LITMIR.BIZ

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to be directing freshman to the nonexistent fourth-floor pool, not getting lost going down the main hall.

      “I know it’s not the subway, but finding your way around here can be tricky. Let me give you a quick tour at least.” Khabria’s dark eyes warm with the kind of sympathy I’m used to giving, not receiving. I definitely prefer being in charge, not being led around. But I guess I don’t have much choice now.

      “Okay. So...I see my next class from here. After that I have to head across this courtyard...or, wait? Is that a stairwell...?”

      “C’mon.” Khabria marches me to my next classroom and bats her lashes at the cute young teacher manning the door. “Mr. Webster, this is Agnes. It’s her first day, and I’m her peer guide. Is it okay if I take her on a quick tour once the halls empty?”

      Mr. Webster crosses his arms over his wide chest and sighs. “Ten minutes, Ms. Scott. Agnes will already be playing catch-up.”

      “Fifteen? Please, sir?” she says, bartering with a flirty edge to her voice and biting her bottom lip for good measure.

      Mr. Webster looks decidedly uncomfortable. He takes off his nerdy-cute glasses and cleans the lenses with the tail of his half-tucked dress shirt. “Fine. Go, quickly, so you can get Agnes back as soon as possible.”

      “Thank you, Mr. Webster,” she singsongs. We leave him frowning at his polished shoes.

      Khabria whirls me down the hall, giggling the whole way, and I feel normal for a split second. When we’re at the stairwell, she tugs me close, glances over her shoulder, and dishes some seriously crazy gossip. “Webster tries to play it cool, but everyone knows he’s dating a girl who just graduated last year...and they started seeing each other before school was out.” Her eyes go wide and her perfect eyebrows rise up until they almost disappear in her hair.

      “Did they get caught?”

      There was a rumor about one of the teacher’s aides and a senior at Newington when I was in tenth grade. But the rumor barely had time to circulate before the aide was gone without a word. I can’t imagine what it would have been like if we found out the rumor was true, then passed that aide in the halls every day...

      “No, but we all know it’s true. He was at a few high school parties over the summer, always looking like he wanted to disappear. Oh, here are the math labs, and your next classroom after you leave Webster’s class is the middle one.” She waves a hand at a cluster of rooms filled with students silently scribbling complicated geometry equations on whiteboards, then sneers. “I don’t know why he’d risk showing his face where there could be students around. I mean, it’s not like anyone told on him, but someone could’ve, and now he can’t get respect no matter how tough he tries to act because how do you respect someone with that little sense? Last year, he was one of the strictest teachers we had. This year, I think he’s just waiting on us to graduate, so one more class that went to school with his little girlfriend will be gone and out of his hair.”

      Khabria’s words cut like a razor through tissue paper, and I realize she’s almost gleeful. I kind of get it. Right or wrong, there’s a certain thrill in holding power over the people who are supposed to be in authority, especially when they screw up.

      “Has he ever made a pass at any of the other girls?” I ask. I try my best to avoid gossip for the most part, but there’s something weirdly comforting about it. It gives you the illusion you’re sharing a secret—even if the secret is something everyone in school is talking about.

      “Nah. Apparently it was true love with him and that one girl, or whatever. Guidance office.” She points and it’s reassuring to see the familiar “mountain climber with an inspirational quote underneath” poster that must be required decor for every guidance office in the country.

      “That’s crazy,” I murmur as I poke my head in and peek at the out-of-date computers and dusty college manuals. “I’d probably quit if I were him.”

      “People ’round here are stubborn like that though.” She shakes her braids out with her fingers. “My gram always says people have more pride than sense. They’d rather be miserable than admit defeat. I think some people just like being miserable, period.” We stroll down a back hall. “Food science, shop, child care, music room,” she ticks off.

      “I definitely get that vibe from some people.” I decide to test the waters. “No offense if they’re your friends, but those two cheerleaders in our English class seemed pretty bent on spreading misery...at least toward me.”

      Khabria’s pace slows and a blush warms the deep brown skin over her perfect cheekbones. “People sometimes forget we’re supposed to be hospitable to newcomers, especially if we’re on cheer. I know the other girls came off badly today, but their bark is definitely worse than their bite. They prolly thought they were being funny or something.” She shrugs. “That whole pride thing. Don’t take anything they say to heart. Maybe it’s a side effect of being squad leaders every year since we were in peewee cheer—maybe they’re just used to ribbing on the new girl.”

      “So they’ve always been the queen-bee types?” I can so imagine the Generic Mean Girls as preschoolers with pigtails and bows, lording over the snack table while they nibbled their graham crackers and sipped their juice boxes.

      “Ain’t my queens,” Khabria bites out. She sighs and takes it down a notch. “Look, some people are really into cliques here. They have their friends, their jokes, their way of doing things... If you don’t like them, my best advice for you is just stay away.”

      I realize I touched a nerve, and I get it. There are girls I would have counted as my best friends in middle school but haven’t spoken a word to in years—girls I’d still defend if anyone else tried to talk crap about them. People—even people you care about—can change so fast, and loyalties get complicated.

      “Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.” By now we’ve rounded back to the main hall and Mr. Webster’s class, all the initial closeness we shared over steamy gossip withered.

      “Agnes, Khabria!” Mr. Webster pokes his head out the door, calls down the hall to us, and taps his watch in warning. “You’re five minutes late. Let’s hustle.”

      “Thank you for showing me around.” I clutch my map in shaking fingers, off-kilter after possibly offending the first person who was actually nice to me.

      “You’re welcome. Let me know if you need help with anything else today.” Khabria’s voice runs as cold as the water around an iceberg. She hesitates, then says, “Look, most people here are good folk. We get along, we help each other out. Don’t judge anyone too harshly based on a few minutes of knowing them.”

      I watch her skirt flutter as she flounces away before I can answer, and I slip into class. My classmates text on their phones, paint their nails, and chat as Mr. Webster robotically lectures, his body language limp with defeat. I wonder if he regrets anything. I wonder if staying here at Ebenezer was him standing his ground or giving up.

      If I stay here, would it be standing my ground or giving up? Bells ring, classes move, and I follow my map like a pro now that Khabria’s shown me the basic layout. For the rest of the day, I’m mostly ignored. Which is fine. I’m only enduring. Just a few months.

      Just the rest of my senior ye—

      It’s like I accidentally pulled the plug on a hot bubble bath. I search under the suds to plug it back up because if I don’t, every single emotion I’ve kept bottled up will drain, hot and wet and embarrassing.

      No girl who grew up on the mean streets of Brooklyn (all right...fairly gentrified Crown Heights, but still) is going to cry on her first day of school in Nowhere, Georgia. I’d have to beat in my own ass. It wouldn’t be pretty.

      The final bell tolls and crowds press out of doorways and into the hall on every side of me, a tsunami of bodies. I don’t care about being jostled, but it’s weird to not have a solitary soul waiting for me by a locker or gesturing for me to sneak down a back hall and beat the

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