Today:
“I heard nobody’s seen her since prom night.”
“I heard Smith broke up with her and she lost it.”
“I heard she ran away to build houses for the homeless.”
“I heard she’s secretly pregnant and her parents sent her away until she gives birth so nobody finds out.”
“That’s literally a plotline from Riverdale, idiot,” Benjy calls after a passing sophomore. He sighs and carefully lays his folded Sonic uniform polo for his after-school shift at the bottom of his locker.
Chloe scowls at the mirror on her locker door. Annoying that her life should also have to revolve around Shara Wheeler right now.
“You good, Chloe?” Benjy asks.
“Of course I’m good,” Chloe says, straightening her shiny silver collar pins. Georgia describes her interpretation of the uniform as “doing the most.” Chloe describes it as “please let me feel one sweet hit of individuality before it’s squeezed out of me by lunch.” It’s whatever. “Why wouldn’t I be good?”
“Because you only did one eye.”
“What?” She checks her reflection again. Left eye: expertly executed eyeliner wing in Blackest Black. Right eye: naked as a newborn baby. “Oh my God.”
She whips a liner pen out of the emergency makeup pouch in her locker. It’s been in there so long, she has to scribble on the back of her hand to get it going. She never thought she’d need it.
“Anyway,” Benjy says, picking their conversation back up. “I told Georgia that we have to do movie night at her place this week because Ash wants to watch that Labyrinth movie your mom mentioned, and if my dad walks in and sees David Bowie’s junk in white spandex, he is going to have some questions that I’m not interested in answering. So, we’re—” He breaks off. “Um. Why is Rory Heron coming over here?”
A tiny figure appears over Chloe’s shoulder in the mirror, right under the blunt edge of her bob but growing closer: Rory, looking deeply affronted at having to set foot on campus before third hour.
“I owe him money for a class gift for Madame Clark,” Chloe lies quickly, finishing off her wing and capping the pen.
“Have fun,” Benjy says, and then he’s off to first hour.
Chloe shuts her locker and turns to face Rory. “Glad I don’t have to go back to the country club.”
Rory blinks. “You know your whole deal is like … exhausting, right?”
“Thank you,” she says. “Come on.”
She picks her way through the morning crowd to the physics lab, zeroing in on the one around whom every other football player seems to orbit. Smith Parker: Shara’s boyfriend, quarterback, victim of a tragic first-name last-name, last-name first-name situation.
She remembers the day Smith and Shara got together. Homecoming week junior year, when the entire school was consumed by the bizarre Southern ritual of paying a dollar for the student council to send your crush carnations. Chloe was forced to be Shara’s lab partner in AP Chem that year, and Shara had crossed out Chloe’s chemical formula to write her own—Chloe’s was right—when two dozen carnations were dumped all over their lab notes. Every single one was from Smith to Shara, and they’ve been a Willowgrove power couple ever since, which, honestly? Carnations aren’t even that nice of a flower.
As far as Chloe is concerned, Smith isn’t much better than the other football d-bags, all of whom she’s obligated to dislike on principle. When most of last year’s tuition went to stadium renovations and the cheerleading coach is teaching civics, Willowgrove’s priorities are pretty obvious. Every game Smith wins yanks more cash out of arts programs, the only place for students with actual talent.
Up close, Smith Parker is … not quite as huge as Chloe thought. He’s more tapered than bulky, more like a dancer than a football player. He’s one of the few athletes Chloe considers good-looking instead of thick-necked hot-ugly: high cheekbones, striking brown eyes with sharp inner corners and arched brows, dark brown skin that somehow remains clear during football season. He’s tall, even taller than Rory. Did he grow somehow since before prom? Has he always been this square-jawed and triangle-shaped? He’s like an SAT geometry problem.
“Smith,” she says. He doesn’t respond at first, still yelling down the hall at one of his teammates—and, really, football season ended four months ago, can they find another personality trait?—so she tries again. “Smith!”