“Yamilet.” I smooth out my skirt so she doesn’t notice my blush. When I look back up, her friendly dark brown eyes meet mine. She tucks a strand of her messy black shoulder-length hair behind her ear.
“Bo,” she says, cheeks pink and round. “Oh, I mean—you already knew that.”
I laugh. “I liked your presentation. It was super ballsy. I thought you were gonna get paddled or something.”
“I’m ballsy? You practically had Mrs. Havens in the fetal position! And as much as they wish they could paddle us, they can’t do that anymore.” She grins. “Best way to piss them off is by protesting their shitty views while still getting an A. It’s my only talent.”
I snort-giggle and my hand shoots over my mouth. Cesar laughs at me.
I introduce Cesar and Hunter to Bo to get her mind off the fact that I just honest-to-God snorted.
“Yeah, I know Bo.” Hunter chuckles.
Of course I managed to make it more awkward. Obviously everyone at this tiny school already knows each other. I bet they are so sick of being stuck with the same people every day. Maybe that’s why Cesar and I seem to be getting so much attention. No one here probably ever gets an opportunity to meet a new kid.
We barely have time to get our cookies before the bell rings for the next class. One nice thing about being in such a small school is that all the classes are pretty close together, so I don’t have to rush between them. Another perk is that most of my classes have at least one familiar face, even though I’ve only met a grand total of four juniors, plus Hunter, who’s a senior. Of course my genius brother would have classes with seniors. I can easily gravitate toward people I’ve already met, instead of having to make new friends in every single class. My favorite so far is art, right before lunch. Bo and Hunter are both in that one with me, and the teacher seems super chill. She pretty much gives us free rein to do whatever we want for an hour, as long as we produce some kind of “art.”
After fourth hour I have to go to room C303 for lunch detention. I take my time walking there, but it’s too short a walk to take more than a couple of minutes, so I’m still there with a few minutes to spare. When I walk inside, the first—and last—person I want to see greets me.
“Hey, detention buddy.” Cesar laughs.
“You too? Already?” I was supposed to be keeping him out of trouble.
“You already!” He throws it back at me, and he’s right. I’m not setting a great example.
“What’d you do?” I ask.
“Chewed some gum. You?”
Bashed Catholicism and called my classmates racist . . .
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. Then the teacher comes in and hands us all green mesh “detention” vests. Apparently, lunch detention here means public shaming and picking up trash.
Once we get out into the courtyard, I wander around searching the ground for fallen trash. I decide against going inside the cafeteria and walk to the outside lunch tables looking for something to pick up. All I see is a wad of dirty napkins lying near one of the trash cans, like someone shot and missed from a distance. There’s not much work to do unless I lurk by tables waiting for someone to have trash for me to take—which I’m not doing.
Whenever no one is looking, I check my phone to see how our Etsy orders are going. As of this morning, sales were slowing down a bit since I first got involved. But when I check, it looks like we’re fully sold out! I quickly open up TikTok to see that my video from this morning went semi-viral, with thousands of likes and comments! We’ll definitely have a backlog of orders to fill now, but that’s a good problem to have. I shoot Mami a quick text, updating her about the sales, then put my phone away. She agreed to give me the extra money I make for her after my half of tuition is paid, so I plan on getting to work as soon as I get home. I could really use the extra money. Who knows what Mom would do if she found out I was gay? It’ll be good to have some savings, just in case. Mom’s been teaching me the art of jewelry making since I was a kid, so I’m more than prepared to make some cash.