Page 82 of Rules for Rule Breaking
39. WE WILL NOT BE SEEN TALKING TO EACH OTHER AT SCHOOL
Brown, brown, brown. Everything at school was brown, including things that weren’t supposed to be, like the ceilings, which were water-stained. It wasn’t even a nice brown—it was like an orthopedic-shoe brown. Someone in the seventies had to have been going through something to pick the color scheme or rather lack thereof.
Winter walked into her last first day of high school with an iced coffee in one hand and a granola bar in the other. She was already late, so she didn’t see the sense of being lateandhungry.
She passed her robotics coach, Mr. Metzler, on the way to class.
“Late start, Miss Park?” he asked. He wrinkled his nose, causing his razor-edged mustache to rock back and forth. Winter could almost hear thesnip snip snipof his needle-pointed scissors.
“Giving internships to people who don’t deserve them again?” Winter muttered under her breath.
“Excuse me?”
“I said good morning, Mr. Metzler.”
“Good morning, Miss Park. Get to class.”
Winter rolled her eyes.
Ambling through the halls that were lined with outdated redlockers, she arrived at her first–period class, AP Gov with Mr. Andrews. Winter didn’t know him, but she’d seen him in the hallways, his thick beard sitting prominently on his laugh-lined face. He customarily wore a knit sweater-vest, sometimes adorned in cats, that he buttoned over the charming curve of his belly.
Mr. Andrews looked at Winter over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses as he rapped his nails against the desk. “You’re late, Miss Park,” he said.
Winter wanted to ask how he knew who she was, but in a school with only a handful of non-white kids, it probably wasn’t hard to use the process of elimination, especially since Bobby Bae was in this class too.
“I had locker trouble,” Winter lied.
“Take a seat.”
Winter looked out over the sea of heads staring at her. Kai waved at her excitedly. He took his bright yellow Fjällräven bag off the seat he’d saved for her, which was right behind Bobby Bae. It was the first time she’d seen him in three weeks. It was actually quite easy to avoid him if she really put in the effort. She settled into her desk and tried to make herself disappear. Bobby didn’t look at her once, not even when she knocked her thick history textbook against the back of his chair by mistake and it made a loud clang.
“I figured you’d want to sit together,” Kai whispered with a wink.
“I told him we wouldn’t,” Bobby muttered.
“Bobby isn’t that bad of a kisser,” Kai said with a chuckle.
Mr. Andrews cleared his throat. “Mr. Barbier,” he said, his lips in a flat line. “What amendment protects interest groups?”
“All of them?” Kai replied.
“If you don’t know, then please don’t talk in my class,” Mr. Andrews said.
Kai shrugged.
“Does anyone else know the answer? Whoever gets it right gets an extra point on the next pop quiz.”
Bobby’s hand twitched. He was offended, like it had moved without his permission. He stuffed both his hands into his hoodie pocket and put his head down.
Winter didn’t want to answer either. Brandon Long was sitting all the way in the back of the classroom as low in his chair as he could without spilling onto the floor, his glasses resting unused on his desk. He beat Winter in getting an internship, so why didn’theanswer the question?
Winter took a deep breath and tried to focus on anything except for the twenty-some-odd pairs of eyes looking at her when she raised her hand after Bobby, Brandon, and everyone else failed to. Mr. Andrews nodded in Winter’s direction.
“Interest groups are protected by the First Amendment, which states Americans have the right to assemble and petition against the government.”
Mr. Andrews was pleased, but Winter wasn’t. She knew Bobby had the answer to that softball question. Her eyes settled on the boy in front of her. Despite the heat, he was wearing a hoodie and long pants. He appeared to have cut his hair as well. Since she’d sat down, he hadn’t brushed his bangs back once. She tried to pay attention as Mr. Andrews went over the syllabus, but she couldn’t help it; Bobby was right there. The back of his chair was resting against the front of her desk, and he was one of those men who smelled good without the help of fancy soaps and cologne. Winter was barely breathing, trying to ignore it.
“Winter, you good?” Kai asked in his low drawl. His voice was like smoke rising from a fire. Winter looked over. “You’re biting your nails.”
