Thirteen
Poppy’s pen thwacks against her notebook, the staccato beat never varying in tempo as she stims her way through a history assignment.
Three Little Words is in that dreamy after-school-but-before-work-ends lull. Only a few customers mill around the stacks, and Poppy and I are sprawled out at a table in the corner of the café.
Sloane came over briefly after we first arrived and stayed long enough to give me a latte that tasted like the inside of a drain before wandering off, clipboard in hand.
The silence hangs between us comfortably. There’s no anxiety over entertaining each other or trying to force a conversation. The three of us have a connection that is impossible to disrupt. A history. A bond that is built on a decade of books, video games, TV shows, and an entire language of inside jokes based on all of the above.
Odette will never live down her Kim Possible cosplay photo shoot, and how the ancient old dragon who runs the one-hour photo in the Quickie-Mart thought the photos were too scandalous and called her mother and preacher.
We’ll forever tease Poppy over her favorite Doctor (Peter Capaldi), and we’ll never let a distinguished older gentleman walk by without enough winks or nudges to turn her scarlet red.
Or me, and my serious Sims addiction in fifth grade. Odette and Poppy staged a surprisingly formal intervention, and a banner that shouts COME BACK TO REAL LIFE, MARLOWE has hung above my bed ever since. Odette still yells that in my direction when I space out.
The point is, we’ve amassed stories and secrets like collectibles acquired by an exclusive club, and it’s easy by now. There’s nothing to maintain, and I’m too deeply out of practice to add anyone new.
Especially if that someone new is a moody romance nerd who’s allergic to color. Finding a way to be his friend in a way that isn’t too clingy or too distant is hard. The neurodivergence doesn’t help either.
I glare at my phone as if it’s solely responsible for me being too chicken to text him. I finished the second letter last night, but is that a notification worthy of crossing that bridge? Of sending that first message?
I pull the pink envelope out. I should just send a picture of it. That feels more casual. A little FYI. He doesn’t have to read it, and I’ve already sealed it, because Josh’s heart felt a little more personal to me. I didn’t want to see the smirk or eye roll that I knew Ash wouldn’t be able to hide.
Josh is complicated, and his cool absence in the wake of our breakup has made him even more so, but when Josh really wants to be sweet, there’s nobody more thoughtful.
I wrote about his grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. They’d met at a community center in the 1950s, and his grandma has Alzheimer’s now. They live in an assisted-living facility, and his grandpa lovingly cares for her every single day.
Josh’s parents were just going to do a small party, but Josh re-created the night they met. He found pictures of the center and made decorations. He had everyone dress in costumes from that time period, and Momma helped me pin up my hair and let me wear one of my meemaw’s old dresses. When his grandma walked in and saw it all, she looked over at his grandpa and said “Fred” for the first time in three years.
I was so proud of him. Of his heart.
“Did you put the graveyard pictures online yet?”
I look up, blinking back the water pooling in the corner of my eyes. Poppy sets down her pen and measures me over her textbook.
“I did.” I clear my throat. “Yes, last night.”
“Well? Are they viral yet?”
She pulls a laugh out of me. “I don’t think so, not yet. Fingers crossed there’s a good response, though.”
“I’ve seen the pictures, I doubt it will be a problem,” she says dryly. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ve built a little army of Gabber bots.” I blush as her eyebrow shoots up. The success of this is important to me, and I’ve been working nonstop for more than a week. “My army of little monsters will be reposting five of my favorite pictures, along with their songs, and some band-member profiles I’ve put together. They’re keyed to certain hashtags and trends, and then it’s just a matter of numbers and exponential growth.”
She’s fully grinning, and my face flames. I don’t know what’s causing the delight written all over her features, but I want her attention focused on something else.
“Tell me about Pumpkin?” I ask, aiming for casual. “Is the science fair looking like a slam dunk?”
Her lips twist in amusement, but she allows it. “I think she’s almost ready. Her primary function is to navigate mazes and collect samples, but I’ve programmed her to hand me a can of Diet Dr Pepper too.”
