Connection (Le Garde) (3 page)

Alarm shot through her. I forgot how strange it was being so in tune with someone else’s emotions, but the more time I spent with her, the more natural it felt. “No, why would he? Did you tell anyone?”

“
No, did you?”

Anna cleared her throat. “I told Steven, but he wouldn’t tell Jordan.”

“
Oh.” I looked at the road, stopping for a red light. “Why did you tell him?”

“
I just thought he’d like to know. I’d want him to tell me if he started tutoring a girl one-on-one.”

“
Right.” I hadn’t had a girlfriend since Sam, so I didn’t know much about relationships. I saw where she was coming from, though. I just hoped he didn’t cause any problems.

In response to my apprehensiveness about Steven, Anna started to feel annoyed. “It’s not a big deal,” she told me. “Don’t make it a big deal.”

“
Make what a big deal?” I asked.

“
Me telling Steven. He doesn’t care. He was just worried about Jordan being there.”

“
Right, I’m going to invite Jordan to our tutoring sessions.” Why was I getting annoyed?

Anna let out a sigh. “Whatever.”

“
We should keep our lessons quiet. In case Jordan wants to do more than spill stuff on you.”

Anna shuddered. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then fell silent. But the emotions flooding through her were enough—she was scared that he’d start harassing her again.

We soon approached Anna’s street. “Maybe you should drop us off a block away,” she said.

“
Um.
 
.
 
.” Ginger said from the back seat. “I already told mom we got a ride from him.”

I could feel Anna’s exasperation as I pulled up to their house. I didn’t know why—was it that big of a deal? I used to visit a lot in middle school since I could get here in fifteen minutes on foot. It was a modest three bedroom house with chipped yellow paint.

Anna turned in her seat. “I don’t want to worry Mom about Jordan,” she told her sisters. “Let’s just keep it between us, okay Allie?”

“
Okay,” Allie said, opening her door. An old McDonald’s bag fell out.

“
Don’t worry about it, just throw it anywhere,” I told her.

I looked up and saw Anna’s mom coming out of the front door. She was a tall, thick woman originally from one of the Congos, the one that has a lot of war. Her daughters had inherited the same full lips and round face, but their skin was a bit lighter because of their dad. He’d left soon after I met Anna, and I had no idea where he was now. I stepped out of the car and gave her a small wave.

Allie and Ginger walked inside, but Anna came to stand by me. She already had her sweatshirt over her arm, my jacket left in the car.

“
Aaron?” Ms. Beauvais said in her thick accent, walking through the gate. “I haven’t seen you for a while.”

“
Yeah, I know,” I said. “How are you doing?”

“
Fine.” Ms. Beauvais looked past me at the car. “Do you have your license now?”

“
Yeah.” I almost reached into my wallet and brought it out to prove it.

“
Did you get a car, too?”

“
Oh, no, this is my brother’s car.”

“
Mitch?”

I nodded. Was the interrogation over? Usually Ms. Beauvais was pretty laid back with me, but it’d been a while since I’d been here.

Ms. Beauvais turned to Anna. “Why did you leave early?”

“
The guy behind me spilled coke all over me,” Anna said, holding up her sweatshirt with a convincing grimace.

Ms. Beauvais frowned, and her gaze went over Anna’s frizzy hair. Anna usually had every strand in place. “What happened to your hair?”

“
He got it in my hair, too,” Anna said. She smiled at me, the first smile she’d given me in months. “Thanks for the ride.”

“
Yeah, no problem,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“
Thank you, Aaron,” Ms. Beauvais said as they turned toward the gate. “Goodnight.”

“
Goodnight,” I said, opening my car door. I got in and started the engine. Anna walked in the house, her emotions gradually growing dimmer in my mind. The distance between us became too great for me to feel her at all, and I drove away.

3.
des cruautés (acts of cruelty)

Anna

If there was one thing I learned about Jordan and his friends who thrived off of hassling other people, it was not to make a big deal. It seemed like he fed off of making other people miserable, so I had to act unfazed. Of course, sometimes this completely backfired, like if they really wanted a reaction and wouldn’t stop until they got one. The bulk of my sophomore year was a roller coaster of trying to predict the cruelty of high schoolers. Trying to figure out how to curb it, how to survive it.

Fortunately, Jordan left me alone over the weekend, so that was good. He didn’t have my number, and my Facebook was totally private, but he’d found ways in the past.

I hardly saw him at all on Friday, but on Monday we had Composition together. He grinned at me as I walked in. “Enjoy the game on Thursday?”

“
It was fun,” I said shortly, walking past him. I sat behind him—not by choice, but because he’d talked too much with Brett when he was on the other side of the room. At the beginning of the week, Mrs. Hart had finally had enough of it and put him in the only empty desk, the one in front of me.

He turned halfway in his seat so he could look at me. “Your sweatshirt’s all right?”

“
What if it wasn’t?” I raised my eyebrows. “Would you buy me a new one? Because you’re just that nice?” Maybe it was too risky to be cheeky, but I refused to give him power over me. Even though he already had a lot.

Jordan looked surprised at first, then he actually laughed. “Yeah, sure. Right after you buy me some new tennis shoes.”

“
Didn’t you get back at me for that when you vandalized my mom’s car?” I could still faintly see the outline of the huge word, ‘Slut.’

“
That wasn’t me,” Jordan said.

I shrugged. This conversation wasn’t going well, and I didn’t want to annoy him. So much for acting aloof and above him.

