Drawn

  “I mean that I don’t care what he calls me.”

  And I just told Damon I don’t care about him.

  Drew pulled a lock of my hair and twisted it around his knuckle. “Can I call you anything I want?”

  “You can call me ‘Your Highness’.”

  Damon didn’t look up, but he did smile.

  I pointed to my notebook. “Can we get to algebra, please?”

  Erik explained three-variable equations to me through the first fifteen minutes of lunch. And it might as well have been rocket science.

  “So that’s all there is to it. Get it now?” He closed his textbook.

  Damon popped the last crumb of chocolate chip cookie into his mouth and turned his book over on the table. “I’m not sure I get it now.”

  Erik pointed his finger at Damon. “That was a brilliant explanation.”

  “That was reading out of the book.”

  “I used my own examples. Great examples.”

  Damon looked at me. The cafeteria disappeared and Saturday night materialized. The moon glittered in his dark hair, stars twinkled around him, and the silent water of the lake buoyed us up together, all alone.

  “Julie, what did you think?”

  I sighed. Loud.

  He looked at me, and Erik looked at me, and Drew looked at me. Another guy at the end of the table even looked over.

  “You still don’t get it, do you?” Damon asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m stupid at math.”

  “Don’t call yourself stupid. You aren’t.” Damon pushed his tray aside and turned my notebook so it lay directly between us.

  He took the pencil out of my hand, and when his fingers glanced against mine, heat shot up my arm.

  “Here,” Damon said. “Let’s do this problem.” He wrote two new equations in a blank space on the page. “Show me how you solve this.”

  “How do you write upside down like that?”

  “Do the problem.”

  “Yes, sir.” I took my pencil back, careful not to touch him and explode into a syrupy mass of lovesick goo. “You solve the first problem for one of the variables.” I did it. “Then you plug that answer into the second equation.” I finished it.

  “Perfect.” He folded his arms and stared at me. “If you have one variable, you can solve one equation. With two variables, you need two equations. Three variables, three equations.” He raised his eyebrows and opened his palm as if to invite me to complete the logic.

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Yes, you do. Think about it.”

  Erik opened his mouth and Damon cut him off. “She can do this.”

  I’m too stupid. I don’t get math.

  “Talk it out,” Damon said. “Words have power.”

  Words have power. I just looked at him.

  “Start with what you know.”

  I sighed. “You get the letter alone on one side of the equal sign.”

  He nodded. “Right. You get the letter, or variable, by itself. Then what?”

  “You plug the stuff on the other side of the equal sign into the other equation.”

  “So then you’ve done what?”

  I stared at the problem he’d written. “You’ve solved for the second variable.”

  I looked up. Erik looked like he might burst with the need to explain.

  Damon just nodded. “And?”

  And the light bulb flashed. The fireworks exploded. The sun rose. “Then you do it again and solve for the third variable using the first two!”

  Damon’s smile illuminated my universe even more. He sat back in his chair and spread his hands wide. “And now you can solve any number of algebraic equations.”

  I closed my eyes to finish sorting this out. “As long as you have the same number of equations as you have variables, you can solve for all the variables.”

  “That’s what I said!” Erik insisted.

  I opened my eyes. “I get it now.”

  Damon shrugged. “Of course you do.”

  “I could kiss you.”

  I sucked in my breath and almost swallowed my tongue.

  Oh, no I didn’t. I didn’t really just say that.

  All three of them stared at me again. Drew laughed. And laughed. And laughed.

  Erik snorted. “Wow, Juliet.”

  “I just meant…”

  Damon turned deep maroon. He picked up his book and dog-eared the corner. “You can kiss me anytime you want.”

  The bell rang. But I didn’t stand up till after the guys left. Damon tried to wait for me, but I waved him off.

  Because I’d peed in my pants a little.

  * * * * *

  I got to homeroom for Olympics practice before anyone else, plopped down and dug through my bag. My stomach felt as hollow as a rotted out tree.

