Six other students, and I’m ashamed to show my face in our class.
It’s the Monday after the party, and I’m still just as hazy about what happened as I was twenty-four hours earlier. At least I finally feel more like myself, but I don’t understand what happened. I can’t even remember being dropped off. My last memory is being downtown in Solitary and seeing Harris pull up beside us in his fancy car.
There’s no way I can get out of this class or that I can undo what happened at the party. Or afterward.
When I get to class, everybody is already there. As if they planned on coming early in order to mock me.
“There he is,” Roger says with the same dynamic smile as always. “The wild child of the party.”
I laugh nervously. I look at Lily and Harris next to her.
“How you feeling, buddy?” Harris asks.
“Fine. A lot better.” I notice that Mr. Taggart hasn’t slid into class yet. “Parts of the night are a bit foggy.”
Lily laughs. “No, really?”
“How’d I get in my bed?”
“Oh, it was right after we had to undress you and give you a sponge bath.”
Lily says this loud enough that everybody can hear. They all laugh at her joke. Of course, it really better be a joke.
“I helped you in,” Harris said. “You were gone.”
I sigh. “I swear—I didn’t have that much to drink.”
“Man, it happens to the best of us,” Roger says to me like an older brother.
Brick asks Roger if he had a party and why he didn’t invite him—that gets them talking about the party and the focus off of me.
“I swear—really—I had a few beers,” I tell them. “That was it.”
I’m convinced of it. But Harris and Lily just look at me like I’m in junior high.
“I had fun,” Lily says to Harris, then looks at me. “I got to drive your motorcycle. It was awesome.”
“Thanks.”
Her green eyes don’t look away. “You owe me,” she says in a playful way. “Especially after what you said.”
“What I said when?”
Steps shuffle behind me, and I hear a voice bark out, “All right, hush up everybody; Chris, sit down.”
I start to head over to my regular seat, but Lily taps the seat in front of her.
“Sit,” she says. “I won’t bite. At least not today.”
I nod and take a seat in front of her. I wonder if there are any pimples on the back of my neck and whether she’s examining them. Mr. Taggart is talking about the handout he’s giving us when I feel her hair brush up against my right shoulder.
“This guy is even more bored than we are,” she says.
I turn and nod and then keep looking ahead. I hear whispers between Harris and her but can’t make out what they’re talking about.
It’s week two of summer school, and I’ve managed to make a connection.
Whether it’s based on friendship or pity—I guess we’ll have to see.