Page 13 of Finding Her
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 issointo 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 usto 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 himBear?” 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 himsomething.
“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 hisgirlfriend,” 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.”
