Page 5 of Finding Her
“Just bruised.” Along with my ego, because somehow on the first day of school, everyone had seen me get hit in the face with a dodgeball. At least none of them were in my grade—it would take a while for the news to spread around to people who actually knew me and by then, I’d hopefully be able to turn it into a funny anecdote instead of melting into a puddle of embarrassment.
Lilah pulled a blazer out of her closet and threw it on her bed, but instead of getting changed, she turned her attention to me and frowned.
“I don’t think that’s going to work,” she said.
I sighed and dropped the bottle back onto my desk beside the rest of my makeup. She was right, it was doing nothing to cover up the discoloration on my face. That’s what I got for only buying light-coverage foundations. I could go out and buy a new foundation after school, but it was only lunch right now. I’d decided finding a way to cover this up before afternoon classes was more important than getting a full meal. Lilah had the samethought as me, except she was getting a new shirt instead since she’d spilled coffee on hers this morning. Apparently, neither of us were having a great start to our junior year.
“Maybe I should just pretend to have a contagious illness until it goes back to normal,” I suggested. “Like the chicken pox or something.”
Lilah snorted. “Everyone’s had the chicken pox already. There wouldn’t be anyone for you to infect.”
“The flu, then,” I said.
“Here.” A new bottle dropped over my shoulder, landing softly on the towel in front of me. When I picked it up, I realized it was Lilah’s foundation.
“Are you sure?” I asked softly, glancing at her over my shoulder. I was surprised at the gesture. It wasn’t that Lilah and I hadn’t gotten along in the short time we’d known each other, it was just that we weren’t reallyfriendsyet. We hadn’t gotten the chance to really get to know one another or bond in any sort of way.
“It’s just my foundation, not a kidney,” Lilah said, rolling her eyes. But there was a smile tugging at her lips, telling me she wasn’t actually annoyed with me. “It’s probably not even the right shade.”
She was right about it being the wrong shade, with her being much paler than me, but it still looked better than nothing so I was taking what I could get.
By the time I was done fixing my makeup, there was only fifteen minutes left of lunch. I was debating whether that would be enough time to run down to the cafeteria and grab something, when Lilah opened the mini fridge in the corner of the room and pulled out two containers. I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t had time to even think about what food I might want to keep up here and she was already fully stocked?
“Do you want spaghetti bolognese or…” She held the second container up to eye level so she could see through the clear side of it. It wasn’t food from the cafeteria, since they gave us brown takeout containers for that, so she must have brought it from home. “I think chicken something.”
“Well, based on that description, I think I’ll take the bolognese,” I said.
“You have no sense of adventure,” Lilah said in mock disappointment. “Think of it as chicken surprise.”
But after she heated them up in the common room’s microwave, she happily handed over the bolognese without complaint. We sat down in the leather chairs in the corner of the common room, which were normally never free since they were the comfiest furniture in here, and dug in.
“So, I hear there’s a guy in your gym class,” Lilah said as we both started eating. I just nodded. “Did you see him?”
“Well, it would have been a little hard to avoid him,” I said, as I spun some more pasta onto my fork. I wondered why she even cared if there was a boy in the class. Sure, it was an unusual situation to have a boy in a normally single-sex class, but I didn’t see how it was that remarkable for anyone not actually in the class or who knew him.
“And?” Lilah asked, looking at me expectantly.
“And what?”
I had a feeling she was digging for information about him—who he was, if he was cute, things like that. But since our first meeting had been him throwing a dodgeball at my face, it was hard for me to give any objective facts. I guess I could admit he was cute. But then, he was the reason my nose was currently purple, so that had to knock the cuteness factor down a bit.
“Is it Levi Barrett?” She asked in a whisper, as if there was anybody else around to hear this conversation. There had been some girls in the halls when we first arrived at the beginning oflunch, but I was pretty sure they’d all gone down to the cafeteria by now. And even if they were here, I didn’t see the point of whispering the name of who she thought the boy was—if Lilah knew, then surely everyone did.
“He could be,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t get his name.”
Lilah groaned and flopped back into her chair dramatically. I’d learned, in the few months I’d been acquaintances with Lilah, that she dideverythingdramatically. Her sighs were dramatic, her eye rolls were dramatic, even the way she walked tended to be dramatic. Once I met her three siblings, I realized it was very much a family trait.
“Poppy, don’t you understand? This is life or death.”
I was gonna make a crack about how, yes, gym class was life or death and my nose proved it, but I had a feeling I knew that wasn’t what she was talking about, and she would probably just get annoyed.
“He’s just a boy, Lilah,” I said. And then, because she looked at me incredulously, I added, “A very cute boy.”
She sat up and started ticking off items on her fingers. “He’s a hockey player. He’s a senior. He is known by everybody. And most importantly, he has never dated anyone. Ever.”
I frowned. “Why is his dating life the most important part of this?”
Especially since he hadn’t dated anybody ever. He clearly wasn’t looking for a girlfriend.
