“Mother, she and I are not dating,” I protested. “It’s just…” It’s just something I said without thinking about it.
“Ah, now!” Mother wagged a finger in my face with a cheeky expression. “I just gave you freedom to see her, you are no longer grounded. Do not argue with me now!”
I smiled a muted smile. “I appreciate it, Mother.”
“Yes you do. Now go set the table,” Mother ordered. I was halfway done setting the table when Kevin burst through the door.
I looked up at him, then back to Mother. “Looks like I’m not the only one running home late,” I joked.
Kevin pointed a finger up at me and gave me an expression I never saw him give me before. It was like a, ‘you dare to say that to me?’ expression. “I just saved your ass,” he told me.
“How?!” I asked.
“No saying ‘ass’ in the kitchen,” Mother barked, not looking at him. Kevin looked back at her, then me, then motioned with his head towards our room and walked off. I quickly finished setting the table, then followed him.
As soon as I was in, Kevin shut the door, and shoved his finger in my face. “Are you trying to get expelled?” he asked with a seriousness I didn’t know he had in him.
I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. “…What?”
“I asked if you were trying to get expelled. Are you trying to impress somebody here? What’s the story, bro?”
“I… don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about you, sneaking answers to, like, the entire third period English class. That sort of shit can get you expelled, dude!”
What the hell? “…How did you-”
“I got eyes all over the school, Quinn!” He cracked a quick, breathy half-smile. It was the first positive emotion I’d seen out of him since he arrived home. “You gotta know this by now.”
“I… showed one student the-”
“But why, man? That’s so not you! This shit sounds nothing like you! Do you realize that you could face serious consequences for this?”
I could feel my brow furrow. “I don’t need the speech from you.”
“Dude, I just saved your ass! And by the way, a fucking ‘thank you’ would be nice.”
“‘Saved me?’ How did you save me?”
“Lemme just say, they won’t be questioning you about it,” he answered.
“What, so you heard about me doing this through the grapevine, sweet-talked the teachers into letting go me accidentally starting a mass cheating, and you think I’m going to believe you?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. So, what the fuck’s up?”
I huffed. “I wanted to be on Bryce’s good side-”
“For what? What the fuck do you have to do with Bryce?”
“Shut up for a second, will you?!” I exploded. “I wanted a freaking ally on my side because it seems like half the school thinks Taylor and I are sleeping together. And who knows, maybe that entire thing is your fault!”
Kevin looked at me like I was insane. “What?”
“Taylor’s friends didn’t like that Taylor was hanging out with me so much, so I think they assumed I had ulterior motives or something. So they stuck Bryce on me, and he grabbed my shirt and stuff. And I’m getting the impression that half the school is talking about us at this point, so I wanted Bryce to see me as a good guy, and not a-”
“Dude,” Kevin interrupted again. “Doing favors and being the geeky little servant for the jocks is not going to make you one of theirs. It’s just going to make them feel like they can use you for more shit.”
“I don’t need them to see me as one of their own, I just want them to remember me as the guy that did them a favor instead of not knowing who I am. They don’t know me yet. It’s not about popularity. It’s about what they know about me. And if I’m not popular and they never heard about me, I’m as good as a stranger. If I’m gonna survive whatever fallout happens from the latest drama about Taylor and I, which you may have caused, I want the most physical guys in the school, the ones most likely to bully me if things go south, to at least know me, and know me for something I did for them, instead of knowing nothing but ‘destroy the shady outsider.'” I was breathing heavily with anger by the end of my monologue.
Kevin was breathing heavily too, his expression still angry yet his mouth firmly closed. “Hmm,” he finally acknowledged. “I see.” He stayed silent a bit longer. “For the record, I’m kidding when I talk about Taylor and you. And I only talk to you about it.”
“Yeah, well, I need you to stop, okay?” I asked him, my tone weakening.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll stop. But for real, never do this again. Can we both make a promise here?”
“What did you do exactly?” I asked him, now curious. Kevin may have been one of the pseudo-popular types, but here it sounded like he was some sort of self-installed eye in the sky at Hazelwood.
“Look, I was in the right place at the right time, doing something unrelated. You’re just lucky I happened to… do what I did.”
“This sounds shady, Kevin,” I replied honestly.
“Yeah, maybe it does,” he admitted. “But look, I feel like it’ll dig you a deeper hole if I involve yourself in what I got going on. You got your shit, I got mine. I happened to cross paths with your shit once, but from this point on, no joking about Taylor, but in return, I can’t talk to you about my shit either.”
I shook my head. “This is weird, Kevin.”
“Sure as fuck is,” he agreed, then went to open the door. He paused. “Do you really think I started any rumors about you and Taylor?”
I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” I replied. “Taylor thinks Morgan started it, because she’s intimidated by me or something.”
Kevin laughed. “You, intimidating?”
“You didn’t talk and let me speak there when I got angry,” I pointed out.
Kevin looked off towards the wall and made a thinking face. “You know what, good point. But I really don’t think it was me.”
Who was to say? I wasn’t. I just knew a few things for sure. One, I nearly got in trouble and Kevin definitely found out, then may have used some voodoo magic to save me. Two, I needed to be way more careful with my plans in the future. This could have ended really poorly for me.
***
I never was the type of guy to lock eyes with a girl in the hallway and then immediately look down at the floor. Though, to be fair, that was mostly because my gaze was usually locked on the floor away from any eyes to begin with. I guess hanging out with Taylor really was changing me for the better, because I only noticed I wasn’t looking at the floor anymore when Morgan and I locked eyes on the way to class and I immediately looked away at the wall.
I remembered Taylor’s instructions. Don’t talk to Morgan, at all. It seemed only natural that if we locked eyes, I should look away. To not encourage her or something. And hey, if Taylor had a plan, from what I could understand, it was working. I didn’t get any strange looks from people anymore, and I felt people’s eyes were off of me and my name was kept out of their mouths, which suited me just fine.
Though, it was annoying. I was, as far as these people knew, just in closer proximity to Taylor for a few weeks. The truly astute would see I was helping her study. Was that really worthy of drama? Didn’t these people have, I don’t know, lives? I didn’t even have a life and I still cared less than these people.