ON FRIDAY MORNING, I HURRY THROUGH THE JUNIOR lot, counting cracks in the asphalt as my tightly knotted sneakers hit them. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. I don't look up for anything. Unexpected eye contact is one of my least favorite things. What do you do if you're acquainted with the person? Nod? Smile? Stare blankly? Know thyself, said the Greeks, and knowing myself, the blank stare is all I would be able to manage.
The passing conversations bore me in three-second increments: grades and teachers, sports and scores, pop music and celebrity breakups. As if any of that matters. Why is everyone around me so vapid? I'm starting to think they should rename so-called intelligent life.
"Freeeak," a voice drones at me. I glance up, narrowing my eyes at the group walking by. It's half the swim team, uniformly tall and muscular, chuckling like one self-satisfied organism.
"Incredibly original," I call after their retreating backs, in as scathing a voice as possible. I don't know why I'm engaging. I'm better than that. I'm better than them. I'm certainly better than vindicating their juvenile behavior with a response.
The one in the center of the pack, a curly-haired kid with a long nose, shoots an apologetic look over his shoulder. I glare at him. If he were sorry, he would say something to his douchebag teammate. It must be nice, being surrounded by an army of friends who'll be complicit in your behavior, no questions asked.
The swimmer guy looks at me a moment longer before turning back to his friends. He doesn't say a word.
That's what I thought.
I glance back down at my feet, but I've lost count of the asphalt cracks. Sighing, I look up. A girl leaning against a nearby car—Izby Qing: short, slender, hair dyed pink—catches my eye. She stands, laughing and hair-twirling, next to a freckled boy, transparently reveling in his attention.
For a second, I wonder what it would be like to have somebody's eyes fixed on me like that—or to look at someone the same way.
Soon enough, though, I fall back into dispassion at the idiocy of it all. It horrifies me that kids our age spend so much effort on this stuff. I thought we were all aware that the vast majority of high school relationships are fleeting and meaningless, but apparently not. People spend a huge percentage of their lives playing into this perpetual cycle of interdependence. They're all wasting their time, and on something with zero long-term benefits. God knows why.
"Hey, wait up!" A boy, sprinting to catch the swimmers, barges into my shoulder and spins me off balance. My periodic table water bottle bounces out of my backpack and away under the front of a car, toppling xenon over helium. I right myself, waiting for an apology, but the boy doesn't glance back.
I hate people. I crouch, swatting under the fender to grab my bottle, but it rolls out of reach. A hand grabs it from under the driver's door. "Got it," says the voice attached to the hand.
I straighten up. "Thanks."
"No problem," the girl says. "Did that guy not even apologize? Jeez."
I start, taking half a step back. That voice …
"You must've had this for a while," she says, peering at the bottle. "Copernicium isn't named."
Staring at the ground, I nod. "You, um. Like chemistry?"
"I love it," she says, and the girl's voice in my head says, I love you.
It's her.
Sudden pressure clamps down on my skull. I look her in the eyes and know so much about this girl, all of a sudden; I picture her standing in the darkness of the faculty break room, staring up at a nameless face, promising that nobody will ever know—and I suddenly wish I could unknow this. It's too much to hold. I could ruin her life.
She tilts her head. Her eyes are beautiful, clear, and piercing. They dig into me.
I don't know her name. That's something. A tiny protection from this responsibility.
She holds out the bottle, and I snatch it. "I have to go."
I hurry down the green toward the school, not looking back.
