She smiles. “The bell is about to ring. You know the way?”
“To—”
She drops my arm. “Let’s go, Caleb. We’re going to be late.”
The bell rings, and I flinch. Everything about the past five minutes has been… fake.
My stomach twists when he offers his arm to her again, leading her away. The courtyard empties in seconds, as soon as the doors are swung open to admit them.
Long ago, I thought Caleb and I would have a happy ever after. Clearly… I was so wrong.
Riley finds me in the same spot Amelie left me. Seconds or minutes later, I can’t tell.
“That was the most cunning and brutal thing I’ve ever witnessed,” she says.
I swallow shards of glass. Pretty sure my insides are all hollowed out. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to skip?”
I shake my head. “I really wish we had classes together,” I mumble. “I shouldn’t skip. I should go in there with my head held high…”
She chuckles. “Okay, well, I’ll check on you after our first class. We’ll see how you feel.”
When I get to homeroom, I shouldn’t be surprised that Caleb and Amelie are so close. She’s practically on top of him, leaning against his desk while he sits there. Her hand on his arm, his hand on her waist.
My phone vibrates.
Unknown: Told you to stay away. The weakest sheep get eaten by the wolf first.
I frown, glancing around the room. Half of the people in class are on their phones.
Me: Who are you?
Unknown: You’d like it to be that easy, wouldn’t you?
Yeah, I would. But I guess that would be too much to ask of an anonymous bully.
At least Caleb does it to my face.
I manage to successfully ignore the way Amelie brushes Caleb’s hair away from his face, and the hooting of Eli, and their friendly ribbing. Just kidding, I hear it all. But it gets easier after my first two classes. I don’t have anything to do with Amelie or Caleb until last period.
And because Robert decided to have us do our projects out of class, there’s no reason for us to even look at each other.
“You okay?” Robert asks.
I realize that the whole class is empty. “The bell rang a few minutes ago. Did you even hear it?”
I stare at my paper. We had been working on blending techniques with watercolor paints, and it’s a mess of muddled colors. “Sorry. I just had a bad day.”
He drags a stool over and sits next to me. He points to one of my groups, where I’d managed to make green fade into blue. “You did this one right. You can see the blue and the green, but there’s also the middle space where it becomes a new color entirely.”
I nod. “Yeah, it’s the only one I managed to do okay on.”
He shakes his head. “No, it just takes practice. Like this?” He taps his pencil next to the orange-into-pink one. “We don’t see the two separate colors. May I?”
“Sure.”
He cleans my brush and dips it in the pink. He pulls the brush down, the pink almost the same size as my little ombre square. He repeats the process for the orange, everything bigger… and suddenly I can see it.
“I was close.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to see the big picture when you’re so zoomed in.” He glances at me. “A lot can be said about taking a step back.”
“Like impressionism.”
He laughs. “Yeah, like that. Or relationships. How you see people, and how they see you.”
I mull that over. “Do you ever think you and Lenora are too… muddled?”
“Not often,” he answers.
God, is this my first relationship talk? With a father figure?
“I used to try to only see the good in her, but it doesn’t work like that. You have to accept every part of someone.” He taps my colors again. “Just like this. The colors are nice on their own, but if you only focus on the pretty parts, are they still beautiful?”
“I don’t think someone will accept all of my flaws.” I keep my attention on the paper, not ready to see whatever is going to come across Robert’s face next. They’ve been nice—more than nice, really. It feels like I’ve been welcomed into a complete family.
But maybe I’ve only been looking at the good pieces to convince myself that I belong.
“Someone will,” he says firmly. “And not just in a romantic sense. Lenora and I are lucky to have you, too. I’m sure Riley would say the same.”
I blush. “Maybe.”
He pats my shoulder. “Let’s go home, kiddo. The missus will beat us back at this rate.”
The school is a ghost town when we leave the classroom. We walk in easy silence back to his car, and I cast one look back toward the field where the teams have started practicing. I can pick out Liam and Theo in their football jerseys, easy to spot with their last names on their backs.
At the top of the cheerleading pyramid is Amelie, smiling like a conqueror. On the second level, seeming pained with Amelie’s knee in her back, is Savannah.
Interesting.
Only last week, she was the one on top. I give her credit where it’s due: she’s a good cheerleader. Except, clearly, Amelie is better. Brighter. Hell, she radiates joy even when she’s not trying.
I take a mental step back. Maybe she is trying, and that’s her secret.
And maybe…
“Margo?”
I stop, and my head snaps forward. I was about an inch from walking right into Robert’s car. “Oops.”
He frowns. “Did you think any more on trying out for a sport?”
“I don’t know what I’d go for,” I say.
He shrugs. “If you’re into a winter sport, there’s basketball or ice hockey—we have excellent women’s teams in both. Spring, there’s rowing, tennis, lacrosse…”
I perk up. “Rowing like… on the river?”
“Yeah, they get up early, though. I think they practice before school.” He unlocks the car and shrugs. “I won’t pressure you. There are a lot of things you can do, and we can arrange rides to get you to practice if you decide to go for rowing.”
“I’ll think about it.” I pull up the sport on my phone, reading about it as he drives back to his house. Our house.
Rowing—also called crew—can be in a one-person boat or teams up to eight. I don’t know what Emery-Rose Elite offers, but the videos of people skimming across the top of the water are fascinating.
“I think I want to try,” I say, once we’re out of the car. “Do you know when tryouts are?”
“No, but I can find out.”
He opens the door, and we’re greeted with a wonderful smell.
“We’re home, Len. Your cooking spells wonderful!”
She rounds the corner wearing a bright-red apron. She grins at us. “Just in time.”
“For what?” I ask. It’s barely three-thirty.
“For you to help me.” She pulls something from behind her back, holding it out to me.
“My own apron?” I ask.
It’s light blue.
A lump forms in my throat.
“Yes, it has your name on it and everything.” She taps the embroidered Margo on the top left. “Come on, before I burn everything.”