  “Come on. Something. Anything,” I begged. Candy wrappers. My 60-pack of colored pencils. A chocolate-scented eraser. Even that sounded good.

  The main compartment came up empty, and so did the sleeve in the front. In a last ditch effort I unzipped the inner pocket that I used for my once-a-month stuff. Something shiny poked out of a folded maxi pad.

  Bingo! Gum.

  I’d forgotten about these. I pulled one out and unwrapped it. Maybe that would take the edge off.

  My stomach growled as the first wave of flavor washed down my throat. More than just ginger ale and chocolate mints, it tasted fruity as well as crisp, like ice water tinged with honey and something else. Something milky.

  I chewed like a beaver gnaws on a tree trunk and got up enough spit for several good swallows.

  It worked. Really fast, in fact. The desperate emptiness in my stomach went away, and this sense of satisfied peace settled in. My throat and mouth tingled, like the gum fizzed with electricity.

  I sighed and leaned back in my seat.

  Mia got there and sat next to me, then Lucas came in. Kim followed him like a yippy little puppy.

  Lucas leered at me, the whites of his eyes glistening like two boiled eggs behind his glasses. He squeezed into the seat behind me.

  “Hey, babe.” The words kind of oozed out of him and dripped down my back.

  I bristled. “Lucas, I am not your babe.”

  He leaned forward and I felt his breath on my neck. “Bethany said you play hard to get with guys you like.”

  A guttural scream erupted in my stomach, but before it could surface a voice popped into my head.

  His father hit him last night.

  Where did that come from? I’d never even met Lucas’s dad.

  I turned around in my chair to look at him.

  He smiled at me, and his thick lips looked like they always did, the upper one cleft by a deep oval crater between his nose and mouth. Straight white teeth—Lucas’s one really good feature—gleamed in two perfect rows behind his lips. His nose didn’t seem any more red or bulbous than normal, and though his forehead shimmered with its usual sweaty gloss, it looked the same as always.

  Then I stole a glance at his eyes.

  The black-rimmed, Coke bottle glasses hid it very well. No one would notice unless they looked for it.

  “Lucas,” I whispered. “Do you have a black eye?”

  His smile evaporated and turned into an angry scowl. “No. What the… ” He slid out of his chair and stood up. “What kind of question is that?”

  I’d never seen him mad. My hands started to shake.

  He’s scared.

  Why would he be scared?

  Because he wants to protect his dad.

  “Geez, Juliet. That’s a stupid thing to say.” Lucas moved away and sat in a desk near the back of the room.

  I stared at him, but he wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry,” I said. I turned around and studied the blackboard.

  Erik and Damon came through the door, followed by Hirsch. Erik gave me a smile and a thumbs-up, and sat down right in front of me.

  Damon didn’t look at me. Other than the algebra lesson at lunch, he
avoided me all day. He sat beside Erik and in front of Mia. My eyes fell on the tendrils of hair that curled at the back of his neck, and the scent of wind blew through my mind.

  He’s embarrassed.

  Huh?

  He’s ashamed of what happened Saturday night.

  I shook my head and tried to clear out the strange and ridiculous voice I kept hearing.

  He thinks you don’t like him because of his past.

  “Let’s get started!” Hirsch pulled a student desk out of the first row, turned it around in front of the class and sat down. “Arrange yourselves in a circle.”

  We all stood up and scooted the desks this way and that. I ended up between Mia and Kim, with Erik and Damon to my right and Lucas on the other side of Mia. Lucas leaned on his left elbow and cupped his hand over the side of his face.

  “First question. Anna Karenina is a novel of Russian realist fiction, written by what author?”

  Kim slapped her palm on her desk.

  “Miss Leasier.”

  “Tolstoy.”

  “Full name, please.”

  “Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy.”

  Hirsch smirked. “Leo Tolstoy will do. Next question. In mathematics, this property describes a binary operation, where changing the order of the operands does not change the resulting answer.”

