tried to catch Emma’s eye, but she was decidedly oblivious, twirling her hair around her finger and gazing firmly out the window. If she would just let him apologize . . .
Ten minutes into lecture someone knocked on the classroom door, and Mr. Sanders paused to let in another girl who hated Aaron. Tina Marcello. Today she wore big sunglasses and chewed bubblegum.
“Ms. Marcello, I’m glad you’re here,” said their teacher with a smile. “I didn’t think it was fair for us to talk about you behind your back.”
She stopped chewing and brushed her straight, highlighted hair out of her eyes. “Huh?”
“Take a seat, Tina.” Mr. Sanders went back to his lecture. “ . . . so although quantum entanglement was well documented by 1935, we credit Schrödinger with the discovery of halves. Mr. Harper, why does he get all the credit?”
Tina sat right in front of Aaron. As usual, she glowered at him as she walked toward her seat, chewing her gum like it didn’t taste good.
Aaron mouthed, “Bite me.”
“Aaron, how did he prove it to the world?” said Mr. Sanders.
Buff kicked the side of Aaron’s calf, making him wince.
“Prove what?” he said.
“That every human is born with a half.”
“Uh—he used an aitherscope?” said Aaron.
“Wrong. Aitherscope technology wouldn’t exist for another decade.” Mr. Sanders swept to the chalkboard. “Schrödinger said if humans formed in quantum entangled pairs, then in every case we would find that the halves were born simultaneously . . . therefore all we have to do is look at birth times.” The chalk made a nasty scrape on the board.
“Nice one, Aaron,” Tina said under her breath. She was putting on makeup.
Aaron kicked her desk, causing her to smear her lipstick.
“Jerk,” she said, wiping the smudge with her tank top.
Their teacher scanned the classroom for the source of the commotion, and his eyes settled on Aaron. At the same moment, Amber’s cell phone went off in his pocket, turning all the heads in the classroom with a shrill, hip-hop beat and a chain of rapid-fire cusswords.
Lovely.
***
Over the next six hours, Clive called Amber’s cell phone so many times that Aaron found himself humming the ring tone between periods. When it rang for the twentieth time on his way to volleyball practice, he picked up.
“Clive, this is Aaron—”
But the caller hung up before he finished. Aaron lowered the phone from his ear, and his heartbeat felt heavier than usual. He had just made a huge mistake. Now Clive Selavio, Amber’s abusive boyfriend, thought she and Aaron were hanging out.
He had to get the phone back to her. Soon, before the guy did something to her. Maybe if he ditched practice and drove straight to Corona Blanca High School, he could catch her before she went home.
Don’t go near her again, Clive had said.
Too bad.
There were still cars in Corona Blanca’s parking lot when Aaron rolled in around four. But how to find her . . .
From what he remembered, Amber looked athletic, probably played a sport and stayed after school for practice. If she had a car, it would be here.
Outside, he slid on his sunglasses and leaned against his Mazda, feeling oddly nervous about talking to her again. At the campus entrance, a bronze statue of the Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrödinger, glinted in the sun. Its shadow crept closer.
The man who changed everything.
Just then Aaron saw her coming out. A smile pulled at the corners of his lips when he saw Amber approach a bright, Crayola-style powder blue Volkswagen Beetle. Same color as her cell phone.
She wore a white tennis skirt and a green tank top with ‘Corona Blanca Varsity Tennis’ written in white cursive along the front. Her skin was damp with sweat, and a few wisps of hair had escaped her ponytail and stuck to her forehead. She walked slowly, her eyes downcast.
He waited until she reached her car before he called out her name.
***
Amber glanced up, saw him, and froze. “Aaron?” She combed her damp hair off her forehead.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Lousy practice?”
“Why are you here?” she said, and when Aaron pushed off his car and came closer, she narrowed her eyes, tracking him.
In the daylight she was even more stunning. Once again Aaron found himself lost in her green eyes, not sure what he had been about to say.
Luckily, a distraction behind her snapped him out of his daze. The rest of the girls’ tennis team came into the parking lot, chatting and giggling. They paused, and after a few wary