“Aimee says that too.” Mayra gripped my hand.
I glanced at her eyes for a second, and she smiled at me before I looked away again. Aimee was Mayra’s best friend, the co-captain of the soccer team, and likely the valedictorian of our class. I hadn’t considered that I might have something in common with her.
“Hey! They’re still looking for the lotto winner,” Mayra said as she nodded at the television. “The ticket was sold in Millville at the gas station next to the drive-through right on Highway 27, but no one has claimed it yet.”
I didn’t really have anything to add, so I just nodded. Mayra looked over at me, and her expression changed somewhat. She narrowed her eyes a little, and her brow got all creased up.
“You don’t want to go to Houston Woods with a group of people, do you?”
“No,” I said as I shook my head quickly.
Mayra’s fingers grazed the edge of my hand again.
“I should probably go,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, give me your cell number,” Mayra suddenly said. She grabbed an iPhone out of her pocket and unlocked the screen.
“I only have a prepaid phone for emergencies.”
“Oh…um…well, let me write down my number, then.”
I gave her a little pad of paper that sat next to the phone in the kitchen, and she wrote ten numbers right underneath her name on the paper.
“This way you can give me a call if your car gets done early or something,” she said as she gathered up her school stuff and slung her book bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.” A weird feeling came over me, and I didn’t know what to make of it. My stomach felt like I had eaten too much or something.
“Matthew?”
“Yeah?”
“I really am sorry about this morning.”
I looked down at my feet and wondered if I was supposed to say something. I had the feeling I was, but I wasn’t sure what. Instead of replying, I just went through, in my head, various ways of accepting an apology.
The weird feeling in my gut got worse as I watched Mayra walk out the door and down the walkway to the drive. There was also a little tickle in the back of my head, which usually meant I was forgetting something. I walked all around the house—checking the doors and windows to make sure they were locked, verifying the stove was off, and seeing that all my homework and books were back in my book bag for tomorrow. I couldn’t figure out anything I had missed, but the tickle was still there. It drove me nuts half the night. I went back and forth, wondering if I was forgetting something or if it was the Valium-induced nap.
I couldn’t manage to sleep, so I got up and worked on my websites instead.
The day had started off pretty bad, but at the moment, I felt content.
Win.
~oOo~
Mayra picked me up and drove me to school the next day. I thought about it and thought about it beforehand, but I hadn’t taken into consideration what other people were going to think of me getting out of her car in the morning. The entire parking lot was full of students and cars, and it seemed like they were all watching me as I climbed out of the blue Porsche.
Mayra came around the front and smiled at me. She didn’t even seem to notice the way the other kids were looking at us as we walked into the school together. She talked the whole time, but I had no idea what she was saying.
I was just trying to keep myself breathing.
“I’ll see you in ecology!” Mayra called out as she left me at my locker to join her friends. I didn’t answer but spent a minute reorganizing my things and hanging up my book bag. After a few more breaths, I managed to get myself together enough to go to class.
Lunch was…weird.
I usually sat with Joe at lunch. When we were younger, Joe’s friend Scott would join us, but now he sat with the other guys from the football team. These days, Joe and I sat alone at the end of one of the long tables. Mayra’s friend, Aimee, always sat with Scott. I was pretty sure they were a couple now. Joe was usually sorting through his collection of Magic: The Gathering cards while snarfing down a few slices of pizza from the cafeteria, and I would eat the same thing I always made for lunch—peanut butter and strawberry jam, a mini bag of Doritos, carrot sticks, an apple, and a can of Coke.