The Code for Love and Heartbreak - Jillian Cantor Page 0,20

the tedium of shopping, in crowds of strangers. And helping Hannah pick out shoes doesn’t exactly sound like it’s in my wheelhouse. Even Izzy knew better than to try and force me to come with her to shop. Whenever I would go, I’d complain I was ready to leave much sooner than Izzy ever was, and she would tell me how annoying I was being, and how I would ruin the whole experience for her. I definitely don’t want Hannah and Sam to get annoyed with me. “I promised my dad I’d get some things done around the house. I have a bunch of homework. And I should finish these matches...” None of these things are lies. I did tell Dad earlier I’d do the laundry and the dishes. I do have a lot of homework. I need to practice piano, and I would like to do the matches, alone. Still, I probably could go to the mall, if I really wanted to.

Sam’s eyes are still on my face. He shrugs and smiles at me, as if to say, No big deal, either way. Hannah hangs Izzy’s dress back up in her closet, and says she’ll come back for it next weekend. I want to tell Sam he should come back next weekend, too, but then I can’t think of a reason why he should, so I don’t say anything at all.

* * *

I’m just pulling back into my driveway from dropping them off at the mall when Sam texts me.

Look who we saw walking into the movie theater together...

A second later a picture pops in, a fuzzy, grainy close-up of a couple... I can’t tell who I’m looking at. I zoom in to make the picture bigger, and I think...is that Ms. Taylor? She’s dressed way more casually than she does at school, where she always wears a floral dress and heels, and in this picture she’s in jeans, flats and a black tee. But when I zoom closer in on her face I recognize her tortoiseshell glasses. It is her, and she’s holding hands with a guy who’s about her height with the same color hair and glasses and... Oh! It’s Mr. Weston!

This is good, right? I text back.

Yeah, E! You totally wrote the code for love.

E. I focus on the letter for a second. I hate nicknames, but for some reason, I don’t mind this one so much. Coming in a text from Sam it feels personal, special. No one else calls me that, and I like that now there is a piece of me that feels like it belongs only to him.

Chapter 8

Jason Richardson, Phillip’s cross-country friend, matches to a sophomore, Jenny Hampton, who I don’t know. But I don’t really know Jason, either, except vaguely. He was in my health class freshman year, and the teacher paired us up for one stupid project where we had to spend the week writing an antidrug PSA together. Jason didn’t have much to say on the topic, and was more than happy to put his head on the desk, sleep and let me do all the work, which was also fine by me, since I wanted the A+ on the project. When I refer back to the yearbook now, I see they’re both brown-haired and athletic, that Jenny does girls’ spring track, as well as soccer. I text Phillip about the results Monday morning before school, and ask him to let me know what happens with the match so I can keep track. He sends me back a thumbs-up emoji.

I run Sam’s match, too, and he comes up as a ninety-seven percent match to Laura Jensen. She’s in my AP Spanish class, she sits right in front of me and she talks a lot. I do just fine in Spanish. I always manage an A, but it’s certainly not enjoyable for me to learn the way math is, and I don’t go out of my way to talk too much in there.

I don’t text Sam about his match right away, but instead I watch Laura in class on Monday morning. She’s shorter than me, with long raven hair. Today she reaches back and twirls a strand around her finger all through class. And when she raises her hand, answers question after question after question, her voice is high-pitched, effusive. Izzy would refer to her as bubbly, and not in a bad way, either, like I would.

“Hey,” I say to her as the bell rings, and we both