Page 10 of Finding Her

poppy

The moment Lilah showed up at my locker on Friday, I knew it had been a bad decision to tell her where it was.

I should have known. It should have been my first thought that the girl who had been asking me about Levi Barrett before she even was certain that he was in my class would freak out when she realized that my locker was right above his.

I should have known, but I didn’t even think about it.

So when she appeared at the end of the hall and her eyes lit up as she took in the scene before her, I knew that I should have just told her that I would meet her at her locker instead.

I had made a critical mistake, but now I was stuck.

“Poppy,” Lilah said, dragging out the name as she walked up and threw her arm around my shoulders.

I stumbled a little into the touch and almost kicked Bear on the back of the head.

Whoops. But he did tell me that he was okay with having the bottom locker, so I guess he was just going to have to deal with moments like that.

“Hi, Lilah,” I mumbled. I pulled my books out of my locker at lightning speed, doing my best not to drop any on Bear’s head. This was my first time having the top locker and I wasn’t used to maneuvering around somebody below me.

Now, I had to worry about not concussing the guy every time I tried to grab anything.

“How are you?” Lilah asked, squeezing my shoulder tight.

“I’m fine, Lilah,” I mumbled. I barely zipped up my backpack before I swung it around on my shoulder and said, “Come on, let’s go.”

When I started walking away, she was automatically dragged with me from the way that her arm was around me.

But she dug her heels in like she was trying to keep me in place.

I knew without looking over my shoulder at her that she must be staring at Bear, and I didn’t want to stick around here and see what she was going to say to him.

“Come on, Lilah,” I urged. “All the good tater tots will be gone if we don’t get there soon.”

Tater tots were her favourite food, and I was sure that would get her moving. And when she didn’t, I knew that I absolutely could never let her come to my locker again.

Apparently, she wasn’t on the same wavelength as me because she pulled her arm off my shoulder, walked up to Bear, and said, “Hi, I’m Lilah.”

She stuck a hand out like she actually expected him to shake it. Bear tilted his face up to look at her, squinted for a second, then looked at his locker again and kept putting books away.

“Come on, Lilah,” I said, grabbing her hand and tugging her.

“Wait,” she hissed at me. She turned back to Bear. “So, you’re partnered with Poppy for the semester, huh?”

She was one step short of twirling her hair around her finger with the voice that she was putting on.

I’d seen Lilah flirt before, and normally it didn’t make my full body cringe, but right now, I hated what I was seeing.

I would do anything to get her to stop, although I wasn’t sure why it was bothering me so much.

I guess because there was no way Bear was going to be into her and I hated to see her embarrassing herself like this.

That’s what it had to be, right? I was just worried about my friend.

Bear didn’t respond to her or even bother to look up, and I felt a little bit of satisfaction at that. I guess it wasn’t just me he hated.

“Lilah,” I said again. “Can we go please?”

Lilah looked put out but after chewing on her lip for a moment, she nodded and began to follow me. We only made it two steps before a voice stopped us in our tracks.

“You dropped this.”

Bear had spoken to me so infrequently in the last few days that I barely even knew what his voice sounded like.

I was so shocked by the words that I immediately spun around, only realizing once I was facing him that he probably wasn’t even talking to me and I was embarrassing myself by looking so eager.

But he was looking at me—and in his hand was my pink scrunchie that I’d taken out after gym class.

“Oh,” I said dumbly. I slowly slipped it from his grip, my fingers brushing his for a moment. Sparks shot up my arm. I expected him to yank his hand away immediately, but he held on for a couple more seconds than was necessary before finally letting it go and allowing me to take it from him.

Lilah watched us carefully, her eyes darting between him and me.

I felt like none of us were breathing as Bear stared at me, his eyes locked on mine.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted from me, so I just pulled my hair back into a low ponytail and tied it with the scrunchie so that I wouldn’t lose it again.

“I guess I’ll see you later,” I stammered out, not quite sure what to say now. He jerked his chin in a nod, going back to his usual silence. I guess that was our cue to leave, so I grabbed Lilah’s hand and tugged her away. To my surprise, she didn’t dig her heels.

“Oh em gee,” she whispered to me as we walked out the door. “He is even cuter in person.”

I glanced at her in confusion. “Have you seen him not in person before?”

She shook her head, her blonde hair falling in her face. “Photos. There’s tons of all the hockey boys on the school’s instagram. Haven’t you seen?”

I’d probably seen the photos at some point but I couldn’t say that I looked at them obsessively the way she probably did. But I couldn’t blame her for doing it, either. We all had our vices—I was just more interested in celebrities than the popular kids at school.

“And the way he looked at you, Poppy!” She squealed. She grabbed my wrist and squeezed so hard that it hurt a little. “He is so into you.”

I actually snorted at that. “He is not.”

“Yes, he is! Trust me, I could see it. He wouldn’t even look at me, but you…” She sighed dreamily. “He stared right at you.”

“He looked at me because he was handing me my scrunchie,” I said dismissively.

Sure, it may have been the most attention Bear had given me in the days since we’d been partnered up in gym class—which apparently was not just for the one day, but the whole semester, much to my delight—but that was just because he actually had something to talk to me about for once.

I thought I was starting to understand him more: it wasn’t that he didn’t speak because he hated me, it was just because he only spoke when he had something to say and normally he didn’t.