  Lucas, Erik and Damon all hit their desks.

  “Mr. Emberry?”

  “Commutative property.”

  The questions came one after another. A few I realized I should’ve known after someone else gave the answer, but nothing came to me quick enough for me to get it first.

  “What is the economic model of price determination in a competitive market? Miss Teele.”

  “Supply and demand.”

  I wished I hadn’t come. I’m too stupid to be here.

  You’re not stupid. Stop telling yourself that.

  I am stupid. I don’t know any of this stuff.

  “NaCl is the chemical formula for what common substance? Mr. Sheppard.”

  “Sodium Chloride. Table salt.”

  “Either of those responses would be correct.”

  Damon knew both of them. I wouldn’t have gotten either one.

  Just wait.

  I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to be there at all. My heartbeat thudded in my temples and sweat dripped out of my armpits and down my sides. I don’t belong here!

  You belong wherever I put you.

  Hirsch threw out another brain bender.

  Silence. No one moved.

  Then everyone turned to me.

  “J.B.?” Erik prompted.

  I didn’t know my heart could pound any faster than it had been.

  “What?”

  Hirsch’s mustache shifted to the side as he sniffed. “Can you answer the question?”

  I swallowed. “I doubt it.”

  Mia sighed. Lucas frowned.

  “Would you like me to repeat the question?”

  Like that’ll do any good. “Okay.”

  Hirsch cleared his throat. “This is a sculptural technique, in which the image rises only slightly out of the background medium.”

  I did know this one. I whispered my answer.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Brynn. I can’t hear you. And you need to tap your desk first.”

  He asked the question again.

  I tapped my desk with my fingertips.

  “Yes, Miss Brynn.”

  “Bas-relief.”

  Everyone looked at Hirsch.

  “That is correct.”

  They all cheered. Erik whooped. Kim clapped. Mia patted me on the back. And Damon smiled, a real, warm, happy smile. And I gave it back.

  “About time,” Lucas said. He grinned at me. I looked at his hand resting against the side of his head, and I felt like a mother hen. I wanted to kiss his eye and make it better.

  You can’t do anything to make Lucas better, Juliet.

  I closed my eyes and turned back to the front of the room.

  “Good job, Julie.” Damon’s voice and handsome, strangely hesitant smile, felt like lemonade on an August day.

  But you do have something for him.

  I swallowed my gum.

  CHAPTER 18

  As usual, nobody answered at my house. I’d have to call again after I finished what I promised to do. “Is anyone actually going to enforce my grounding?” I asked the phone.

  “Need another ride?”

  I didn’t even have to turn around. “On your handlebars again?”

  “If you still trust me.”

  I picked my bag up, slung it over my shoulder and spun on my heel. “Why wouldn’t I still trust you?”

  Damon stood there, hands shoved into his pockets. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and could barely look at me. “You know more about me now than you did last time I gave you a ride.”

  “Why would that make me trust you any less?”

  Just then Mrs. Larch came around the corner into the school foyer. Behind her followed the group of cheerleading candidates, Amica in the lead.

  Even in a plain white T-shirt and pink running shorts she looked cuter than any other girl at the school. And possibly on television, too. Her blond hair twisted up into a high ponytail that curled and bobbed every which way when she walked, and her lips glistened with shimmery rose gloss. She bounced a frothy ball of red and white pom-poms in one hand.

  “Hey, Damon,” she sang.

  “Amica.”

  She cast me one quick, sneery look, then turned her glow back on Damon. “Thanks so much for helping me with that science homework. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  He nodded. “No problem.” He looked at me and grinned.

  And I grinned back.

  “I hear Damon’s going to tutor you, too, Juliet.” She rolled her ponytail around her hand and stared at me.

  Calm. Cool. Laugh.

  I couldn’t think of anything else, so I just said, “Mm-hmm,” and tried to look bored.

  “If he can’t help you, I’m sure Lucas could.”

  An hour ago that would’ve burned me up.

