15

RUBY

I don’t mean to overhear.

I wouldn’t even be walking by right now, under these ominous clouds threatening to rain on me any second, if I didn’t have detention for coming in late. At least it was for a good reason—Mom’s car wouldn’t start after her overnight shift and I had to go get her. I couldn’t just leave her sitting there all day. God knows Chuck would never spend the gas.

By the time I remembered I needed an excuse, I was already late and halfway to school. Going back would have made me even later, and I would have had to wake Mom up to write it. I couldn’t bear that. I know she really needs the sleep.

So I was late. Again. Automatic detention. Nothing like sitting in a little room and writing an essay about the impact of tardiness on the student body as a whole to get the blood pumping.

Then I had to meet Mrs. Morrison right after to talk about my grades. I’m not failing, thank god, but I’m not too far off. It’s just that Government puts me to sleep. So does English and, okay, most classes, to be honest, except for, like, shop. I’m pretty good at lunch and gym too, to be fair. I just need to be moving, doing things with my hands. I can’t concentrate when I’m sitting still.

But that doesn’t matter anymore. I have to take things seriously. I have to nail every assignment. I have to graduate on time, not opt for summer school instead. Because I’m holding on to Everly’s question like a life raft now: What about your dreams? And if I manage to place high enough in the pageant to win that scholarship, I don’t want to lose out because of some little technicality like not actually graduating high school.

In another life, I would already be at Billy’s shop troubleshooting the problem with Mom’s car, or hanging out with Everly and Marcus, or doing anything other than walking up on Morgan Matthews and a couple of assholes from the lacrosse team, Chad and Clayton Miller. I wouldn’t have heard them call her names, or seen her and that new haircut that makes her cheekbones look like cut glass in the very best way.

But I’m not that lucky. So I stop and wait to see what happens next, ducking near the field entrance just barely out of their line of sight.

I hope she walks away, because then I can too. I can just head straight for my car like nothing ever happened. But that’s not her style. That’s not Morgan Matthews at all. I didn’t even need Google to tell me that.

“What did you just say to me?” she asks, her hands already balled into fists.

“Isn’t that what you are?” Chad asks, puffing out his chest.

“Maybe,” Clayton says. “Or maybe she just needs a little dick in her life.”

I roll my eyes. The twins both suck, but I’ve always hated Clayton a little extra. At least now I don’t have to feel bad about it.

She takes a step forward, and no, no, Morgan, go. These are not people you talk back to. These are people you don’t leave your friends alone with at parties.

“Well, you definitely are a dick,” Morgan says, trying to move past them, “but I’m not interested.”

“Fuck you.” Clayton shoves her.

“Don’t touch me!” She shoves him right back. He barely moves, a small runner no match for the oversized midfielder.

“Clayton!” I shout, jogging up to them before it can get any worse. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What do you care, Ruby? She got you on the rainbow ride now too?”

I grit my teeth and, for a half second, panic that he’s actually figured out what I’m trying so hard to ignore. The thing I’ve worked really fucking hard to hide.

But this is Clayton. He’s not clever; he’s just an asshole.

“Nice,” I say. “No. But if she reports you and you get suspended for this, then I have to listen to Tyler bitching for the rest of the season about losing two of his best players.” I shoot him a glare that I hope looks convincing. “Now get out of here before I pop your alternator and give you something to really complain about.”

“You don’t always have to be such a bitch, you know?” He bumps into my shoulder as he walks by with Chad in tow. I follow them with my eyes, first to make sure they’re really leaving, but mostly to give Morgan a chance to compose herself. When I finally look back at her, a small smile of relief on my face, I’m met with five feet, three inches of pure rage.

“I didn’t need your help,” she practically growls.

“Clearly,” I say, annoyance roiling up in my head at the realization that she thinks I screwed up again. “You were two seconds from getting in a fistfight with a lacrosse midfielder. You definitely had things under control. Sure.”

“I did.” She bends down to furiously retie her shoe. “I’ve dealt with way worse than him.”

“Yeah, not without lawyers, though.”

She looks up at me, eyes flashing. “What?”

And, damn, that was kind of a low blow. I backpedal a little, rubbing my neck. “I was just trying to find your Instagram. It’s not my fault a bunch of news reports popped up instead.”

“Great,” she says. “Does everybody know, then?”

“I mean, probably. I doubt I’m the only person who decided to google the new girl.”

She opens her mouth to say something—which is the exact moment the dark clouds above us finally open, rain cascading down in sheets. Fucking perfect. We’re drenched in a heartbeat, darting under the old snack bar awning to escape the worst of the downpour.

“Great.” She groans, wiping the water off her face. I pull my hoodie a little tighter, doing everything I can to ignore the way the rain dips and pools over her skin. Too much skin. God, doesn’t this school have a dress code? How is this tiny track uniform even allowed?

Morgan clears her throat, and, shit, who knows how long I’ve been staring at her legs, her neck, her arms, her . . .

“You want a ride home?” I blurt out, even though I know it’s a bad idea, a colossally bad idea, an even epically worse idea now that the cold is making her—

“No, thanks,” she says, and jogs out into the rain. I stand there for a second, stunned by her quick exit, before I snap to my senses.