How could I blame him for that? “Nothing more.”

She shook her head and sighed. “You are so naive. This is your chance.”

We walked into the cafeteria and stepped up at the end of the line. I tried to look over the shoulders of the girls in front of us to see what options the food were, but the view was completely blocked by their backs. I sighed and looked back at Lilah.

“My chance to do what?” I asked. I was suddenly feeling exhausted.

“Levi Barrett has never dated anyone,” she said.

“He prefers to go by Bear,” I told her, then shuffled forward with the rest of the line.

It took me a second to realize Lilah hadn’t followed.

When I turned around to see what the hold-up was, I realized she was looking at me with her mouth hanging open.

I glanced around to see what could have shocked her so much but saw nothing. “What?”

“You call him Bear ?” She squealed. The girls in front of us turned around to look at her. When Lilah noticed, she waved at me and said, “Levi Barrett lets her call him Bear!”

And just like that, the girls were in the conversation as well. They all spun around and started asking me questions, their voices all merging. How do you know him? Where did you meet? Are you dating? What does his hair smell like?

“He’s just in my class,” I said self-consciously. They all looked like they were hanging on to my every word. “And no, we’re not dating. I thought everyone called him Bear. He made it sound like it.”

Though, now that they mentioned it, I hadn’t actually heard anyone else call him Bear. Mrs. Dixon always called him Barrett and nobody else addressed him at all. But that was probably because they didn’t actually know him, right? As his partner, I had to call him something .

“Well, they don’t,” a blonde girl further down the line said.

She was sticking her head out, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation.

I didn’t recognize her, but the sweater she was wearing over her blouse was a dorm sweater from three years ago, so she must have been a senior. Meaning, she was the same age as Bear.

Rachel, a girl from my dorm who was one of the ones who’d been asking me all the question, mumbled about how she would know better than anyone, but I didn’t get the chance to ask what she meant before the blonde girl came stalking over to us, her arms crossed over her chest.

“You’re going to lose your place in line, Claire,” Rachel said. Claire ignored her as she looked me up and down with a sneer on her face.

“Who are you?” She asked, sounding not the least bit friendly.

And listen, if being the new girl at so many schools had taught me anything, it was that mean girls like the one in front of me preyed on any sign that they were getting under your skin.

I knew that this first meeting was what would make her decide if I was someone worth paying attention to or not, and I was determined not to let her think I was weak.

But I also refused to stoop to her level.

So I kept my head high but said in my usual tone, “I’m Poppy.” The sneer on her face only deepened but I maintained eye contact, refusing to let her think she was intimidating me. I just smiled at her and said, “And who are you?”

“I’m his girlfriend ,” she said. And her tone made it perfectly clear that she thought this was a fact we all should have known already.

Lilah scoffed. “Yeah, right. We all know Levi Barrett doesn’t do girlfriends.”

Claire narrowed her eyes at her. “What do you know about him?”

“I know enough to know that,” Lilah said. “Pity you didn’t do enough research to know that about him.”

“I don’t need to do research!” Claire stepped forward, totally getting in Lilah’s personal space. To her credit, Lilah didn’t step back or lean away. She stood perfectly toe to toe with her, holding her head high. I respected it a lot. “I’ll have you know I’ve known Levi since I was born.”

“Levi,” Lilah said in a mocking tone. “Not Bear?”

“I don’t believe for one second that he told her to call him Bear,” Claire hissed, her eyes darting toward me. I just stared right back. It wasn’t like I had anything to hide—I knew for a fact that she was wrong and if she tried asking him about it, he would tell her so himself.

“Maybe you just don’t know him as well as you thought,” Lilah said in a sickly sweet tone. “What a shame for you.”

For a second, I thought Claire was going to slap her. But then she stepped back and said, “Want to bet on it?”

“Bet on what?” Lilah asked. “Whether Levi even knows your name?”

“Whether he gives a crap about her,” Claire said.

Her eyes darted to mine and though I tried not to let it show on my face, my heart started thudding in my chest. Probably because I knew that when push came to shove, Bear would make it very clear I meant nothing to him.

Lilah had imagined some scenario in her mind where he was in love with me, but if she’d seen how he acted in gym class, she would know she couldn’t be more wrong.

But how could I tell her that now, with Claire watching us like this?

“What exactly are you suggesting, Claire?” Rachel asked timidly. She seemed nervous for us and I was kind of hoping Lilah would notice that and realize that whatever was happening right now was a bad idea.

“Simple,” Claire said. “We see who Levi asks out first.”

Lilah raised her eyebrows. “I thought you were his girlfriend?”

Claire scowled and looked to me instead. “Are you in or not?”

I desperately wanted to say no, I was not in at all. I didn’t want to partake in a bet at all, but especially not one that relied on the romantic feelings of a boy who clearly hated me. But Lilah jumped in before I could and confidently said, “Oh, she’s in!”

And when Claire continued to stare at me, I couldn’t exactly say no.

“What’s the prize?” I asked.

She shrugged. “A hundred dollars?”

It was obvious that she didn’t care about the prize. All she cared about was winning Bear for herself and showing me up. And, unfortunately, I already knew she was going to win. But I had no choice, so when she stuck her hand out to shake, I slid mine into it and said, “You’re on.”