“And the goal is to shoot her off to faraway planets? Or sell copies of her to men who need something to beer them during sports games?”
“I like to be versatile. The possibilities are endless.”
She’s not even bragging, and she has every right to. Especially since the possibilities are endless, and she built this in her childhood bedroom, surrounded by posters of the Jonas Brothers and Katherine Johnson.
“How’s the competition looking?”
She bites her lip, and I nudge her feet with mine.
“That bad?”
“No,” she hedges. “Just different. There’re rumors of a water-filtration system, and Vignesh is doing something with corn, and you know how that’s always a crowd-pleaser.”
“Nothing can touch Pumpkin,” I say, squeezing her wrist until she looks up and I think she believes me. “MIT is going to knock down your door like the Kool-Aid Man.”
“That’s horrifying,” she says, blinking rapidly.
“And what are you doing while you’re not working on her? Are you managing three separate farms on your Switch? Joining your mom in her evening karaoke set?”
“I liked the book you lent me,” she says, leaning forward. Her focus feels like a weighted blanket that kills the rest of my jokes.
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“What did you like?”
“Literally all of it,” she says, laughing. “I liked the small town that reminded me of this one. I liked that Sydney and Eric argued a lot at first, but slowly grew to like each other. I liked that we thought they had gotten together, but then they split up again, and then got together for good. I liked all the feelings, and stress, and physical bits.”
I’m dazed by the dreamy expression on her face. I say the only thing I can think of. “I have more.”
“Tell me about them,” she says, scooting closer.
“Well, my book this week is about these two scientists. They’re supposed to be working on this project together, but they don’t like each other and don’t trust each other, so it’s going disastrously.” I grin. “God, I hope they kiss soon.”
Poppy grins back. “Are you almost done?”
“Almost!” Her face falls, and I try not to laugh. “Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where that came from. I’ll have to ask Ash to really give me a syllabus so you can skip ahead.”
“Okay,” she says, brightening. “And things are still going well? With Ash?”
“I think so?” I pull out the disco cats, flipping through pages and pages of scrawled notes. Tropes, sweet nothings, questions for Ash on why a protagonist did this versus that, and one NSFW drawing of a scene from the last book, involving a staircase that I could not wrap my mind around the logistics of. I skip ahead to a blank page. “I’ve just finished the second letter, and hopefully I’m one step closer to patching things up with Josh.”
She makes a noncommittal noise, and I look up. “And you’re sure that’s what you want?”
I lean back in my chair. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
It feels like a constant refrain these days. What do you want? Are you sure that’s what you want?
What do you want, Marlowe?
Sometimes it takes everything I have not to stand on the table and scream I don’t know as the constant refrain fills every crevice of my brain. Doubt, shame, anger, fear, and love just folded over and over into white matter until I can’t tell one from the other.
Poppy leans forward, her hand catching mine as my fingernails tap an allegro beat into the Formica. “Are you at least having fun? The books are great, and Ash is kind of hot, right?”
I’m stunned into silence.
Odette breezes through the door, a carefully controlled tornado, and slings her bag onto the table. I narrowly save my latte from shooting off the edge.
She grins. “What are we talking about?”
“About how hot Ash is or isn’t,” Poppy says, shoving Odette’s bag off her textbook.
Odette slides into the chair on my left, her grin widening. “Well, well, well, that’s an interesting turn of events.”
“No, it’s not,” I say. I’m firm, unyielding. I don’t need this growing beyond this moment right here. I especially don’t need Odette even whispering a hint of this to Hazel and it getting anywhere near Ash’s ears. “Also, how can you talk about anybody else being hot when you have Hazel’s handiwork all over your neck?”
“Please, I’m sure she’d agree with me.” She takes out her phone and opens the camera to inspect the damage. “What do you think? Think Mom will believe they’re curling-iron burns?”
“Maybe if you’d ever worn curls in your life,” Poppy says.
