Page 94 of People Like Us

August’s eyes finally moved to mine, searching my face so carefully it made my chest hurt. “Lola—”

“Please,” I begged.

He swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. That softness returned to his expression again, weaker this time. Wounded around the edges.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

Lunch felt wrong without Andy there.

Not quieter exactly—our cafeteria was never quiet. The room still buzzed with hundreds of voices layered over the squeal of sneakers against tile and the metallic slam of lunch trays hitting trash cans. Somebody near the vending machines was laughing hard enough to snort. A teacher yelled half-heartedly at a sophomore for standing on a chair. The smell of pizza grease and bleach hung thick in the cold air.

But there was a shape missing from the table that I didn’t know if I was allowed to miss.

Lindsey kept picking at the peeling edge of her nail polish instead of talking. Emily sat slouched beside her with her arms crossed tight over her chest, eyes darting beneath heavy eyeliner as she watched me too carefully whenever she thought I wasn’t looking. Jack stared into the distance with the exhausted expression of a man twice his age instead of freshly eighteen.

Nobody mentioned the breakup, even though I knew they knew. Nobody even said Andy’s name.

Morgan, oblivious, happily filled the empty space herself.

“I know it’s kinda lame to have birthday parties after like ten years old,” she said around a bite of fries, “but I thought it could be fun to have everyone over.”

Lindsey glanced up. “How old are you turning?”

“Seventeen,” Morgan said proudly.

Morgan kicked me lightly beneath the table. “Wyatt said he’d bring his projector thing so we can watch movies outside if the weather’s good, and Penelope said she has a few blow up mattresses she can bring if you guys want to stay the night.”

“The misfits?” I heard Lindsey cringe, but I didn’t hear Morgan’s response.

Her voice began to blur together, dissolving into the general cafeteria noise as my attention drifted toward the massive windows lining the far wall.

Rain clouds still hung low outside, gray and swollen over the campus. The student parking lot glittered wet beneath the weak sunlight. Cars sat packed together in uneven rows, their roofs reflecting silver.

That was when I noticed the boy.

Long dark hair. Dark green backpack slung over one shoulder. Layered clothing caked in mud.

He was bent awkwardly beside an old sedan near the back fence, shoving what looked like a wire hanger into the top corner of the driver’s side door.

I frowned. The boy jammed the wire harder into the doorframe. There was something strangely familiar about the slope of his shoulders. The frantic twitchiness in his movements. The way he kept glancing over his shoulder toward the road like a startled animal.

“Lola, are you going to come? I’ll need help setting up.” I blinked hard, dragged back into the cafeteria.

“Hm?”

“My party,” Morgan repeated, smiling uncertainly now. “Saturday.”

“Yeah. Of course.” The words came out automatic as I continued staring through the glass. “I’ll be there.”

Outside, the boy finally managed to pop the lock. The car door swung open. I stood so abruptly my chair legs screeched against the tile.

Emily’s head snapped toward me immediately. “Lola?”

“I gotta go.”

Nobody stopped me. Maybe because something in my voice sounded strange even to me.

I shoved through the cafeteria doors and hurried across the sidewalk, my tall brown boots pounding against the asphalt. My pulse thudded so violently in my throat it made me nauseous.