The thought makes me blush, then bums me out since he’s ignoring me now.
“You never know,” I tell her, shrugging. “Maybe he’s finally realizing his life would be way better with someone as awesome as you in it.”
Sara beams at me, then darts a look over her shoulder in his direction. Turning back to face me, she sighs happily. “He totally is. It’s fate.”
I flash her a smile and take a sip of my fruit punch.
Lunch eventually ends and we all make our way outside to recess. All recess really is, is a bunch of people standing around talking to their own friends. When we were kids we all played together, but now that we have our own social circles, that’s where we stay.
Me and Sara, though, we’re the entirety of our circle. It’s stupid and unfair, but Sara doesn’t have many other friends, and none but me that hang out with her outside of class. She never has, not since Valerie Johnson snubbed her in first grade.
That’s how we became friends, actually. Every year, Valerie Johnson (the most popular girl in our grade) hosts a sleepover at her house. Each year, it gets more and more exclusive, and there are rumors going around that this year, she’s going to have boys there. Hunter and Wally are at the top of the rumored guest list, which bums Sara out for a lot of reasons.
In first grade, for Valerie’s very first slumber party, her social circle wasn’t exclusive yet, so every girl in our class was invited—every girl except Sara. Apparently, because Sara has epilepsy, Valerie’s mom thought she might “have a fit” and ruin the party for everyone else. Valerie thought nothing of telling literally everyone in school that’s why Sara wasn’t invited, and because some people are just absolutely horrible, kids started making fun of her for it.
I only had to see Sara get teased and isolated once to get mad. I ripped up my invitation to Valerie’s party and went home and told my mom what had happened. She reached out to Sara’s mom, and on the night of Valerie’s first slumber party, me and Sara had our first sleepover at my house.
I’m sure we had more fun than they did, anyway.
Since Valerie’s popularity only grew and grew, and since Valerie is the type of girl who doubles down when she’s in the wrong instead of admitting she behaved badly and apologizing, Sara remained a social outcast. Me, I’m not really a social outcast, it’s just that being Sara’s friend sort of limits my ability to hang out with anyone else.
That’s okay with me, though. I don’t want to be friends with anyone who would avoid Sara over something she can’t help.
Sara gasps, pulling me from my thoughts. “They’re looking at us,” she says, her voice an excited whisper. “They’re looking at us.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about, but a second later I see Hunter and Wally standing with their group of friends, and sure enough, a few of them are looking at us.
Why are they looking at us? Is Hunter talking about me? Before I can get lost down that rabbit hole, I break his gaze and turn around. I start walking, but I don’t know where I’m going.
“What are you doing?” Sara demands lowly, reluctantly following me. “Riley!”
“I don’t know,” I admit, feeling frustrated by my own reaction. It’s just that Hunter and I have never interacted in front of other people, and I don’t know what that would look like. I’m not nervous to see him when it’s just the two of us, but around his friends… he might be a whole different person, and I don’t want to see it.
I am approaching the doors back inside when Sara finally stops walking. “What the heck, Riley? Where are you going?”
“I need to pee,” I lie.
She seems annoyed with me. “I’m staying out here.”
I tell the recess monitor I need to use the restroom so she lets me go back into the school. I walk toward the restrooms slowly, since I did say that’s why I was inside. If anyone catches me roaming the halls, I’d like to actually be doing what I said I was doing. Saying, “I spazzed when a boy I might kind of like looked at me during recess” probably wouldn’t work.
God, why did I do that? Hunter has been nice to me. He even bought me a new backpack. There’s no reason to automatically assume he would be a jerk in front of his friends.
Except that he’s always a jerk around his friends. That was my impression of him when I stumbled across him on the bridge that day, and it was my impression for a reason.
Do I really want to hold on to an illusion of him? If he can’t be nice to me in front of his friends, then I have no business hanging out with him to begin with.