He turned away when Mrs. Hart stood up to take roll. I breathed in relief, slumping in my chair. Mrs. Hart’s perky voice carried over side conversations. Once she was finished, she clapped her hands and took off her reading glasses, which were bright red cat-eye frames.

“
Everyone have their copies of
1984
out?” Mrs. Hart asked, holding up her copy of George Orwell’s dystopian.

I had my own copy, actually, had bought it in freshman year at a used book sale at the library. I hated it when the school lent you a copy you couldn’t write or highlight. If my mom or I had more money, I’d try to buy my own copy for every book we read. 

“
I’ll take your weekly questions now,” Mrs. Hart said.

I found my copy of her weekly questions, which she’d printed on hot pink paper this week. I passed it to Jordan silently. He looked at an answer of mine and scribbled something on his paper. I gritted my teeth, crossing my arms. I hated that he sat in front of me now.

Mrs. Hart cleared her throat, now standing at the front of our row. “Jordan?”

“
Oh, sorry, Anna forgot to put her name on hers,” Jordan said, passing our papers forward.

“
No, I didn’t,” I said under my breath.

He smirked and glanced over his shoulder at me. “What’s that?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head.

“
Okay,” Mrs. Hart said, raising her voice, “today I thought we could talk mostly about question two. The technology of
1984.
When Orwell wrote this, it was 1949.
Do you think he did a good job of imagining the future?”

There was a moment of silence. I fiddled with my pencil, glancing around. A few kids in the front looked at each other with confused expressions on their faces. “Well,” one of them said. Brandy, a girl on the dance team. “They’re not using technology to, like, spy on us.”

“
Some people think they are,” Mrs. Hart said. “I think what Orwell is trying to say is that technology can be used for evil as well as good. It’s used by the government in
1984,
isn’t it? How is it used? Let’s find some examples. Open your books, please.”

Gosh, did she have to spoon feed it to us? I wished she’d give us a chance to actually discuss things and figure it out for ourselves.

We spent the
entire
class period talking about technology. I knew it was an interesting aspect of the book, but hardly the most important. The section we’d read this week had talked about the lottery—what about that? Tricking the masses into thinking there was a way out? Giving them false hope?

She walked us through a couple passages about technology. To be honest, I zoned out. I’d read this book before this class. I read a lot more books than most kids my age, especially in the first half of my life because of our lack of cable. I thought Ginger would do good without so much TV and phone and Internet, but whenever I mentioned it, Ginger told me to stop telling her what to do.

I understood why Aaron wanted my help. I was the bookworm; he was the math whiz. We made a good team in middle school. We’d do homework at each other’s house. Our parents had wondered why we were so studious, but it was simply because we couldn’t do it without each other. Without learning it ourselves, like normal kids. That’s what I’d done for the last year in Algebra. I didn’t want to admit it, but maybe it would be nice to have Aaron’s knowledge with the subject again.

After class, I put my things away slowly as everyone left. I walked up to Mrs. Hart’s desk once we were the only two left in the classroom. “Um, Mrs. Hart,” I said. “I was wondering if I could move to Jordan’s old seat.”

Mrs. Hart lowered her reading glasses to study me. “Oh? Why would you want to move?”

I shrugged. Mrs. Hart taught juniors and seniors, so I doubt she’d heard about everything that happened last year. “Well, maybe it’s stupid, but Jordan and I went out last year, and it didn’t end that well, and I just don’t feel comfortable sitting next to him.”

Mrs. Hart let out a huff. “Well, Anna, I didn’t expect something like that from you.”

My cheeks grew warm. “I know, but he’s just.
 
.
 
.I mean, would it be a problem if I moved?”

“
No,” Mrs. Hart said, drawing the word out. “But it seems so silly.”

I made my voice firmer. “It’s not. Jordan and I don’t get along.”

“
How about this? If he bothers you, then you can come talk to me, and we can work something out.” She put her reading glasses back on and looked down at her papers. “Otherwise, you’ll just have to deal with it.”

“
Fine.” I pursed my lips as I left.

* * *

I texted Aaron, asking if we could meet at the public library instead of at school. I didn’t want Jordan’s little episode on Thursday to turn into a full-blown butthole relapse.

He texted back,
Good idea. I’ll meet you there after school
.

I rode the bus to the public library. I came here a lot after school, and then I usually ended up walking home with a backpack that weighed a million pounds. Exercising the body and the mind, right?

A little past three, I arrived. It was an older building, but the librarians were always trying to modernize it and think of new ways to get patrons in. It was two stories and every last square footage was used. There were little alcoves hidden everywhere, comfortable chairs and couches with the ugliest red and orange patterns, and, of course, bookshelves filled to the brim.

I took out my phone, ready to text Aaron. After a second, I put it away, wondering if I could find him myself. I let out a breath and tuned out the beeping from the books from being checked out, the people checking in to get a computer, the kids running to the children’s section.

He was upstairs somewhere, I was sure of it. Something nudged me upstairs—that part of my mind that called out for him, that fit with his perfectly, that betrayed all my other inclinations to push him away.

I went up the stairs. The teen section was upstairs, along with a lot of the nonfiction. I smiled and waved at Lisa, the librarian for the teen area. She was fifty years old but looked and acted thirty. Or even younger. She beamed at me, waving back. The teen section was a little too flashy—the neon signs reminded me of a casino—but I spent a lot of time here, regardless. When I started reading a book, I could block out pretty much everything around me. Even the guys who came up here to regularly play those dragon roleplaying games.