Chapter Twelve
Istepped out of the shower onto the cool locker room floor, wrapping a towel around me. My lungs were just beginning to expand again after inhaling the hot steam following my run in the cold air.
I always tried to leave the house before my father made his way to the kitchen on weekdays. So after my run and shower, I still had another forty minutes before the first period started.
I was sitting on the bench between the rows of lockers, my phone’s camera open as it sat propped up against my bag so I could use it as a mirror to do my makeup in. I’d gotten really good at blow drying my hair, and contouring my face in less than twenty minutes.
The door to the locker room swung open, banging against the tiled wall as two girls entered, giggling.
“Easy with the door!” Coach Martinelli yelled from her office.
“Sorry!” Lindsey and Emily said in unison as they rounded the corner.
“Anyway, she’s a total slut, and she deserves it,” Emily said. Lindsey hummed in agreement.
“Who’s a slut?” I asked, buttoning my pressed ivory shirt.
“Pennelope,” Lindsey informed me. “The cheer squad’s planning to jump her after the game Friday. You in?”
I looked up at her as I zipped the side of my brown pencil skirt over my pantyhose. “Are you serious?” I asked.
She nodded and gave me a look that implied I’d asked a dumb question.
“I don’t even know who that is.”
“Yes, you do. She’s that goth chick who hangs out with the other misfits in the courtyard at lunch,” Emily said, as if that narrowed it down.
“She’s got purple hair,” Lindsey clarified, and I shrugged to show I still had no idea who they meant.
“Why are you jumping her?” I asked, stuffing my knee-high sock into my tall brown boot so I could yank the zipper shut.
I’d convinced Denise to get me these boots at a yard sale this summer.
But the zipper on them always jammed, and sometimes scratched the blue paint on my nails, so I didn’t wear them as often as I promised I would.
“I think she’s got a thing for Jack,” Emily said, as though that justified everything.
“You think? You’re going to jump a girl you don’t know over something you’re not even sure is true?” I asked, staring as she tightened her blonde ponytail.
Emily hadn’t always been this aggressive. But spending two months at a sleep away camp that summer had changed something in her. Lindsey joked that Emily had gone into withdrawal from not being allowed lipgloss for so long, and was still recovering, but I wasn’t so sure.
“Yes,” she said sternly. “Are you in or not?”
I slung my bag over my shoulder and said, “Can’t. My dad signed me up for some charity thing at church, so I’m not even going to the game.”
Lindsey’s frown deepened comically. “Fuck the charity. We need you.”
“All right, I’ll tell my dad to fuck the charity, Linds,” I said over my shoulder.
Mrs. Martinelli was sitting at her desk in the office by the door, shooting me a disappointed look as I walked past. I leaned into the small room and whispered, “I’ll take care of it.”
She whispered back, “You’re a good kid.”
I winked at her and headed to wait outside Mrs. Deal’s door for the bell to ring. When I got there, August was leaning with his shoulder against the doorframe, facing my direction.
I leaned against the wall, his mirror image. We were alone in the hall, and he handed me the same thermos of coffee he’d brought me every day since the first time as he said: “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I echoed just before I took a long pull from the hot coffee.
“Good?” he asked, jutting his chin toward the cup.
“Perfect,” I smiled.
“Your boot is unzipped,” he said, pointing at my left foot.
“I know that,” I answered pointedly, raising my eyebrow in question.
He knelt instantly, one knee bent up. He took hold of my ankle and raised it carefully to put the bottom of my shoe against his thigh.
The position caused my skirt to hike up my leg, and he could easily have looked up my skirt if he wanted to, but he didn’t.
Instead, his eyes stayed locked on mine as he placed his finger on the inside of the zipper and dragged it upward with ease.
He set my foot gently back onto the floor, then stared expectantly up at me. I lifted my chin, gesturing for him to get up, and he did.
He leaned back against the wall, looking down at me.
We didn’t say anything else for the remainder of the time we stood there.
The bell rang, and Mrs. Deal came rushing in through the back door just as the hallway began to flood with students.
Everything moved around me like a swirl of color as I kept my eyes on August’s. He didn’t move until I did.
I stepped around him to enter the classroom, and he followed behind.
A few minutes into class, I finished the coffee.
I reached across the table to place the thermos beside August’s computer.
The imprint of my mouth had been painted in dark red lipstick around the opening of the cup.
He eyed it, and I could see the coral spreading across the bridge of his nose behind his open laptop.
“Do you expect him to wash that for you or something?” Wyatt said from beside me.
Before I could respond, August’s voice carried across the table. “Hey, Wyatt?” Wyatt turned his head toward August in recognition. “Shut up, okay, Buddy?”
Wyatt looked utterly confused, and I had to roll my lips inward to hold back the smile trying desperately to take over my face.
A few more minutes went by, and August lifted the cup to his mouth. There was nothing left in it, but he held it there for a while anyway. When he set it back down, the lipstick stain was gone.
I should’ve known it right then. That I was done for. That we both were. But, as usual, I had no idea how bad things could get.