Page 46 of In What World

This turns my mood around in record time. I rise up with such a renewed vigor that I feel compelled to wrap my leopard coat tighter around myself, as if the breeze of good gossip has chilled me to the bone.

“She’s not right for you anyway,” I say.

“Alice is amazing,” she replies. “She’s funny. And she’s diligent. And she’s kind. We’ll definitely get back together when I get back to my real life.”

“Sounds like how I describe my Lyft driver when the app asks me to provide feedback on the ride. You’re too boring to be with another boring person. It’s like the boring Olympics.”

“Thanks a lot,” she says.

“I’m just saying, you’re at your most interesting when you’re up against someone who challenges you. Alice is always going to play by the rules, and so are you. What happens when the two of you have different rules about something? Who wins that argument?”

She’s rolling her eyes, but there’s no gumption behind it. Maybe she can finally see that I’m not saying this to annoy her.

“You didn’t even know Alice in high school,” she tells me.

“Oh, Marlowe,” I say, twisting so that only my left shoulder’s on the lockers now, my head cocked sideways. “I knew Alice Yeungverywell. We had gym class together my senior year. She almost got me expelled.”

“I think I’d have heard about that,” Marlowe counters.

“You’re hearing about it right now,” I say. “She found drugs in the gym locker room after class one day, and she told the teacher.”

“Whoa, whoa.What?”

“She found drugs in the gym locker—”

Marlowe puts a finger on my lips. The contact delights me in a way I can’t disguise. I want to slip her finger between my lips and taste it. I want to push all of Marlowe Jenkins’s buttons.

“I heard you the first time,” she says, but it comes out shaky and fast. She yanks her finger away. “Why would Alice have ratted you out?”

“She didn’t know they were going to accuse me,” I say. “She just brought them to the gym teacher, that mean old guy who hated everyone. The one who insisted he used to be an elite-level volleyball player in his youth.”

“Mr. Brigg,” she says.

“Yes, Mr. Brigg. That fuck. She brought them to him when she found them, and he immediately thought it was me,because he was convinced I was up to no good. Really, I just had no patience for his personality. I hate when people are mean for no reason. And he was mean for the sport of it. It was honestly the only sport he actually taught, come to think of it.”

“He was terrible,” Marlowe confirms. “He retired the year after I started at WRHS as a teacher. I skipped his farewell party.”

“Good,” I say. “Anyway, yeah, they searched my gym locker right away. When they didn’t find anything, they still put me on an immediate one-day suspension. Literally pulled me out of school in my gym clothes so I couldn’t go get my personal belongings or mess around with anything anywhere else in the school. Like I had a fucking brick of cocaine in the costume room or something. The next day while I was absent, Jaz told me they brought drug dogs into the school and found a huge stash of stuff in Chelsea Franzini’s gymandpersonal lockers. They let me come back to school after that.”

Marlowe’s face has turned a curious shade of red. “What the fuck? That’s so fucked-up.”

“Look at you. You’re swearing at school.”

“Fucking yeah I am. What the hell?”

“To be fair to Alice, she felt terrible about it,” I say. “She was snot-bubble sobbing to me, apologizing. And I forgave her, because it wasn’t her fault. I know it’s kind of fucked-up to find a baggie of cocaine at school, and she did the right thing by turning it in. I don’t think it was narc behavior or anything. Genuinely. But it’s also the kind of situation she’s never going to forget, how I got wrongly blamed for it. So yeah, she knows me. And I know her, too.”

“Wow” is all Marlowe can say in response.

Her eyes flick to my lips. She tries to play it off, but I know.I saw. And I don’t want to pretend I didn’t. I keep my gaze on her mouth, unflinching. She has to be the one to take the bait.

So I wait. And wait. And wait.

“Let’s do some research,” she blurts, looking away.

Research.

“Of course,” I say with a smirk.