“Maybe tomorrow I will. Ringlets cascading down my back just like the cover of one of Lo’s books.” She grins at me, chin in hand. “But only if she quits trying to change the subject and admits that Ash could also easily be on one of these covers. Especially from the graveyard. Shirt open and billowing in the wind, ghosts ruffling his hair—”
“Ghosts?” Poppy laughs, and it pulls a tiny smile out of me.
“Fine, he’s very tall and symmetrical,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Happy?”
“For now,” she says, shrugging. She slides my notebook across the table and flips through the pages. She holds up the NSFW drawing. “Lots of surprises in here.”
I flush. “I just wanted to prove it defied the laws of physics.”
She snaps a picture with her phone. “Okay, back to Ash the hottie.”
I choke as the boy in question walks through the front door, and I give Odette my pleading eyes. “Please, drop it.”
She holds up her hands in surrender as he tosses his bag on the floor and fills the remaining seat.
Odette slides the notebook back across the table. It’s open to my latest report, on Luck Be a Lady, an enthusiastic summary with a couple too many exclamation points to be truly academic. The page is littered with the three things I learned, five of my favorite words from the book (“ineffable,” “propinquity,” “sumptuous,” “scintilla,” “anorak”), and all the page numbers with kissing in case I want to read them a second time.
I smile at Ash, glad to have my texting issue solved. “Hey, you.”
His hair looks like he’s used his fingers as a brush. “You’ll never believe this.” He laughs a little, breathless. “The band videos you posted, and some of the pictures from the graveyard? This really big account reposted them.”
“Which one?” Odette leans forward.
“Their handle is @TheAxeMan, it’s this guitar company that makes these incredible custom pieces. They have over a million followers and they liked our sound.” He leans back, the smile opening up his entire face. “This might really turn into something.”
“I hope so,” I say, internally rooting for my little monsters. “I have news too.”
He looks up, still dazed, and his lopsided smile jolts through my system. “If it’s about that third Chicken Shack opening soon, I already know.”
“Not that.”
“A fourth?”
I roll my eyes and slide the second envelope toward him. He studies it like a snake before flipping it over.
“You already sealed it?”
I nod, my smile breezy. “It felt right.”
He slides it back to me, and Odette knocks her knees into mine under the table. I jump in before he has time to unpack anything. “Will you come with me to school? I want to put it in his locker.”
He shrugs. “Just do it before school tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “He has student government after school today, and he’ll go to his locker before he goes home.” It’s burning a hole in my bag, and maybe this one will make him think of me. Miss me. Maybe it will remind him of how we held hands tightly under the table as his grandparents slow-danced.
He wants to protest, I can see it, so I sweeten the deal. “Just think, the sooner this is done, the sooner you get rid of me.”
I meant it as a joke, sort of, but his expression is so flat it makes my stomach ache.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he says finally.
“Oh, I’m coming too.” Odette shoves her phone in her bag.
“Poppy?” Might as well drag the entire crew along.
She shakes her head.
Sloane chooses this moment to walk up to us, smiling like the sun. “Anything I can grab any of y’all?”
Poppy’s hand shoots into the air.
Sloane blinks for a moment. “Yes, Poppy?”
“Can you help me find a book?”
“Well, that’s exactly the reason I exist on this planet. Which book are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. A romance novel.”
“No shortage of that around here. Any more information you can give me?”
“Can you just show me everything?”
We pack up, leaving Poppy in good hands, and head back to the school. Odette fills the heavy silence with anecdotes from her and Hazel’s car ride, and I’m grateful for the buffer.
We race across the parking lot, and by the time we get to the seniors’ hallway I’m sweating. I ease around the corner, and it’s still clear.
I thrust the letter at Ash. “Locker 118.”
“Why do I have to do it?”
“Because they get out any second, and he can’t see me lurking around.”
He nods at Odette. “Odette can deliver it.”
She snorts. “He’ll think it’s a prank.”
Ash looks up, bargaining with his higher power, before grabbing the envelope and storming down the hall. He shoves it through the slats of the locker, none too gently, and is walking back when Josh rounds the opposite corner.
I yank my head back, my heart thundering against my ribs.
“Hayes.” Josh’s voice ricochets down the hall.
Odette goes still next to me.
