But if I’ve learned one thing from occasionally being too impulsive for my own good, it’s that once you open a door like that, you don’t get to close it again. Right now, Bluebird is nobody and everybody at once — but right now, Bluebird likes me. And I’m worried that in changing that first bit, the second one might change too.
Apparently that worry is intense enough that I forget my breakfast. My family owns a deli we live on top of, but somehow I not only forget to grab one of the infinite delicious options I have at my disposal, but I don’t realize it until I’m standing outside of homeroom, five minutes to the bell, with no other options but to eat the ridiculous red tie they make us wear as part of our uniforms.
My stomach gurgles like a sentient being. This is it, then. I’ll die before noon.
It doesn’t help I got next to no sleep last night. After that shift, I should have slept like a dead person, but every time I did, my dreams were all tangled, like someone rattled the synapses in my brain. I kept waking up to different jolts to my system — my anger at Pepper. The irritation of Ethan getting off scot-free, yet again. The worry of wondering whether I’d shown the mysterious Bluebird too much by sending her the link to that old app I made last year, and the gnawing guilt of knowing even by sending it, the situation just got a little more complicated than it was before.
I scan the hallway for Paul. There’s one friendship I know I haven’t screwed up. A friendship that comes with a free CLIF Bar, if I’m lucky, because Paul seems to be carrying an absurd amount with him at all times, as if the apocalypse is going to hit while we’re in class.
Apparently my luck has really and truly run out this morning, because the person whose face I spot instead of Paul’s is the last one I want to see right now.
“Can I talk to you?”
I had a plan for this. I rehearsed it in my head last night like a total loser, which I had plenty of time to do, thanks to the not-sleeping thing. And the plan was simple, because the plan was this: ignore Pepper. Don’t acknowledge anything she says, and walk away.
The thing I did not factor into that equation, unfortunately, was Pepper herself. Or the fact that she seems every bit as miserable as I do, with her bangs slightly off-kilter and her blue eyes earnest and overtired, as though she spent most of last night awake too. Still, I’m determined not to acknowledge her — that is, until I see that she appears to be holding a container full of the most obscenely gooey blondie situation I have ever laid eyes on in my life.
I shift my weight between my feet, my resolve and bravado as absent as my breakfast.
“The bell’s about to ring,” I say.
“Just for a second?”
It’s more than her eyes. There’s this openness to her. Not like there’s a crack in the mask of Robot Pepper, but like the mask is off completely. Somehow in this moment that she’s never looked more different, she’s also never seemed more familiar — and just like that, I realize she’s already become someone I can’t just dismiss, even though by all accounts I should.
“Fine.”
Ethan passes us in the hallway, raising his eyebrows at me as he does. Pepper’s face is on fire by the time he slips into homeroom.
“I know I said it, but — I really am sorry. I had no idea it was you on the other end of that.”
“But you knew it was someone.”
“Yeah. And I felt gross about it. But my mom…” She shakes her head before I can even pull a face. “It’s a whole thing. But what I wanted to say was that I get it. I mean, I know it doesn’t seem like I would, but — we were smaller, once.”
I can’t help it — it’s coming out of me before I can do anything to clamp it down. “You think we can’t hold our own because we’re small?”
“No, no, that’s not what I — sorry. That’s not what I meant at all.” She takes a breath, and I realize she’s actually flustered. Pepper, the girl who was one time challenged to argue against global warming for a debate club event in front of half the school, is flustered talking to me. “What I mean is, back when Big League Burger started, it was just us. My parents and my sister and me. And it was like that for a while, before we … well, you know. So I get it.”
There’s this uncertain lilt in her voice, in the way she is looking at me. Like she isn’t expecting me to accept her apology. To be fair, I wasn’t either.
But that’s not the reason why, for a few moments, I don’t say anything. It’s that there’s something else hovering on the end of that last bit, like there’s more to the story. Something else that fractured between the Big League Burger then and whatever it’s become since.
I want to ask, but then Pepper is shoving the Tupperware under my nose. “Also, these are for you.”
I may have my pride, but my stomach sure doesn’t. I already know I’m going to take them, probably already knew before Pepper opened her mouth and swayed me with her speech.
“What are they?” I somehow manage to ask, despite the saliva pooling in my mouth.
“An apology. They’re literally called So Sorry Blondies.”
“Another Evans sisters invention?”
She lets out a huff of a laugh, like she’s been holding her breath. “Yeah.”
I take it from her, partially because she looks like she has no intention of putting her arms down otherwise, and partially because I’m so hungry, the janitor might have to come peel me off the floor if I don’t eat something soon. She watches me nervously, as if she can’t tell if she’s actually been forgiven or not.
“Look.” I glance into the classroom, where Ethan is thoroughly distracted by Stephen and no longer keeping an eye on us. “I may have … overreacted.”
Pepper shakes her head. “I told you. I get it. It’s your family.”
“Yeah. But it’s also — well, to be honest, this has been kind of good for business.”
Pepper’s brow furrows, that one little crease returning. “What, the tweets?”
“Yeah.” I scratch the back of my neck, sheepish. “Actually, we had a line out the door yesterday. It was kind of intense.”
“That’s … that’s good, right?”
The tone of my voice is clearly not matching up with the words I’m saying, but if I’m being honest, I’m still wary of this whole overnight business boom. And if I’m being honest, I’m even more wary of Pepper. If this really is as much of a family business as she claims it is — to the point where she’s helping run the Twitter handle, when even I know enough about corporate Twitter accounts to know entire teams of experienced people get paid to do that — then she might have had more of a hand in this whole recipe theft thing than she’s letting on.
The fact of the matter is, I can’t trust her. To the point of not knowing whether I can even trust her knowing how our business is doing, or just how badly we need it.
“Yeah, um, I guess.” I try to make it sound noncommittal. My acting skills, much like my breakfast-packing skills, leave much to be desired.
“So…”
“So.”
Pepper presses her lips into a thin line, a question in her eyes.
“So, I guess — if your mom really wants you to keep tweeting…”
“Wait. Yesterday you were pissed. Two minutes ago you were pissed.”
“I am pissed. You stole from us,” I reiterate. “You stole from an eighty-five-year-old woman.”
“I didn’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, but still. You’re them, and I’m … her. It’s like a choose your fighter situation, and we just happen to be the ones up to bat.”