Fine. Let her run home. See if I care. Because I don’t. I don’t.

I head to my car, slamming the door when I get in and not even caring that I’m getting the seat wet. I slide the key into the ignition, and it rumbles to life as she cuts out of the entrance to the school.

It’s fine. Morgan Matthews is not my problem. She’s nothing to me. Not even that new haircut can change that. She’s just the newest distraction in a long line of distractions that definitely don’t matter. I don’t even care.

I pull out of the parking lot, trying not to think about how hard it is to see or how Morgan has a habit of running into traffic.

“Dammit,” I say, tapping the brakes.

I should keep going. If she wants to run all the way home in this stupid rainstorm, I should leave her to it. So why am I stopping the car, then? Why am I popping the passenger door right as she runs by?

“I don’t need your pity,” Morgan calls, pausing just long enough to shout through my open door.

“It’s not pity.”

“Then what is it?” Her eyes meet mine, and it feels for a second like she can see right through me.

“It’s . . .” I hesitate because I don’t fucking know, and I can’t think straight with her staring at me, soaked and shivering. How does she still look hot? This isn’t fair.

“It’s . . .” she says, waving her hands around like hurry up.

“My civic duty?”

One side of her mouth quirks up. “Your civic duty,” she deadpans.

“I—”

But she’s already sliding into the seat beside me, buckling up. “Seems legit.”

I wait for her to shut her door, and then I hit the gas, my car bucking forward when I slam the pedal down too quickly.

“So was stalking my Instagram your civic duty too?” she asks.

Shit.

“I was . . . curious?” I flick my eyes over to gauge her reaction, but she’s just staring at the road, indifferent.

“I deleted it before I moved here.”

“Clearly, or else I wouldn’t have had to click through to the horror that is page three of Google results.”

She laughs, and it’s small, and I probably shouldn’t feel good about it, but I do. I grip the steering wheel a little tighter, trying to focus on the road, on the sound of my windshield wipers, on anything else that isn’t the girl sitting next to me and the way all the tiny hairs on her arm are standing—

“What were you so curious about?” she asks, which feels too loaded to answer truthfully.

“Just stuff,” I say finally.

She hums and looks out the window, and I feel like I failed a test.

“I was curious what you were like at your old school,” I blurt out when the silence stretches too long.

“Why?”

“I was wondering if you’ve always been this loud.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know what I mean.” I sigh. “You’re always, like, running around with Aaron or the rest of the Pride Club . . .” I try not to sound jealous when I say Aaron’s name. There was a time he was one of my best friends—until my mom got involved.

“Why can’t I hang out with the Pride Club?”

“You can,” I say. “But, like, you’re always with them, or, like, even that shirt you had on earlier—”

She glares at me. “What was wrong with my shirt?”

“It said I CAN’T EVEN THINK STRAIGHT in giant rainbow sequin letters.”

“And?”

“I was just wondering . . . do you always have to advertise it? Because we all get it. You like girls. Have you ever tried being more like—”

“Like what?” she snaps.

“I don’t know, like Lydia?”

“You mean in the closet?”

“No, just . . . why does it have to be a thing that you shove in everyone’s face? The Miller twins probably wouldn’t have even done that shit today if . . . I mean, I don’t get why—”

“No, clearly you don’t. Stop the car. I’ll run from here.” She pops her door open before I can even pull over.

“Jesus. Close the door. You’re letting in the rain.”

“No!”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “It’s not safe to be running in this!”

“Why do you even care?” Morgan shouts.

“Just please. I’ll drop you off. You don’t have to talk to me the rest of the ride.”

“Whatever,” she says, pulling her door shut as a low rumble of thunder and a flash of lightning rips through the sky.

“Thank you.” We drive in silence for a while, but I can feel her watching me. Trying to figure me out maybe.

Finally, when we get to her apartment, she sighs. “What’s your deal? Seriously. It’s like you take everything I do personally or something. One second I think we’re getting along, and the next you’re tearing apart my friends and choice of clothing.”

“I wasn’t. I . . .” I stare ahead, trying to decide how much I’m willing to admit or if I even want to answer. “Don’t you think your life would be easier if you . . . Can’t you just be quiet about things sometimes? At least until you get out of here, and you’re at your fancy college, where guys like Chad and Clayton can’t get to you?”

“There are always going to be more guys like Chad and Clayton.” She gets out of my car, pulling her backpack after her. “I’m not spending my life pretending I’m something I’m not, or making myself smaller and quieter, just because someone else thinks I should.”

I shut my eyes, swallowing hard, her words spiraling around my head in ways that somehow inspire and confuse the hell out of me all at once. I look at her, words on my tongue that I don’t even recognize, right as she shuts the door.

Morgan darts up the steps, flashing me a little wave that I don’t return. And it’s fine. It’s okay. I shove the words down deep, where they can’t hurt anybody, least of all me, and lift my chin. It’s better this way.

I can’t let one girl and her stupid perfect haircut and her stupid perfect face and her stupid perfect brain derail the one shot I’ve got at making something of myself. People might be willing to look the other way for an out-of-town track star, but crowning a queer beauty queen will never be in the cards around here.

Not if people know they’re doing it, anyway.