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“Yeah, who are you?” Ben asks.
“My god, there’s two of them,” the guy says, dark eyes wide beneath a head of blond hair.
Dana appears beside him, her mouth fixed in a hard line. “Excuse me?” she says, annoyed. “Rude much?”
“Who’s this guy?” Alex asks her.
Yeah,I think to myself, my chest clenching behind their thick shoulders.
Who’s this guy?
A friend, one I’ve never seen before? Or worse...
One of her candidates?
“This is Dylan,” she says, stabbing each word. “He’s a friend from my playwriting class.”
“You joined Grant’s class?” I ask, finding my voice.
“Yes.” Her response is no less sharp. “Dylan, these are my brothers I told you about and their friend Connor.”
Their friend.
Not hers.
“Pleased to make your... very tall acquaintances,” Dylan says, his smirk rising high up his cheek.
“Yeah. Nice to meet you, man,” Alex murmurs, uninterested. “Dana, we need to talk.”
“About what?” she asks. “We’re busy.”
“Doing what?” I ask.
“Studying.”
“Who studies during the first week of classes?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but Alex talks first.
“Emerson Floyd is going to Chicago North.”
Dana pauses, the terseness in her expression softening a bit. As bothered by this as we three are, she will surely be furious. Emerson bullied her relentlessly — her health condition made her an easy target for assholes in general — but he made a game out of it, constantly trying to shock her into wheezing fits for the fun of it. Life at Chicago North Junior High was a daily nervous hellscape for her. It got better in high school — Emerson found other targets to torture — but we never let our guards down.
I’m prepared to do that again.
Bearhawks be damned.
Dana takes a breath, her silence deep. I wait for her reaction. Rage, confusion. There might even be tears.Whatever she needs, I’ll be here. I’m ready to do what’s necessary to have her back.
Instead, Dana just shrugs. “So?” she says.
So?
“What’s an Emerson Floyd?” Dylan asks, lingering a little too close to her ear.
Dana rolls her eyes. “A guy from our high school,” she answers him.
“No,” Alex says. “He’s an assholefrom our high school.”
