I’ll totally buy your mom a new garden gnome.”
This makes him smile and I feel my throat loosening.
Am I doing it? Am I smoothing things over?
I charge on, talking so fast I barely even know what I’m saying anymore.
“I was hungry. And tired. And stressed about the election today. I really think that’s what it was. You know, I’m not usually like that. I’m usually totally fine with all the girls. I mean, I am fine with all the girls. I mean, not like for you to make out with them or anything. But you know, talking to them and doing your … rock star thing.” I raise my hands in the air and wiggle my fingers to illustrate my point.
Wait. Did I just do jazz hands?
Moving on.
“I wish we could forget the whole thing and pretend like it didn’t happen. And—”
“Oh, yeah,” he interrupts, his expression shifting to something unreadable. “I forgot about that.”
“What?”
“The election. That’s today, isn’t it?”
Is he still hung up on that part? How fast was I talking?
“Yes. There’s a school assembly during homeroom. I have to give my speech.”
He taps his fingers against the strap of his case. “Huh.”
Huh?
What does “huh” mean?
“So do you think we can do that?” I ask, pressing on. “Forget this whole thing ever happened and start fresh? I’m really, really sorry.”
The bell rings.
“We better get to class,” Tristan says.
Was that a yes?
He grabs my hand and interlaces his fingers with mine. The warmth of his flesh does more to calm me than any song in any of my stupid playlists. I want to live inside those beautiful strong hands of his. Sometimes when I watch him strum his guitar on stage, or when he’s practicing with the band, I get lost in the movement of his fingers. Like I’m in a trance.
And don’t get me started on his wrists.
As we walk hand in hand toward Spanish class, I almost manage to forget the atrocity that is my face. That is, until we step inside the classroom and Señora Mendoza does a double take in my direction. Then she shakes her head, as if to say, “Kids these days! Who can understand them?”
We take our usual seats in the back row as Señora Mendoza starts conjugating the future tense of the verb ver on the whiteboard. I pull a piece of notebook paper from my binder, scribble “Are we good?” and slide it onto Tristan’s desk.
He glances down, then winks at me, causing my heart to puddle on the floor. “Yeah,” he whispers.
But there’s something about the way he turns his attention back to the front of the class—the speed at which he breaks eye contact—that makes me doubt the sincerity of the word. Am I being paranoid or has he suddenly taken a very unusual interest in Spanish verb conjugations?
Then just as Señora Mendoza is in the middle of saying “Nosotros veremos”—we will see—a loud thunk startles me out of my thoughts.
The entire class turns toward the window as a giant black bird slides down the glass and drops to the ground outside.
“¡Dios mío!” Señora Mendoza cries, holding her hand to her chest.
“Is it dead?” someone asks, racing to the window along with a handful of other students.
“It’s totally dead,” Sadie Haskins replies.
And that’s all it takes for me to burst into tears.
It’s Easy to Trace the Tracks of My Tears
10:02 a.m.
The bird is dead. And now I’m a blubbery mess. Which, when you think about it, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I didn’t even know the bird. He could have been a total douche bag. He could have been the kind of bird that steals hot dogs right off your plate. Or poops on people’s windshields and doesn’t leave a note.
But it’s not every day you see something die right in front of you. And at the hands of a dirty classroom window. Really, the crow should have known better. There’s no way the windows of this prison are clean enough for a bird to mistake them for air.
So, in other words, the bird was a moron.
At least I don’t have to worry about the tears smearing my eye makeup. That ship has long since sailed.
The good news is, Tristan seems really concerned about me. He wraps his arms tightly around my back and lets me cry into his chest. He doesn’t even seem to mind that I’m totally smudging up his white T-shirt.
“Shhh,” he coos, in that sultry soft voice he usually reserves for the stage.