in his belly (and perhaps, if he were being honest, a little lower than that). This night no longer had a surefire end time, and that meant the hours to come might be spent in Peejay’s company. Or, at least, with Peejay in proximity. The decathlon’s busy schedule now loosened, and rather than turn to the bleachers to see if Peejay was nearby, now Omar might spend the whole night knowing exactly where he was. Dear God, he might sleep in the same room as Peejay would. Lock-in night was still sublime.
Occasionally glancing over the edge of his phone screen at Peejay, Omar wished he knew how to calm the storm of emotions crossing Peejay’s face, wished he knew how to approach Peejay at all.
Since he didn’t know and couldn’t fathom how he would learn such a thing, he instead was reading about coral reefs. Not necessarily because of Marisa, but because his sister had cared enough to tie herself (pun intended) to Marisa’s cause. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Joy in the gym, and for the time being she wasn’t answering Omar’s text messages.
It’d surprised him to see her there in the midst of all the fracas. Omar and Joy had been friends when they were little, as can be expected for siblings only two years apart. Somehow, though, they had hung on to their friendship through the tumult of adolescence. Omar rejected his friends’ temptations to pick on his younger sister; Joy resisted the urge to isolate herself and think no one understood her. Omar understood her. He always had, and pubescence wouldn’t change that.
This, though, Omar did not understand. So he went to the internet to try.
* * *
Maya Klutzheisen and Michael Obonte, too, were learning about the reefs. They were sitting side by side, drawn to each other and to the oceans by their newfound love of Marisa. Whenever one of them found some interesting article or tidbit—coral reefs grew up to four inches a year, twenty-five percent of the world’s reefs were dead, certain sunscreen harmed reefs and shouldn’t be worn while snorkeling—they would tilt their phones to show each other, making soft disapproving noises, which they thought Marisa would approve of.
* * *
Near the front of the stage, Zaira Jacobson typed on her laptop. She was doing some cursory research on ocean pollution as well, but she had dozens of other tabs open, too, each one representing a stray thought, some information she needed corroborated, or a possible detour for her article.
Zaira was assigned to cover lock-in night for the school newspaper, and had taken plenty of notes when the evening was still going well. Though she was an expert at maintaining her objectivity in almost all the stories she covered, Zaira was just as susceptible to getting swept up in lock-in night’s charms. She’d written over two thousand words waxing poetic on the wonders of the night, not to mention all the audio interviews she’d conducted already—at least twenty. Each year, the story wrote itself, a fluff piece that was less journalism and more one writer’s chance to flex their hyperbole muscles.
But Zaira no longer had a fluff piece on her hands. She knew it as soon as she’d seen Marisa swallow those buttery keys. In the auditorium, Zaira had switched off that CIS part of her that demanded deference of lock-in night, and she handed the keys over to her journalistic tendencies. She’d already found the names and phone numbers of all the board members and reached out for comments both via phone and email.
Soon, she’d find some excuse to leave the auditorium and interview Marisa. For now, she learned about the oceans, the reefs, the planet’s warming, CIS’s current environmental policies, its past controversies. Marisa would soon tell her all her reasons, but as a journalist, Zaira liked to find as many facts as she could on her own. There was a joy to research few of her peers seemed to appreciate. What a thrill, to learn about the world and piece together its facts to create a story.
She learned as much as she could, thankful she had a way to distract herself from the hurt of the canceled night.
* * *
Malik Harris closed the book he was reading, propping it open on his leg with the spine out. He looked around the green room at all the teachers gathered, obviously trying to avoid him. Many were on their phones, more teachers staring at screens than Malik had