glances in Amber’s direction, continued on their way.
Aaron dug through his pocket. “You left this.” He tossed the phone to her, which she caught. “Does Clive always call you that much?”
Without even a thank you, Amber keyed in her passcode and thumbed through the list of missed calls. “It’s because he’s worried,” she said.
“Worried about what?”
“You. He’s worried you might have a crush on me,” she said, slipping the phone into her backpack with a hint of a smile, “and that you’re going to wait by my car after school with some lame excuse about having to return my cell phone just so you can talk to me again.”
“Oh?” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “So he’s not worried about the fact that you left the phone in my shoes on purpose then?”
She didn’t take her eyes off him. “Did that make your day, Aaron?”
“Actually, I was kind of dreading this,” he said, “since our first conversation resulted in me freezing my ass off with some sea lions while your boyfriend threatened to kill me if I ever went near you again.”
“Then you probably shouldn’t be near me. Why did you race him, anyway? It’s not like anyone was impressed.”
“It’s a guy thing.”
“Uh-huh,” she said doubtfully. “You know, he’s done things to guys like you before.”
“Like me?”
“Egotistical and stupid.”
“Why, is that your type, or something?” said Aaron, returning her glare. When it got ridiculous, though, he gave up trying to outstare her and squinted into the horizon. “So you really think Clive is your half?”
“You sound jealous,” she said.
“Just confused,” said Aaron, pushing his sunglasses halfway up the bridge of his nose. “Halves don’t treat each other like that . . . and I could tell he was nervous when I told him we had the same birthday.”
“Oh, right,” she said. “I forgot.”
Aaron peered sideways at her, but this time she broke eye contact first.
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
“I think I would know,” she said, rolling her eyes. Though now she was blushing.
“Well, have you thought about—”
“Just drop it,” she said.
“You don’t buy it, do you?”
“Buy what?”
“Halves. The whole bit.”
She set her gaze on him and the sudden force of her green eyes jolted him. “We’ve known about halves for barely eighty years. We don’t even know what causes it . . . I mean, nowhere does it say we’re meant to be soul mates. We just assumed.”
“Yeah, because that part was obvious.”
“There’s another explanation.”
Aaron nodded to the bronze statue. “One your man over there didn’t think of?”
“You know . . . ” she said, without looking back, “Schrödinger kept a mistress.”
“Ouch,” he said. “Alright, let’s hear your theory.”
“Halves are more like siblings. Like cosmic twins . . . which would make this all incest.”
“You are aware most people say its love at first sight when they meet their half.”
“Easy.” She held his gaze. “Power of suggestion.”
“You’re saying it could be anybody?”
“I think that depends.”
“On what?”
“The person,” she said, watching him with a tinge of daring, “and what they believe.”
“Most people believe halves are perfect biological matches,” he said.
“That’s what scares me,” she said. “What happens to the human race if we no longer evolve through natural selection, but instead allow ourselves to be artificially bred by a force we haven’t even begun to understand?”
“You think it’s breeding us?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t be the first.”
A few students walked past them, and Aaron chewed his lip, waiting for them to pass out of earshot. Like the tennis players, their eyes darted between the two of them but lingered on Amber, and then Aaron remembered—
“What happened to Justin Gorski?” he said, changing the subject.
Amber glared at him as if he had just asked the stupidest question on Earth, and Aaron regretted asking her; the poor girl had probably gotten nonstop stares at school, and it was still only her first week.
Yet part of him doubted her innocence. “Weren’t you the last one with him?” he said.
“He offered me a ride home, which I didn’t take,” she said, “and I wasn’t the last one with him.”
“Then who was?” he said, ignoring her look. “Was it your boyfriend, Selavio, jealous maybe? Am I next on his hit list?”
“It was Dominic Brees,” she said, “and that’s because they’re both on the rugby team and they carpool home after practice.”
Aaron turned away from her and closed his fist. “Just like Buff said,” he muttered.
“Why do you even care? You don’t go here.”
“One more thing,” said Aaron, as he recalled Friday night, still believing Clive was somehow involved. “What