Taylor looked at me with concern. “Did you…?”
I shook my head. “And Kevin doesn’t know. He teases me about it, but that’s because I’m still his virgin brother. He only finds this funny.”
“Another reason not to study at your house,” Taylor observed.
“Tell me about it. Anyway, I think it’s just because the school has seen us together a lot. And we need to make sure it stops. I’ve asked Morgan about it, but she says she didn’t say anything. Maybe it’s Crystal, but…”
“Wait. Why do you care?”
“Because the last time something like this happened, I was almost pulled into the air by my shirt.”
“Right, okay.” Taylor seemed deep in thought. I couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking, but it seemed like something clicked in her head. “Okay, I’ll try to make this go away, but only if we can study after school. ASAP. So, like, tomorrow.”
She was bold. Bold and presumptuous. Mother would kill her. “I’ll make it happen one way or another.”
“And in the meantime we should probably not spend so much time around each other. No more lunches, and after this, no more private conversations. I’ll text you when you can approach my car. Okay?”
It was weird how I went from wanting the popular girls to acknowledge my existence more, to being thankful when they proposed the opposite. “Okay.”
“And one more thing.” She chewed on her lip again. “Don’t talk to Morgan anymore. Like, at all. At least until I have some stuff, like, figured out. I think it was her.”
“Did you tell her…?”
“No. But I think… it’s complicated. Look, Morgan is Morgan. You don’t even like her anyways, right?” Taylor asked.
“Um, well, I think she’s perfectly fine as a person, I wouldn’t-”
“Quinn.” Taylor’s face regained that same darkness. “Trust me on this. Okay?”
“…Okay.” Taylor could be scary when she wanted to be. I guess Morgan really was upset with how she treated me. I guess that explained the blushing, and the looking at the floor. It kind of just made me feel bad. If Taylor hadn’t been so adamant about me not talking to her, I would have wanted to talk to Morgan and make amends or something. She did seem kind of cool, most of the time. Just overprotective.
But, Taylor knew better. She clearly had a plan. Maybe Morgan was this weird mastermind or something. Before I knew it, Taylor had walked back into the classroom, with me snapping to attention and following. Nobody looked up at me, and nobody cared. You’d think if rumors started, they’d originate at, or at least end up at, the classroom we shared, but the students here really didn’t seem to give a crap. I couldn’t help but wonder where it originated.
***
One thing was certain, I would have liked more allies. So far I had Taylor, who wouldn’t explain the plan apart from “don’t talk to this popular girl,” and needless to say, I had years of experience avoiding just that, so we were fine there. I suppose I had Kevin, but he clearly would have turned on me for a joke. Plus, he also seemed to know stuff I didn’t. So, I decided to make my own plans.
“Bryce!” I called out to the group of guys, all in a group outside the gym. Bryce turned to face me, and seemed to genuinely forget who I was for a few seconds before his eyes lit up in realization.
“What?” he asked finally.
“Do you remember me?” I asked. I had no idea why I asked that. Internally I cringed.
He sighed. “Look dude, I probably shouldn’t’a’ grabbed you, that was my bad, so can we just be cool about it?” He asked in a rehearsed voice, before beginning to turn back to his friends.
“No no, that’s not why I’m here. You’ve got English next, right? With the Hamlet test?”
He gave me a weird look. “Yeah… why?”
One thing the Gifted crowd loved to do was lording over the jocks, especially knowing which jocks were particularly bad with which subjects. I could recite it in my sleep – Calvin was decent at English but bad at math. Connor had a good work ethic but was deceptively dumb. And Bryce? Bryce sucked at English.
“Would you like a boost? I had the test first period.” I held up a piece of paper in my hands.
Bryce stared at me, puzzled. “What’s on that?”
“The answers.”
Bryce’s eyes moved from side to side, in shock. “What?”
“Do you want it? If not, no problem.”
A crooked grin appeared on his face. “Are you for real? Sure, I’ll fuckin’ take ’em.” I held out the sheet and he snatched it up, looking over the sheet. It seemed the answers translated to him well. “Holy shit!”
I stayed silent until he looked over the paper fully and clapped his eyes back on me. His grin temporarily vanished. “Wait, why me?”
I shrugged. “We got off on the wrong foot. Just wanted to do something nice.”
“Dude, right on!” His grin returned. “You saved my fuckin’ life, buddy.” He turned back to his group. “Yo, get a load of this…”
I smiled as I walked away. That paper couldn’t be traced back to me. My name wasn’t on it, and I was known as a goody nobody in this school. Even if Bryce ratted me out for whatever reason, I could just deny it. And now, without a doubt, Bryce had quickly gone from not trusting me to, knowing how much his English grade meant to his scholarship, owing me his first-born.
***
Mother was, as expected, the more difficult one to appease.
“This is a punishment for her only. I do not-”
“Speak English,” she barked.
“This only punishes her. I don’t hang out with friends. Mother, I don’t even have any. But if I can’t tutor her, she might fail the class.”
“If I just took away your video games, you would accept it and not complain. But now, I tell you no going out, and you complain. So clearly, this punishment is the one that truly impacts you.”
“I…” I sighed. “This isn’t about me. I just don’t want to let her down.”
“Let her down? She is failing. Her education let her down. She let herself down!” She laughed derisively. “Her success is not your responsibility, Quinn.”
“But I… care about her success. Just because it’s not my responsibility doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.” I shuffled my feet as I stood.
Mother turned to me. “You have feelings for this girl?”
I don’t know what made me pause. I didn’t think I did. Did I? I wasn’t sure. “Um, maybe I do,” I replied lamely.
Mother took this as bashfulness and shook her head, forming a smile. “You fell for a whitey!” she joked.
“Mother, the entire school is white people. The entire town is white people.”
“Isn’t your class president a black man?” she asked.
“Black woman, and student council president, but okay, bad example. My point is-”
“Bah!” Mother flicked her wrist as if to backhand my very sentence away. “Your point is you fell in love. You’ll do whatever she wants. You need to assert yourself, Quinn!”
I didn’t recall asking Mother for romance advice. “I tried that and it led to me staying later than usual. But it won’t happen again!”
“Of course it won’t happen again. Because you’re not going out at all!” Mother laughed.
“Mother, I would-”
“Zhùkǒu,” she replied, again with the backhand to the air. I stared at her for a few more seconds before she slowly started to smile again. “If you promise to be a good man for her, I will give you this one. But! If you are late home one more time, this happens again and it is for eight weeks! Nǐ tīngdǒng ma?”