. . .”
“Black?” Ajita snaps, aggressively chalking up her cue. Blue dust hangs in the air around her, giving a vaguely satanic vibe. God, is she fierce when calling people out on their problematic bullshit. Reason number 609,315 why I adore her.
“No,” he backtracks hastily. “He’s just . . . well, he spends his whole school day pretending to be an idiot just for laughs. I didn’t think feigned stupidity was your jam.”
I try explaining that finding someone hot does not necessarily imply a deep emotional connection, but he’s too pissed. Ajita and I just eat our nachos and ignore his pet lip, and continue to systematically destroy him at pool for what must be the seven millionth time this year. Ajita goes on an impressive potting spree and buries four stripes in a row. I whoop delightedly. We complete a complicated fist-bump routine we devised in freshman year. Our aversion tactics seem to be working, and Danny almost talks himself out of his emotional crisis, until . . .
Ajita: “So, Izzy, I heard a rumor today.” She pots a fifth. Danny is almost apoplectic. He’s not great at losing.
“Yeah? Did Carlie tell you?” Petty passive aggression aside, I try to act disinterested. But Ajita knows I am deeply nosy, and while I don’t like to be directly involved in conflict itself, I must know absolutely every detail about other people’s drama or else I will spontaneously combust.
“Zachary Vaughan wants to ask you out.”
Soda exits my nose in a violent manner at this point. My brain is fizzing. Is that a thing? It feels like a thing.
Now, it’s important for you to know how utterly despicable Vaughan is on practically every level. He’s pretty, but he knows it, he’s rich and he flaunts it, and his right-wing daddy is so racist he probably has an effigy of Martin Luther King on his bonfire every year.
The effect on Danny is nuclear. “That’s ridiculous. What a joke! Has the dude ever even spoken to you?”
I say nothing, flabbergasted by his vitriol. [Good words. Well done, past me.]
But Danny can’t let it go. He takes aim at the white pool ball and misses entirely. He sighs and thrusts the cue angrily at Ajita. Instead of catching it she just leaps out the way, which if you ask me speaks volumes about her tennis abilities.
Danny scoffs, all haughty and such. “I don’t get it. His dad would freak. What’s he trying to pull, asking a girl like you out?”
This pisses me off a bit, but because of my previously described aversion to actual conflict, I let Ajita fight my corner.
“What do you mean, a girl like her?” Ajita’s awesome when she’s in battle mode.
“Well, he’s a senator’s son,” Danny mumbles in his awkward Dannylike way. “A Republican senator.”
I snort. “And I’m poor. Forget my above-average face and rocking rack – no guy could ever see past my lack of money?”
But instead of biting back on the defensive, Danny does look like he feels genuinely bad for throwing my impoverished state in my face. So even though it stings, I let it go.
Ajita clearly shares my train of thought. She pots the black ball, securing our utter annihilation. “Aaaaanyway. Whaddaya fancy doing for your birthday this year, D?”
It’s Danny’s birthday next month, and while mine is usually a subdued affair, due to my lack of funds, Danny always does something cool for his. He’s an only child, so his parents don’t mind forking out for me to tag along too. Last year we went paintballing, the year before it was go-karting.
“I was thinking maybe zorb football?” Danny says, pushing his glasses up his nose for the thousandth time. “You know, where you run around in inflatable bubbles and attempt to kick a ball around a field while crashing into each other like dodgems. It looks hilarious. And is the only circumstance in which I would consider participating in sports.”
“Oh yeah, that looks incredible,” I enthuse. “I’ve seen some YouTube videos. One of us will almost certainly die a gruesome death, but I’m game.”
Ajita pipes up. “Speaking as the person who will most likely die that gruesome death, I’m willing to take one for the team.”
Danny grins. “Perfect. And I think your brother would love it too, Jeets.” Ajita’s brother, Prajesh, is thirteen and already an amazing athlete.
“You wouldn’t mind inviting him along?” Ajita asks, plonking herself down on the sofa. I nestle in next to her while Danny racks up the pool balls to practise not being awful. “That’s so sweet of you. He would love that.”
“Of course,” he says. The balls spread and rattle around the table as he strikes the white ball in the perfect break. Two plop into pockets, and he smiles with satisfaction. “I think he’s having a rough time at school at the minute.”
Ajita looks crestfallen. “He is?”
I share her concern. Prajesh is like a little brother to me too.
Danny backtracks somewhat. “I mean, it’s nothing sinister. I don’t think he’s being bullied or anything. But the last few times I’ve seen him in the hallway, he’s been by himself, looking a little lost. And I know what it’s like to be a slightly awkward and nerdy thirteen-year-old. So I don’t mind taking him under my wing for a while.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate it.” Ajita smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I can tell she’s going to worry and obsess over this. Her big, tight-knit family is her whole world.
A flash of envy catches me off guard. Fleetingly, I wonder what it must be like to have so many people to love and care about, but I shake the thought away like I always do. Self-pity isn’t my style.
[Hold that thought, O’Neill. The worst is yet to come.]
1.23 p.m.
Carson comes up to our table in the cafeteria at lunch. Ajita kicks me under the table because of what I confessed last night, and in response I throw a boiled potato at her perfect brown face. Seriously, how are anyone’s lips that full and skin that smooth and eyes that dark? It’s possible I’m kind of in love with my best friend. She’s ridiculously attractive.
[It’s funny that the horny teenager stereotype tends to refer only to boys. Things I have been aroused by lately: cherry-flavored lip balm, a fluffy blanket, a particularly phallic lamppost.]
Anyway, Carson. He loves the potato-throwing incident because it’s a good ice breaker, and he begins to hypothesize what other vegetables would make suitable weaponry, until Danny rudely asks him what he wants, which is an act of douchebaggery not often associated with Danny Wells – at least, not before any pool-table confessions of attraction occurred.
I try to flutter my eyes seductively/apologetically at Carson, but Ajita kicks me again, which I assume means “Izzy, stop doing that, you look like you’re standing in front of that torture device at the optician’s that blows air into your eyeballs” so I immediately cease and desist. When you’ve been pals with someone for basically your whole life, you learn to decode their secret messages based on the severity of their physical violence.
“Soooo,” Carson says, “there’s a party at Baxter’s this weekend. BYOB. You guys in?”
“Sure,” Ajita replies on behalf of us all. I’m grateful because I suddenly feel like my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. I take a desperate gulp of orange soda and pretend to be disinterested in the entire conversation, watching as a gaggle of freshmen attempt to circumnavigate the complex seating hierarchy in the cafeteria.
When I catch his eye, Danny looks like he might combust with rage. Remembering the Gryffindor sweater now stashed at the back of my wardrobe, I do feel sort of bad. But what