes.
Shit. I did it again. I said something wrong. His face pinches up, and my stomach sinks because I ruined whatever this is before it could really even start.
“You …” I decide to lean into it. Poke at the exposed nerve before I try to patch it back up. “You don’t want to be a doctor, do you?”
I’d noticed his not particularly medical tendencies, and the way he almost flinches when anyone mentions college or the future.
I don’t know why I even brought it up. It just slipped out, and I wish I could take it back.
His face softens, and oh my God, I still do really want to run my fingers over his cheekbone.
“No,” he admits, leaning forward with his elbows on the table. “Not a medical doctor, anyway.”
“Okay.” I mirror his position, resting my elbows over the menu I still haven’t opened. I don’t need to. I came here last week, and I always get the same thing. “So what’s your grand plan, then?”
“I don’t know if I have a grand plan.” He twirls a discarded paper straw wrapper between his fingers.
Some old guy across the room laughs way, way too loud.
“But I think I want to study neuroscience and go into research—computational neuroscience, maybe, with a lot of digital modeling and a lot of math. I love the topic, and I love being in a lab. Neuro is like brain math.”
“I can see that.” I chuckle.
We had this teacher freshman year, for this class that was supposed to help us become better college students, and he’d always say that critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking to make your thinking better.
Neuroscience is using your brain to think about your brain to make your brain better. It’s all very Hayes.
“Is that … bad, somehow? Why’d you say it like that?” I didn’t like it, the defeated tone of his voice.
The waitress interrupts us at that moment. Her name’s Sharon, and she used to work with my mom, and she’s absolutely going to tell her I showed up here in the morning with a boy. Hayes orders an omelet full of questionable things, and I order pancakes.
“It’s not bad.” He diverts his eyes, looking at the old newspapers and black-and-white community photos on the wall.
“It’s just not what they want. It’s not what we do.
I love science and pharmacology and even medicine, I guess, but I don’t want anyone’s life in my hands.
They don’t get that. We’re surgeons, not researchers. ”
I don’t have to ask him to explain. He means his parents, his brother.
“So you’re saying you’d really be the black sheep of the family.”
He nods. Good Lord. That must be scary.
“It’s all they talk about. Ever. Especially since Hunter got into Duke, it’s literally all medicine, all the time. They don’t even have hobbies anymore. I literally don’t even know who they are outside of their careers. I don’t want that for myself.”
“I don’t want that for you, either.” My voice comes out almost a whisper, because my mind is busy whirring at all of the differences between us.
Fundamental differences. In the way we grew up, the way we see the world.
I knew they were there. I’d always known.
They just seem so much more obvious today.
“Here’s your strawberry syrup, sweetie.” Sharon sets down a white ceramic bowl full of bright red goo.
“Thanks,” I mutter as she unloads the giant tray of food she has balanced on one hand. I’ll never understand how they do that.
“How’d she know you wanted strawberry syrup?” Hayes asks, already lifting a giant bite of an overfull omelet to his mouth.
“I used to come here every Saturday morning when the boys would have baseball practice at the school. She brings this to me every time, even though I can’t eat it anymore.” I push the bowl of strawberry goo aside and reach for the regular syrup.
“Why not?” he asks. His food is steaming, and he’s still eating as fast as he can.
“The red dye’s a migraine trigger.” Damn me for being too comfortable and just saying shit without thinking about it. I don’t like talking about this.
“Really? Cool.” His eyes widen. “Well, not cool, because you’re in pain or whatever, but that’s interesting. What else is a trigger?”
I don’t know why we’re talking about my chronic pain at breakfast, on what could by all accounts be considered a first date, but the boy does really love his brain math.
“Chocolate. Artificial sweeteners. Preservatives, like whatever they use to make bacon.”
He nods. Half of his omelet is gone already, and I’ve taken, like, three bites of my pancakes.
“Oh, and stress.” That one’s tougher to admit, because stressed is kind of my default setting. I need my stress. It’s who I am.
“Hmm.” He mumbles around a huge bite. He takes a sip of his orange juice, and then he covers his mouth to stifle a laugh.
“What?” I ask, putting my fork down and crossing my arms over my chest.
“It’s just funny how you know all of that, but you still don’t realize coffee isn’t food.”