Three Weeks Before

 

When cross-country ended, Haylee and I started walking home together again. On a Tuesday, Ms. Roxburg stopped me to discuss an in-class essay I'd faked my way through based on Haylee's description of the first few chapters of Tess. Haylee went ahead to my locker, but came back to meet me at the classroom door with a scowl on her face.

"What's up?" I asked.

Haylee gave me a look to end all looks. "You have to see this," she said. "I have no words."

She marched me down the hallway and around the corner. There, square on my locker, were Bradley Johansen and Fiona Gil, her legs wrapped around his waist, and his hands on either side of her, pinning her to the locker door. Their heads tilted to opposite sides, and their lips locked together like Lincoln Logs. Fiona's skirt had slid all the way up to the top of her thighs, and only Bradley's torso blocked our view of the underwear I sincerely hoped she was wearing.

"Ew," I said.

Haylee sighed.

I walked up three lockers away and cleared my throat, but I don't think they could hear me over the sound of the sucking of their own faces.

I mentally counted through the books in my locker. There wasn't anything in there I had to have. But when I looked back at Haylee, I found her shrinking against the opposite bank of lockers.

No one did that to my best friend.

I moved even closer and knocked on Karen Tran's locker, right next to mine.

Fiona's eyes popped open, and she had to turn her face ninety degrees to separate herself from Bradley.

"Move," I said.

Fiona's legs dropped to the ground, and Bradley took a step back. He glanced at me, only then seeming to notice my presence. "Sorry, Kira," he said. He pulled Fiona away from my locker by her tank-top strap, revealing a full cup of her bra as he led her toward the door to the parking lot.

I looked at my locker. I was sure this wasn't the first time someone had copped a feel against it, but I still didn't want to touch it.

Haylee crossed the hallway and slammed her back against Karen's locker, propping herself at a forty-five degree angle to the floor with her feet.

"Can you believe that?" she asked.

"No," I said. I didn't see how anyone could do anything so intimate in the halls of the school. By the end of the day, they always smelled like six flavors of BO. Not exactly a turn on.

But when I looked at Haylee, she was staring dreamily off into space. She turned to me, and gave me a half-smile. "He could kiss me like that anytime."