Chapter Twenty
I don’t think anything of it when I don’t see Seb at the rally, because it ends up big enough to fill up the school football stadium. In fact, I don’t think anything of it until I get to Pancake It or Leave It on Sunday morning and realize our table is distinctly Seb-less.
“Where is he?” I ask out loud.
“Do I look like your keepers?” Betty demands, handing me a plate of cinnamon apple pancakes. “He better get his ass here fast, though, unless he wants to eat leftover grease.”
The side door opens and Daisy’s head pops out of it like a mouse, her eyes immediately finding mine. “Shit. I just heard.”
“Heard what?” I ask.
“About Seb getting suspended.”
I blink. “Seb’s not suspended.”
Daisy is fully in the shop now, clad in her sweatpants and a messy bun and pulling out her phone in confusion. “I’m friends with some Newsbag alums. They caught wind that a kid named Seb got suspended for hacking the school records and making the allocations of the donor money public. That they’re going to make a decision soon about whether to expel him. Is that not your Seb?”
I nearly drop my pancakes. “What the fuck, ” I blurt.
“Language,” says Betty, before swearing colorfully at a dropped spatula.
I pull out my phone with my free hand, as if there will miraculously be some text from Seb explaining himself in the past thirty seconds, but I don’t have any notifications. No emails, either.
Your Seb. Apparently Seb isn’t my anything, if he went behind my back like this.
“He wasn’t supposed to turn himself in,” I say into the screen. “He hacked to get the numbers, but he wasn’t the one who shared them. And we agreed he wouldn’t—fuck.”
We sure didn’t agree, it turns out. I set the pancakes down and head for the door, but Betty kicks it closed with her foot.
“You will not disrespect fully cooked pancakes in my home. Sit down.”
“But I can’t kill him from here,” I say through my teeth.
Daisy grabs herself a plate of pancakes and sets them at Seb’s usual seat. “No. But you might be able to help him.”
“Your pancakes are life-changing, but not the kind that can break the Seb-space-fuckup continuum and undo whatever he just did,” I say.
“And what’s your big plan, storming out of here on an empty stomach?” Betty counters.
I cycle through the possibilities. I could go find Rowan and Amara, but there’s no way they aren’t fully on top of this by now. I could go to Seb myself and try to get him to take it back, but Seb must have taken his damn car with him, and the bus doesn’t leave from campus on Sundays. I could march down to the office myself and tell them it wasn’t him, it was me, just to really fuck with him for pulling one over on me, but before I can follow that thought through, Betty puts a firm hand on my shoulder and presses me back down into my seat.
“Eat your damn breakfast and listen to Daisy.”
This feels like a terrible plan, because Daisy seems remarkably calm about the whole situation, and I don’t need calm. I need all cylinders firing to get Seb back and subsequently fling him into the next dimension for this. I stare down at my pancakes, then across the table at Daisy’s, and suddenly the anger evaporates and I’m biting down the urge to cry.
We kissed yesterday. We shifted an entire eighteen-year-long narrative in one beautiful, ridiculous, heart-stopping moment out on the quad, one I haven’t stopped thinking about since. And now he’s just— gone.
And if he really is expelled, he’ll be gone for good. They might even reject his application to Blue Ridge, too. He isn’t just compromising his dream here. He’s compromising his entire future.
Daisy taps my plate with her fork. “Eat while I think.”
I obey, but even the buttery, sweet spice of the fluffy apple-cinnamon pancakes can’t do anything to quell the storm in me. I’m not just angry—I’m embarrassed. I know Seb better than anyone. How the hell did I not see this coming? Was the kiss actually just some distraction to keep me from stopping him?
I know better than to entertain the thought, but I’m already jarred at being so wrong about reading him before he left. Who knows what else I’m wrong about?
“So,” says Daisy, putting down her fork. “I think I’m mostly up to speed. I went to your rally yesterday. Excellent snacks, by the way.”
I mumble a thanks, because the Foodie Club really did a masterful job throwing those trail mix balls into the crowd.
“And it was great for getting people on campus riled up and spreading awareness,” says Daisy. “But I’m guessing you still haven’t had a chance to show anyone the restructured budget plan, huh?”
I shake my head. If we did, I don’t know about it yet.
Daisy nods thoughtfully. “They’re not going to listen to students alone. Your leaders are all graduating next year anyway. And you’re not getting enough attention outside of this town—I think one of the keys here is going to be reaching people in higher places. Not just donors with money but people with influence. Putting the pressure on the administration by getting wider coverage.”
I nod, even though I don’t have the faintest idea of how to do that. We’ve already been working our asses off trying to spread the word. It’s like trying to turn a spark into a wildfire—there’s only so much we can do to make it spread before it peters out and we’re right back where we started.
Daisy isn’t finished. “What I can do on my end is float the story as an interest piece to the publications I work for. I saw how ridiculous that budget was—it’s certainly got a good hook with something as well-known as Newsbag on the line,” she says.
“You’d really do that?” I ask.
“I mean, yeah. Zany underdog stories, mental health advocacy for athletes, blatant school corruption—that all blends into some good pitch sauce, and thanks to you kids, I’ll be beating everyone to the story.” She points her fork at me. “But there needs to be another big thing on your end, I think. Something to get people outside of the community involved. Not just making noise but making waves.”
I give her a rueful smile. “Someone told me I was good at making those recently,” I say.
Daisy seems satisfied by this answer, pushing her chair from the table to stand. “Well, then, you’ve got your work cut out for you. I’ll give you my number if you want to talk at all. And give me Seb’s, so I can be in touch with him about the story.” She pauses, tapping the table by my plate. “And by the way—there is one-hundred-percent magic in those pancakes. I bet you get a banner idea by the end of the day.”
I don’t doubt her, but as I’m chewing and thinking after we exchange numbers, my phone buzzes with a text. I grab for it, certain that it’s Seb, but it’s Amara.
Hey friend—wanted to keep you in the loop before we send out an email. We tried to tell the dean it was me and Rowan, not Seb, but he won’t meet with us—we’re still working on it. But after the rally he revoked the school’s recognition of us as a student group. Newsbag is officially shutting down.
I blink, bracing myself for the impact of it. My dream is gone. Everything I worked toward in high school, everything I expected to set me up for success in life. It should be flashing in my mind like a film reel—the pieces I want to write, the shows I want to help create, the worlds I want to build, the Newsbag alums I want to follow to big cities all over the world.
At that last thought, I feel an entirely different impact. One that makes me certain that the magic of the pancakes is already working. I grab my phone and send a text back.
So what you’re telling me is… we don’t need a faculty sign-off for any copies of Newsbag to go to print
Amara types back instantly, That is a factual statement. That big brain of yours got any more ideas?
I smirk into my screen. Meet me at McLaren in ten?