The silence is crushing, but I don’t dare look.
“What?” Ash’s voice is crisp and filled to the brim with derision.
Odette mouths What is going on? I shrug helplessly.
“I want you to stay away from Lo.”
Odette’s fingers dig deeper into my arm, and my brain short-circuits at his demand.
Ash’s laugh is low and humorless. “And why is that?”
Josh scoffs. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“No, you never do have a good explanation, do you?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“The marching band is kind of struggling this year, isn’t it? If only they had a drum major who had a clue about what he was doing.” Ash’s voice cracks like a whip.
“You know none of that was my fault.” Josh’s voice is dismissive, and goose bumps prickle down my arms.
“What are they talking about?” Odette whispers next to my ear, and I shake my head.
“You keep telling yourself that.” I hear Ash’s heavy tread down the hallway, and Josh’s next words come out rushed.
“You’re just going to hurt her.”
The steps slow. “Of the two of us, I’m not the one with the track record of hurting Marlowe.”
Josh’s laugh is ugly and sharp. “Oh, please. She’s a good girl, from a good family. She deserves someone a lot better than you.”
Ash’s silence is deafening, but Josh keeps going. I feel like I’ve stepped outside my body. “You think her parents will accept someone like you, after me? Some freak? With your creepy clothes and death music?”
“Careful, Josh.” Ash’s voice is mocking. “The mask is slipping. Discovering for the first time you can’t have your cake and eat it too?”
“You’re wasting your time. I know she still loves me. Do you really think you have a shot?”
I can’t breathe. His words crash over me, pulling me under, and I focus on Odette’s fingertips anchoring me in place.
What do you want, Marlowe?
Ash’s voice snaps through the haze. “Two whole years, and you never pulled your head out of your ass once.”
Odette and I clutch each other, waiting for more, but then Ash turns the corner and brushes past us.
I swallow the lump in my throat and peel myself off the wall.
“We should…” Odette nods toward Ash, already on his way back to the parking lot. She looks as dazed as I feel.
I didn’t recognize that Josh, or those elitist, ugly words. Careful, Josh, the mask is slipping. A band of pressure wraps around my chest, and I feel lightheaded.
“The audacity,” Odette seethes.
I jog to catch up, tugging on Ash’s arm. “Hey, are you okay?” I choke on the words a little. “He’s not normally—”
“I swear to God, Marlowe, if you defend him right now I’m calling the whole thing off.” His jaw is clenched, and he won’t look at me.
I don’t want to defend Josh. I can’t even process the words I heard him say with my own ears. I just want to remove this expression from Ash’s face, but I don’t have the slightest idea how. I drop my hand.
“Okay. Let’s get out of here,” I say instead.
He drives us back, shoulders hunched, hair hanging forward like a barrier between us. Every inch of him radiating leave me alone, but I only last about half a mile before I cave.
“What were you talking about?” My voice sounds shockingly loud in the silence. I half expect him not to answer, but he glances over at me. “What does Josh have to do with the drum majors?”
He’s quiet for a moment, but he can’t help himself either. “You remember Spencer was in band?”
“Sure.” I shrug. “I saw him with the band at games, and then I didn’t see him around.”
“That stupid team.” Ash’s hands tightened around the wheel. “He was one of my first friends here. Did you know that? He’s cool, would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it and can play the drums like he’s possessed.” He exhales loudly. “But then your precious Josh and his little cronies decide they want to show him who’s in charge.”
My stomach clenches and I don’t know where this is going, but it’s not going to be good.
“They thought this cheerleader that Derrick liked was smiling in Spencer’s direction a little too long, and they felt that their significantly less talented friend should get to be drum major this year.”
“Jesus,” Odette murmurs from the backseat. “Spencer would have gotten that with his eyes closed.”
“They were coming back from an away game in Jackson last year, and Spence fell asleep on the bus. One of the football players had a pocketknife and they used it to cut up the hat and jacket of his uniform.”
I’m rooted to my seat, and all I can manage is one question. “Josh did that?”
