make-out session, I felt a strange little tremor in my belly. That was how horrific I found the idea of someone kissing Neil McNair.
Just as I hoped, he blushes. His skin is so fair beneath his freckles that he’s never able to hide how he really feels.
“What I’m trying to say,” he says after clearing his throat, “is Westview High has a history of successful valedictorians. What would it say for you—Rowan Roth, romance-novel critic? It’s not quite at the same level as the others, is it?”
I’ve told Kirby and Mara I don’t really read them anymore, but McNair brings up my romance novels whenever he can. His derogatory tone is the reason I keep them to myself these days.
“Or maybe you’d graduate to writing one of your own,” he continues. “More romance novels—exactly what the world needs.”
His words push me backward until his freckles blur together. I don’t want him to know how much this infuriates me. Even if I get to the point where “romance author” is attached to my name, people like McNair won’t hesitate to tear me down. To laugh at the thing I love.
“It must be sad,” I say, “to despise romance so much that the thought of someone else finding joy in it is so repulsive to you.”
“I thought you and Sugiyama broke up.”
“I—what?”
“The joy you find in romance. I assumed that was Spencer Sugiyama.”
I feel my face heat up. That is… not where I thought this was going.
“No. Not Spencer.” Then I go for a low blow: “You look different today, McNair. Did your freckles multiply overnight?”
“You’re the one with the hidden cameras.”
“Alas, they’re not HD.” I refrain from making a dirty joke I really, really want to make. I flash the green slip in front of his face. “Since you were kind enough to write me a late pass, I should probably, you know, use it.”
Last homeroom. I hope the walk to class is enough to get my blood flowing normally again. My adrenaline always works overtime when I’m talking to McNair. The stress he’s caused me has probably sliced a half-decade off my life span.
With a nod, he says, “End of an era. You and me, I mean.” He wags his index finger between the two of us, his voice softer than it was ten seconds ago.
I’m quiet for a moment, wondering if today carries the same sense of finality for him that it does for me. “Yeah,” I say. “I guess so.”
Then he makes a shooing motion with one hand, snapping me out of my nostalgia and replacing it with the contempt that’s been both a warm blanket and a bed of nails. A comfort and a curse.
This is an automated message from the WESTVIEW HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY.
Library records show the following item(s) are overdue. Please either renew them or return them to the library immediately to avoid accruing a fine.
- Your Guide to a 5: AP Calculus / Griffin, Rhoda
- Conquering the AP Government Exam / Wagner, Carlyn
- Love Notes: Romance Novels through the Ages / Smith, Sonia, and Tilley, Annette
- Analyzing Austen / Ramirez, Marisa
- What Now: Life After Senior Year / Holbrook, Tara
8:02 a.m.
FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH him, and I already feel a McMigraine coming on. I rub the space between my eyes as I hurry to homeroom.
“Our future valedictorian,” Mrs. Kozlowski says with a smile when I hand her my late pass, and I hope she’s right.
Our homerooms are mixed to foster camaraderie between the grades. McNair proposed it two years ago in student council, and the principal ate it up. It wasn’t the worst idea, I guess, if you ignored every single one of our other, more pressing issues: rampant plagiarism among the freshman class, the need for an expanded cafeteria menu to accommodate dietary restrictions, reducing our carbon footprint.
Before I make my way to Kirby and Mara, a trio of junior girls pounces on me.
“Hi, Rowan!” says Olivia Sweeney.
“We were worried you weren’t going to be here!” says her friend Harper Chen.
“Well… I’m here,” I say.
“Thank God,” Nisha Deshpande says, and the three of them giggle.
We’re all in student council, where they’ve unanimously thrown their support to me instead of McNair, which I’ve always been grateful for. They compliment my clothes and worked on my campaigns and brought me cupcakes when I got into Emerson. Kirby and Mara call them my fan club. Truly, they’re very sweet, if a little overeager.