I glanced over and saw Pooja was pulling up one of the chain emails about the study group and responding to something.
“It isn’t, like, too much on you?” I asked. “Taking all the time to set this up?”
Pooja shrugged. “It’s worth it.” She hit send on her email and turned to me, shoving her hands back into her pockets and bracing herself against the cold. “Besides, I kind of stopped caring about my grades so much. I think our education system is effed up. The way we’re always teaching to tests. Defining each other by numbers instead of what we can actually contribute.”
A gust of wind picked up, and I stiffened — both against the wind and the truth of her words. My whole body wanted to reject them. I’d defined myself by those numbers for so long, it felt like without them, I didn’t have anything to anchor me in Stone Hall’s world.
“That’s pretty ballsy for this crowd,” I said. “But that’s — it’s great. That you know what you want to do.”
“You were kind of a part of it,” she admitted.
It took me a moment to respond, so surprised that all I could say was, “Me?”
“Yeah.” Pooja shifted her weight on the step, leaning a bit farther from me. “It’s so dumb and you probably don’t remember — like, so dumb — we were doing some quiz bowl thing, freshman year?”
For a moment I went so still that I couldn’t even shiver.
Pooja’s eyes flitted to the side at the memory, looking rueful. “And the teacher called on you, and you hesitated for a moment — and you just looked like, so miserable. Like you were on death row. So I gave you the answer. Or I thought I did. Turns out it was the wrong one.”
“That was an accident?” I blurted, before I could stop myself.
Pooja’s eyes snapped to meet mine. “You do remember.”
Of course I did. It was the catalyst to four years of me trying to keep up with her, four years of trying to one-up her so I could be in a place where she could never one-up me again.
“I was so humiliated, and Mr. Clearburn was glaring at us, so I just blurted out my second guess and it was right. I tried to say something to you, and you wouldn’t even look at me, and after class you just bolted. And that night I was so upset I told the whole thing to my parents, and they were so mad about it that they wanted to pull me out of Stone Hall right then. They’re both professors,” she said, by way of explanation, “and they’re big into education being about learning, not — well. Whatever it is some of the teachers at Stone Hall are trying to accomplish.”
“Another Hunger Games,” I supplied.
Pooja let out a breathy laugh. “Exactly.” She seemed almost shy, when she looked back over at me. “Anyway — I meant to say something to you, but I was in damage-control mode, trying to talk my parents out of pulling me out and homeschooling me.” She shudders. “That’s how it kind of started. I didn’t want to leave. All my friends are here. So I’ve just tried to fix things, where I can. And having Weazel weirdly helped make that happen.”
My throat was tight. All this time I had painted us both in these certain lights — me an underdog, and her some kind of bully — and using it to fuel this fire in me. Not just to justify my need to be the best, but to justify everything else — the chip on my shoulder. The way I didn’t make many friends here. In one stupid moment that I completely misread, I decided it was me against the world.
“You’re right,” I managed after a few moments. “The system really is effed up.”
I wondered if I should apologize. If the thing between us was as concrete for her as it was for me. But before I could decide, she hoisted herself back up and offered me her hand, pulling me to my feet.
“Looks like they’ve descended on the food carts,” said Pooja. “Wanna grab a bite and see how long we can endure them?”
I realized then that she didn’t want an apology. That the rivalry went unspoken, and the apology would too. We were on the other side of something that took way too long to cross, but at least now we were here.
“Yeah, let’s.”
We made a plan to grab smoothies, but while the alcohol in Landon’s system made him forget things like appropriate conversation volumes and how to walk in a straight line, it apparently was not strong enough for him to forget his gallantry. He kept to his word and bought me dinner — a hot dog from the stand next to it, covered in ketchup and mustard and a mountain of relish.
He bowed a little as he handed it to me. “A hot dog for the burger princess.”
I winced. I’d managed to go four years without anyone making a connection between me and the Big League empire, but apparently my luck didn’t just run out, but went full into the red.
“Thanks.”
I didn’t really even mean to eat it. As snobby as it sounded, it was no Big League Burger Messy Dog, the toppings for which my dad and I once dreamed up on a ride back from a Nashville Sounds game. But I took a bite, and another, and polished off the whole thing, mostly so I had something to occupy my mouth so I didn’t have to attempt to talk to Landon and his crew.
An hour later I am deeply, deeply regretting it.
“Seriously, you don’t look so hot,” says Pooja. “You wanna find a place to sit?”
Truth be told, I don’t feel so hot. My stomach is doing that unsettling thing where it feels like it is trying to take up residence in my throat. We’ve been wandering around Central Park, loosely following the cluster of our classmates, which only seems to get bigger as more of them find us and join in on the hijinks. But thanks to me, we’ve been falling behind.
“No, no, I’m good,” I lie.
“You sure?”
I stop for a second, do a quick self-assessment. It’s probably just nerves — about Wolf, or Landon, or this whole mess of a Senior Skip Day.
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Before Pooja can say anything else, we’re both cut off by the sound of Landon letting out a whoop and attempting to cartwheel on a patch of grass. He lands gracelessly on his back and laughs up at the sky like it’s the funniest thing in the world.
“You know what’s ridiculous?” Pooja asks. At some point in the last few minutes, we’ve stopped walking and started observing, ceased being part of the group and started to fully lean into being on the outside looking in. “I came out here because I had a stupid crush on Landon.”
Landon gets up and lets out a belch so loud, I swear it stirs birds from their nests.
“Safe to say that’s over,” she deadpans.
I start laughing, even though it’s making my gut churn.
“What?” asks Pooja, a self-conscious smile curling on her lips.
I’m half speaking for her and half for myself when I say, “You can do much better than Landon.”
Pooja blushes. “Yeah, well. At this point I’m probably gonna wait until college to find out.”
My stomach twists again as if in direct protest of this idea. The closer we get to college, the more distant it seems to me. I’ve been so focused on the finish line aspect of the whole thing, of just getting the admissions letters and knowing I didn’t fail, that I still haven’t given much thought to what happens after.
“Same,” I say anyway.
“Aw, come on. Are you telling me you and Jack really aren’t a thing?” asks Pooja, kicking at a stray rock in our path.
“No,” I say, too quickly. “No, no, we’re just friends.”
“The people of the internet have spoken, Pep, and they ship Jactricia.”