  “I’m sure he could. Lucas is brilliant.”

  Amica’s smile dropped off her face and she stopped twirling her hair. “Really?”

  “He’s a good guy, and my friend.” I couldn’t believe what came out of my mouth.

  She knocked the pom-poms against her leg for a few seconds, turned and stalked away behind the other girls who followed Mrs. Larch toward the gym.

  I looked back at Damon. “So you’re tutoring a lot of people?”

  “I helped her out in study hall today. That’s all.”

  “I couldn’t care less,” I said.

  He looked like I just hit him in the stomach with a baseball bat.

  “I mean, I’m not bothered by Amica anymore.”

  He smiled with the dimple and I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from grinning like an idiot.

  He reached for my bag. “You ready to go?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t yet. I have to do something before I leave.”

  “What?”

  Mia waited in the art room with a pair of Miss Downey’s sharpest fabric scissors.

  “It’s kind of a secret.”

  He took my bag off my shoulder and leaned against the wall. “I told you my secrets.”

  I shrugged. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Not about me.”

  He absentmindedly curled my canvas bag up and down a few times, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the muscle that pushed out his shirt sleeve. “How are you going to get home, then?”

  “Walk, probably.”

  “Too far. I’ll wait for you.”

  Yes! My insides bounced around like popcorn in a microwave.

  “Okay, if you want to.” I shrugged. “Come on, then.”

  When we got to Miss Downey’s room, I pushed the door open a few inches and pe
eked in. Mia sat on a chair in the middle of the room. Under the chair spread a thin plastic tarp.

  “Mia, Damon’s with me. Is it okay if he comes in?”

  Her eyes got really big, but she nodded.

  “What’s going on?” Damon asked as I closed and locked the door behind him.

  “Beauty shop,” I answered.

  “You’re going to cut her hair? Here? Now?”

  Mia handed me the scissors and her brush. “I asked her to. It’s a long story.”

  Damon sat down and leaned back. “Have you ever cut someone’s hair?”

  “When I was four and my cousin and I butchered each other.” I stood behind Mia and stared at the wild mess of straggled strawberry-blond hair in front of me. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”

  “Absolutely.” She twisted her hands together in her lap. “I want bangs. And I want it to curl like yours.”

  “I don’t know what it’ll do when it’s cut, Mia.” I ran the brush down a stroke. “How short do you want it?”

  “Your length.”

  I clicked my tongue. “That’s taking a lot off. I’m trying to let mine grow.”

  “Then cut it as long as you want yours to be.”

  When I looked at Damon he just shrugged.

  “Are you sure your mom isn’t going to kill both of us?”

  “Maybe me. But I promise I’ll never tell her who cut it. I’ll say I did it myself.”

  I ran the brush down and picked up a shock of it. I caught the ends between my first and middle fingers, the way the hairdressers at the salon do. After a deep breath, I snipped six inches off the ends. They dropped to the floor and fluttered over the tarp.

  “Okay if I look around while you do that?” Damon asked.

  “I guess so.”

  He walked over to the windows where Miss Downey stacked our watercolor sketches, right next to a bunch of old frames she’d brought in for special projects. He picked up a sketch and examined it, then took the next one off the stack.

  Pay attention to Mia’s hair.

  I worked my way around the bottom, until it looked straight from every angle I checked. She agreed to long layers, so I lifted the ends over her head and trimmed them up in the air, just like I’d seen them do at the salon. When I finished that, I brushed the front forward over her face and did the same thing to them, layering bangs just above her eyebrows. Then I grabbed a razorblade off Miss Downey’s desk and feathered it down the locks on the sides of Mia’s head, to blend in the bangs with the rest of the length.

  “This is really kind of fun,” I said.

  “I’m scared now,” Mia admitted.

  “Well, it’s too late to change your mind. I think I’m done.”

  I stepped back and Mia lifted her hands to her hair. She fingered the front, then pulled chunks of it around her shoulders. “Oh my gosh.”