Page 21 of Class Act

All eyes swung to Meredith, who threw up her hands. “Why are you asking me?”

We all laughed, which had a relaxing effect, and my shoulders loosened. “All of you just need to pray that I never have to see Ford Whittaker again, and all will be well.”

“Why would you have to?” Meredith asked as she started packing up her lunch wrappings in preparation to get back to class. “Where else would you possibly find yourselves together?”

“Exactly,” Aryn said. “Leonard knows to stop pulling strings, and now you can relax.”

“Plus, you’ve both lived here for years and never met until now. So, it’s obvious you don’t frequent the same places.” Lizzie supplied helpfully.

If only that were true. I’d seen him all over the place, but I’d never talked about it. I pushed down the image of him standing near me at the gym and nodded.

“You’re totally right. I’m going to let all this angst slide off my back and get back to normal.”

“Huzzah!” Ruby cheered.

Huzzah was right.

*****

It was Meredith’s fault. If she hadn’t thrown down the gauntlet to the universe by asking why I would ever need to see Ford again, then things would have quietly died down. Instead, not long after lamenting to my friends about what a nasty person I’d been, a cheerful voice rang through my classroom.

“Miss Thomas!” Hillary entered; her cheeks rosy from having been playing outside. “I have to hurry back to class ‘cause the bell rang, but I wanted to give you this.” She stopped in front of my desk and handed me a pink envelope before skipping back out the door. “See ya,” she called.

I was not exactly excited about opening the envelope. I had a bad feeling about this. (In the interest of full honesty, I also had maybe a 10% butterfly launch. This invitation could possibly get me some more Ford time. Glutton for punishment, that’s me.)

That envelope taunted me from my desk throughout reading time, spelling time, and all the way until the last backpack was slung over small shoulders. I walked my students in their haphazard line out to the front door to release them and offered cheery farewells, still wondering what new circumstance awaited me.

I held the envelope to my chest as I made my way to Ruby’s health office near the front of the building. My friends and I typically gathered there for ten minutes at the end of the school day, where we laughed about daily adventures and cleared our minds before heading back to lesson plans and prep time. We called it Recap and Recoup. But I was haunted by the pink envelope, so I sat quietly on the little exam table, waiting for the others to join us.

“What’s that?” Ruby asked, nodding toward the envelope.

“It’s from Hillary Whittaker, and I’m afraid to know what’s inside,” I replied.

She raised an eyebrow. “Fear and excitement both feel the same in our bodies.”

I just blinked, and she left it alone, knowing I was waiting until everyone was there. I leaned over and sat it on top of her desk. She eyed it and then my face before looking out the doorway to see if the others were coming.

There it sat, waiting. Maybe it was nothing more than a thank you card or a pretty picture she’d drawn for me. I was being silly, imagining the upheaval it contained. I even forced a laugh out to prove that I was being ridiculous. It fell flat.

“Are you okay?” Aryn asked as she entered, followed closely by Meredith and Lizzie. “Because that was not an actual laugh. It was . . . odd.”

“She has an envelope,” Ruby replied, motioning toward the pink problem.

Lizzie scooted around to see. “Where did you get it?”

“From Hillary,” I stated.

“I’m closing the door,” Meredith said, and the door clicked closed.

“She’s just been staring at it, hardly said two words,” Ruby said to the others.

“Hey, maybe it’s a drawing or something cute like that,” Meredith came to sit next to me on the table. “Nothing to get worked up about.”

Honestly, the fact that Meredith was trying to comfort me only skyrocketed the worry. So, I abruptly snagged it off Ruby’s desk and tore it open. My heart sank as I read the words ‘You’re Invited’ at the top. I quickly scanned the pastel paper, hoping Hillary was taking me up on my offer to paint nails in my classroom and inviting me to a spa party or something. But I was out of luck. She’d invited me to her dance recital in three days. At the bottom of the formal invite was a hand scrawled ‘please come’ in her third-grade penmanship.

If it wasn’t Leonard, it was going to be Hillary.

And Ford didn’t want me. Well, Ford didn’t want anyone.

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