Page 25 of The Sun
“Right. Juvie.”
Rolling my eyes, I placed my elbow on the desk and rested my head in my hand, making a conscious effort not to look at him.
That entire period, my heart remained in a panicked flutter, an inconsistent rhythm that swung between slow, hard thumps and erratic palpitations, and the few notes I had jotted in my notebook by the time the bell rang were incomplete.
People around me grabbed their books. Desks scraped against the floor as kids bolted toward the door, pushing and shoving one another. By the time I collected my belongings and stood, Daisy leaned in the doorway, tapping her foot over the tile floor.
“What are you doing?”
Stalling.“Nothing,” I said with a shrug.
When I glanced back at Elias’ empty desk, my cheeks stung and my shoulders dropped. I couldn’t blame him for ignoring me, but part of me hoped he just hadn’t recognized me.
The cafeteria buzzedwith conversation and the clatter of trays hitting tables. The medley of fried food and mop water had a magical way of stealing most of my appetite.
In high school, lunch was nothing short of political. Akin to the United States during the Civil War, there were just some lines you did not cross. Non-populars didn’t sit with the popular crowd. Nerds didn’t sit with slackers. And no one sat with the loners. To the far side of the room, there was the catch-all table where everyone not assigned to a group sat. That was my table and much to Daisy’s dismay, it was hers also.
I started toward it, but Daisy nudged me, nearly knocking her milk off her tray. “Where are you going?”
“To sit down.”
“Not over there. Over here.” She nodded toward the populars’ table, and I exhaled. Daisy’s goal in life was to sit at that table, to rub elbows with Kristen Dowdy and Valeria Bedrouex—no matter how popular Jenny was, Daisy still hated her.
“I’m not going to sit over there. And if you roll your eyes any harder, you’re going to be looking at your brain, Daisy.”
“I swear. Sunny, you are the only person thatcould bein the popular crowd that doesn’t want to be in the popular crowd.” Daisy lived in this fantasy world where she believed that just because people didn’t hate me that I could be part of the “in” crowd. What she didn’t realize was that people were civil on the pure principle that my dad was the Sheriff, and that those popular kids were just as miserable as the rest of us
“You do realize popularity is a load of bullshit?” I asked.
She gasped.
“Seriously, Daisy? Look at them?” I started toward the catch-all table.
“Yeah, they look amazing.”
“Really?”
“Straight outtaClueless.”
“The fact that movie is your Bible or whatever is almost enough to make me disown you.”
She flipped her hair over her shoulder—that time her milk hit the floor. “Ugh! As if.”
“I don’t know you,” I grumbled before taking a seat next to our lunchroom acquaintances, Morgan and Hailey. Daisy plopped onto the stool beside me, making a show of dropping her tray onto the table. Some of the spaghetti sauce splattered her shirt. “Shit.”
“Well, stop pitching a fit.” I twirled noodles around my fork.
“What’s she pitching a fit about?” Hailey questioned.
“Wanting to sit at the popular’s table.”
“Of course.” Hailey huffed. “Go on over there and sit next to Jenny.”
Daisy guffawed, then clutched her chest. “Are you crazy? I’m not going over there by myself. And I most certainly would not sit next to Jenny.”
“Then suck it up and be normal, would you?” I shoved the watery spaghetti into my mouth, wondering how in the world something so red could have so little taste. I watched the kids at the coveted table by the window, noting how their smiles all seemed forced and how they all wore going-out clothes to school. Nobody had time for that. I preferred a T-shirt and jeans coupled with a pair of Converse. Comfort over style any day. To be honest, most people in the school didn’t even like the self-proclaimed cool kids who oddly enough seemed to have been bred from parents who were also once cool kids. I thought popularity was kind of like a tragic disease, one I had no interest in catching. Teenage politics were the bane of my existence.
Daisy droned on and on about some guy at church she had a crush on while I subtly searched the overcrowded cafeteria for Elias. But I didn’t see him, and a guy that dangerously sexy would most definitely stick out like a sore thumb.
