Win Some, Lose Some

“Joe’s going to work with our new student,” Mr. Jones said. “You will be working with Mayra.”

My heart began to pound, and blood rushed to my ears, which also began to pound. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to hold this one back, so I got up and ran out into the hallway.

I didn’t look back. With sweat running from my hairline and onto my neck, I headed straight for the front door, trying to figure out where I could go to hide.

I couldn’t sit in my car—not with the bumper the way it was—and there was no way I was going to hide out in either the bathroom or the locker room. One of the websites I ran was for a public health service, and I’d read the statistics. I wouldn’t even walk into a public restroom without a hazmat suit.

I ended up just running laps around the football field.

Once I managed to calm down, I went to the office and tried to change out of AP Ecology and into anything else, anything that would give me the science credit I needed for graduation.

“I’m sorry, Matthew,” the secretary told me, “but it’s too late in the semester to switch.”

“Is Mrs. Heath available?” Mrs. Heath was the special education consultant for the school. She worked in a lot of the schools around the county, and I met with her twice a year to go over my individual education plan.

“Mrs. Heath won’t be on site until next Tuesday.”

I wanted to bang my head against the wall, but giving myself a concussion certainly wasn’t going to help. I couldn’t just drop ecology for a study hall and graduate on time, and Mr. Jones was clear the project was going to be a major chunk of our semester grade, so I couldn’t just opt out of the project. I was stuck. I would have to do it to keep my GPA up.

I heard the door open behind me and looked back over my shoulder to see none other than Mayra Trevino herself, followed by Aimee. Mayra reached over the counter and dropped a paper on the office desk before turning to me with a smile.

“I tried to wait for you to come back,” she said quietly, “but Mr. Jones said we had to choose from a list today. I picked honey bees. I hope that’s okay.”

I just stared at her for a minute, watching the way her mouth moved while I tried to figure out just what the hell I was supposed to say back to her.

“Honey bees?” I finally managed to say.

“The depletion of honey bee populations could have a drastic impact on our ecosystems,” she replied.

“Oh…um…I have work to do tonight,” I finally said. “I can’t work on it.”

“Tomorrow, then?” she suggested. “We could work on it in the library or maybe at my place?”

Aimee shuffled her feet behind Mayra and tossed her long, brown hair over her shoulder. I wondered if she wanted to say something but was holding back. She had a soccer bag over her shoulder, and I figured they had already started practice for the spring season.

“Matthew,” Mayra said again, “is the library okay?”

“Not the library,” I said softly. That’s where Coach Lords, Justin’s father, worked as the librarian. He was as bad as Justin. He was worse, actually, because he had a position of authority within the school hierarchy. Every time he saw me, he badgered me to play football. They were always short on players, and if there weren’t enough people signed up to play, the funding would be cut.

“Okay,” she responded. “My place?”

“Your place?” I repeated, like a total idiot. Normally, I didn’t make eye contact with people, but I couldn’t stop looking at her eyes. I had never really looked at them before. Most people with brown eyes had speckles of a lighter color or a lot of variations in the hues, but hers were almost solid brown—like a chocolate bar.

“After school?”

“Okay.” I could barely get the sound out because I had totally stopped breathing.

“Cool! Do you need directions?”

“No,” I said. “I know where you live.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow!”

She turned to Aimee, and they both skipped out of the office while I tried to breathe again.

Different seat, different project partner, and soon a different car to drive—these were the kinds of things I couldn’t have stack up on me all at once. Despite the run around the field, I was still too worked up to deal with any more surprises today. I quickly signed myself out of school and headed off to the body shop to get my car assessed.

“Sorry, kid,” the guy at the body shop told me. “You have to be at least twenty-five to take out a rental car. It’s policy.”