Page 73 of Soul So Dark

“Sorry,” I whisper, “there was a line for the restroom…and then I ran into this girl I know…”

My lie seems satisfactory and we both turn back to the screen to watch the rest of the movie. It doesn’t matter that I have no idea what’s going on; I can’t think about anything else except what happened in that storage closet. I can still feel Alex’s fingers in my hair and the warmth of his chest against mine and the way his mouth—oh, God…

I ate a fucking gummy bear off of Alex Barrera’s tongue!

I sink into my seat with a mixture of revulsion and exhilaration. Alex completely wrecked this movie for me with his stalker-like behavior and his need to get back at me for…for what? Assuming he was kissing some girl who, by the way, I saw sitting on his lap in the cafeteria with my own eyes?

He’s completely ridiculous.

“Since when does Alex Barrera talk to you?” Austin asks as we exit the theatre into the parking lot.

“What do you mean? He’s one of Colson’s friends. I’ve known him for a long time.”

“Known him?” he scoffs. “He’s never said a word to you.”

Fine, that’s not exactly true.

“But sometimes he…” I’m about to rationalize Alex’s irrational behavior when something catches my eye in the distance.

Just across from the marquee, on the other side of the street, there’s a guy sitting on a dirt bike—an orange dirt bike. He glances at his phone and then tucks it back in his pocket before starting the engine. I can’t see his face behind his black helmet, but the bike, his height, the shape of his shoulders all but guarantee that it’s Jesse.

He's here.

I take off across the asphalt, but as soon as I reach the curb, he revs his engine and speeds off, down Main Street. I wave my arm and yell his name, but it’s no use. The bike is too loud and I’m just another face in with the crowd.

And just like that, Jesse is gone again, just like Alex. If it was even him to begin with…

Why is this happening? Do they both belong to some secret society where they have to vanish into thin air once a girl gives them a shred of attention? And what does Alex mean by I’ll beaddicted to him?Like every other girl that grovels before him and can’t get enough of his arrogant bullshit because he’s a soccer star? How fucking stupid.

So stupid, in fact, that I’m still stewing about it the next day at lunch. I should’ve sat at the other end of the table. Now, whenever I talk to my friends, I see Alex watching me from across the room. As soon as my eyes meet his, he flashes me a smug grin like he knows he caught me, so eventually I just stop looking in his direction altogether.

I shouldn’t let him get to me, none of this should matter. But as soon as the bell rings, I grab my bag and rush back to class. Once safely back in U.S. History, Grayson Maggard reaches over and flips off the lights as Coach Wheeler prepares to turn on the rest of the movie we started before lunch. Everyone was pumped at Wheeler’s choice to showSelmaas our cap on the Civil Rights Movement, but he only did so on the condition that Grayson would yell out some code word to alert him if someone in the administration knocked on the door while it was playing.

“Lutz,” Coach Wheeler calls across the room, motioning for me to approach his desk, “someone found your glasses case in the hall. You can run down and pick it up in—” he squints at the monitor, “122.”

I peer over his shoulder at the desktop screen and there is indeed an email from Mrs. Cunningham, one of the English teachers.

FROM: Cunningham, Leslie

TO: Wheeler, Jim

SUBJECT: Lost and Found

Hi Coach,

Please send Dallas Lutz to room 122 to pick up her glasses case that was turned in.

He scribbles his signature on my school-issued agenda to indicate I’m allowed to be out of class and I head to wherever room 122 is.

After walking the entire perimeter of the first floor with no sign of this phantom classroom, I finally veer off into the library where, thankfully, Sydney is sitting behind the circulation desk next to the girl with teal eyes.

“Hi, Dallas,” she greets me in her lyrical voice.

“Hi, Sydney,” my tone is much less enthusiastic, “do you know where room 122 is?”

Sydney thinks for a moment. “Is it in the math hallway?”

“No, I looked there already. The rooms end before 122. It’s like it doesn’t even exist.”