Ash scoffs like my surprise is personally offensive. “Was he wielding the knife? I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter. He watched it, he laughed at it, he did nothing to discourage it. There was an investigation and nobody on that bus admitted to seeing a thing. He was the team captain, and when Spence came to him for help, he told him that maybe he did it himself in his sleep.”
I feel like I’ve stepped outside my body. Like all of this is happening to someone else, or on some angsty teen soap opera that Odette tells us is worth the hype. How had I heard none of this? Was I just walking around with my eyes and ears closed to anything and everything that didn’t impact me directly?
Ash keeps going, each new detail turning my blood to ice. “The investigation eventually ruled that they couldn’t prove foul play, and Spence would just have to replace the uniform.” He pulls up in front of the bookstore, but none of us move. “His family…” He takes a deep breath. “They don’t have a lot of money, and it was about five hundred dollars. He’s been trying to pay it back little by little, but they won’t let him back in the band until the debt is settled. He can’t even graduate if it’s not paid back by then.”
“Maybe we could raise the money—” Odette leans forward.
Ash shakes his head, and her words die out. “We’ve all offered, but he refuses. He’s furious and too proud and feels it’s something he has to do on his own.”
I find my voice. “But if we can help him now, he can still do orchestra in the fall.”
Ash’s laugh is sharp, and I flinch as it cuts through the tension in the car. “He was banking on a scholarship, but how could he ever go back?” He finally looks over at me. “Not one person, even in his own band, was willing to speak up against those players.”
His gaze has me rooted to my seat, and my insides are a snarl of hot, angry feelings. I wish we’d never gone to the school. I wish I could reconcile all these pieces of Josh into something that makes sense.
“You believe me, right?”
I want to wipe the doubt off Ash’s face, because even after just a few weeks, I know he wouldn’t lie to me.
“I do,” I say softly. The crease between his eyebrows smooths out and I know he wants me to say the plan is off, but I need time to process. I murmur a soft “Bye” and slide out of the car before I can see his disappointment.
Poppy’s right where we left her, surrounded by a small stack of books.
Odette drops her bag in a chair and swears loudly. An older woman who I’m certain knows my mother turns toward us with a shocked expression.
“Let’s keep Jesus and the rest of River Haven out of this,” I say. “Unless you want me dragged to church a little extra this week.”
“Get this, Pops.” Odette leans across the table. “That insufferable turnip told Ash to stay away from her and helped these football douchebags bully Spence out of marching band.”
Poppy’s nose scrunches up, and the judgment on her face makes me itch to defend Josh. But I don’t. I can’t. His words constrict around me a little more.
Odette crosses her arms. “Be honest, Lo. Is that who you want to be with?”
What do you want, Marlowe?
I shake my head. Nobody is just one thing, and Josh is not only that smug and terrible boy from the hallway, but I need to sit down and look at all the pieces. I need all the data to help me figure this out.
“I have to think” is all I’m able to say.
She smiles, the angle punishing. “You should really raise his blood pressure. Post a picture of you and Ash holding hands, or a close-up of his face and the caption I’ll be his Renfield any day.”
“How is every sentence out of your mouth somehow worse?”
“Just talent, I guess.”
My phone meows, and we all freeze. I pull it out and the timing makes me feel sick. I open Josh’s chat to: Been thinking about you a lot recently. Let’s catch up soon?
If this had come even an hour earlier, I would have been over the moon, thanking my lucky stars and Ash and every romance novel under the sun. Now, I’m just flat.
The bubbles pop up again and spit out: Also, I wouldn’t believe everything Hayes tells you.
Poppy and Odette lean over to read, and Poppy pulls back as if stung. “That’s very suspicious timing.”
“I know.” I close the screen and toss my phone back in my bag. I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I were back on my couch and buried under three weighted blankets.
“Are you okay?” Odette asks, concern written across her face. I don’t move when she steps forward, but I sag when she folds me into a tight hug.
Odette’s arms squeeze tighter. “Just breathe, Marlowe.”
A laugh wheezes out of me and into her hair when Poppy joins from behind and whispers, “Why are we hugging?”