his oversized khakis.
“Sorry,” he mutters breathlessly to Mr. Daimler. “Emergency at the Tribulation. Printer problems. Malignant paper tumor in tray two. Had to operate immediately or risk losing it.” As soon as he makes it halfway up the aisle to his seat, his math textbook—which was riding higher and higher on a wave of crumpled paper inside his open bag—pops out and slams to the floor, and everybody laughs. I feel a surge of irritation. Why is he always such a mess? How hard is it to zip up a bag?
He catches me looking at him, and I guess he mistakes my facial expression for concern, because he grins at me and mouths, Walking disaster. As though he’s proud of it.
I turn my attention back to Mr. Daimler. He’s standing at the front of the room with his arms crossed, his expression fake-serious. That’s another thing I like about him: he’s never really mad.
“Glad the printer pulled through,” he says, raising his eyebrows. His sleeves are rolled up and his arms are tan. Or maybe that’s just the color of his skin: like burnt honey. “As I was saying, I know there’s a lot of excitement on Cupid Day, but that doesn’t mean we can just ignore the regular—”
“Cupids!” someone squeals, and the class dissolves into giggles. Sure enough, there they are: the devil, the cat, and the pale white angel with her big eyes.
Mr. Daimler throws up his hands and leans against his desk. “I give up,” he says. Then he turns his smile to me for just a second—just a second, but long enough for my whole body to light up like a Christmas display.
The angel delivers three of my roses—the ones from Rob, Tara Flute, and Elody—and then keeps sorting methodically through her bouquet, flipping each card over and checking for my name. There’s something careful and sincere about her movements, like she’s super focused on doing everything correctly. As she reads off the addressee she mouths the name quietly to herself, wonderingly, as though she can’t believe there are so many people in the school, so many roses to deliver, so many friends. It’s painful to watch and I stand up abruptly, grabbing the cream-and-pink rose from her hands. She jumps back, startled.
“It’s mine,” I say. “I recognize it.”
She nods at me, wide-eyed. I doubt a senior has ever spoken to her in her life. She begins to open her mouth.
I lean in so that no one else can hear me. “Don’t say it,” I say, and her eyes go even wider. I can’t stand to hear her say it’s beautiful. I can’t stand it when the rose—and everything else—is all garbage now, meaningless. “It’s just going in the trash.”
I mean it too. As soon as Mr. Daimler ushers the Cupids out the door—everyone in class still giggling and showing off the notes their friends have written them and trying to predict how many roses they can expect by the end of the day—I scoop up my roses and sail to the front of the classroom, dumping them in the big trash can right next to Mr. Daimler’s desk.
Instantly, the giggling stops. Two people gasp and Chrissy Walker actually makes the sign of the cross, like I’ve just crapped on a Bible or something. That’s how big of a deal the roses are. Becca Roth half rises from her seat, like she wants to dive in after the roses and rescue them from the fate of being crushed under paper and pencil shavings, failed quizzes, and empty soda cans. I don’t even look in Kent’s direction. I don’t want to see his face.
Becca blurts, “You can’t just throw out your roses, Sam. Someone sent those to you.”
“Yeah,” Chrissy pipes up. “It’s so not done.”
I shrug. “You can have them if you want.” I gesture to the trash can, and Becca casts a wistful look in that direction. She’s probably trying to decide whether the social boost she would get from having four extra roses is worth the ego hit she would take for Dumpster-diving to get them.
Mr. Daimler smiles, winks at me. “You sure you want to do that, Sam?” He raises upturned hands. “You’re breaking people’s hearts right and left.”
“Oh, yeah?” All of this will be gone, vanished, erased tomorrow, and tomorrow will be erased the next day, and the next day will be erased after that, all of it wiped clean and spotless. “What about yours?”
It goes dead silent in the room; somebody coughs.