Page 67 of Only Mostly Devastated

He looked at me with the expression of someone who’d been told their new puppy had been brutally murdered. Just as he collected himself to try to respond, class started, and he slumped back in his seat with a clenched jaw. He stayed like that until Ms. Ellison paused to hand out some booklets she’d made. Then, still looking at the front of the class as casual as anything, he said under his breath, “Please don’t do this.”

I ignored him.

“Ollie.”

I ignored him.

“I’m so sorry. I feel really awful about last night.”

Not awful enough to call me, or pull me aside and explain, or to not do it in the first place.

“Can we talk about this later?”

I ignored him.

When the bell rang, I continued to ignore him, and managed to storm off to my next class without Will being able to do much in the way of begging. Made partly more effective by the fact that Will couldn’t say a word where anyone else could hear, and school halls weren’t conducive to privacy. At lunchtime, I was strategic, and used this tomy advantage by going to the cafeteria instead of the music room so he couldn’t get me alone.

I’d expected the basketball guys to sit with us, especially after Niamh and Darnell’s consummation of sorts last night, but the roses had our table to ourselves today.

“It’s because Darnell and I had a… talk last night,” Niamh said once all three of us had sat down. “I told him I’m moving to New York next year.”

“And?” Lara asked.

“And,I think he had this picture of us staying here and raising a little family one day or something. He said he’s never wanted to live in a big city. So, honestly, I don’t know where we stand. I know he doesn’t want to come with me next year, but we haven’t really decided to call it quits, either. We’re in limbo.”

“Betwixt and between,” I said. “That’s the worst.”

“Is that a poem?” Niamh asked.

“Darnell is an idiot,” Lara said, pointing a french fry menacingly at Niamh. “Besides, the problem isn’t the city. If he got a job offer there I bet you he’d move in a heartbeat. He’s just intimidated by the thought of following around a strong woman while she chases her career instead of the other way around.”

“Preach!” said Niamh, raising her Diet Coke in a toast.

“I think the dance might have been cursed,” I said. Niamh nodded earnestly.

Lara gave us withering glances. “Um, the opposite, you mean? The dance cleansed us of the toxic baggage we were dragging around with us. Now we’re all available, unattached, and no longer bogged down by immature parasites leeching love from us and not giving back anything more substantial than a lackluster quickie in a storage closet.”

“You and Renee had a quickie in a storage closet?” I asked.

“It’s a figure of speech.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“Well, all the established figures of speech are so overdone.”

“Yeah, that’s what makes them figures of speech. If they’re not overdone, they’re just something someone said one time.”

“Ollie,” Lara said sweetly, “you can be really irritating sometimes. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Other than myself? Nope.”

The bad news was that the rose-gold dagger necklace I had around my neck wasn’t enough to ward off a Lara attack. The good news was that this was probably the most I’d ever spoken at the lunch table. I felt more comfortable than usual, too.

Maybe the night before hadn’t been a total write-off, then.

Will messaged me to meet him in the parking lot again, but I had no intention of doing that. I made a beeline for my car as soon as I left the building.

Footsteps smacked on the ground behind me as I put my hand on the car door. “Ollie, wait, please.”

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