THE QUARTERBACKS UNTOUCHABLE GIRL

DRIVE TO SCHOOL

The drive to school was nine minutes.

I know because I counted. Not on purpose... I just needed something to do with my brain that wasn't thinking about what happened after the drive , so I watched the clock on the dashboard and counted the streets and told myself I was fine.

Dax didn't say anything. I didn't say anything. The radio was on low, some morning show where two people were laughing about something, and the laugh track felt like it was coming from a different planet.

He pulled into the school parking lot and found his usual spot... I knew it was his usual spot because three other cars had left a gap around it, like everyone just knew. He cut the engine and sat for exactly two seconds.

Then he got out.

No look back, no see you later or remember the plan or even basic acknowledgement that there was another human being in the passenger seat. He just got out, swung his bag over one shoulder, and walked.

I watched it happen through the windshield.

The transformation wasn't dramatic.

That was the thing, it wasn't like he visibly changed or put on a different face or squared his shoulders in some obvious way. It was more like... the other version of him just receded. Like a tide going out. The guy who'd texted thank you, really last night and crouched on the living room floor to take a plastic ring from his daughter... that guy just quietly left, and the one walking across the parking lot now had never existed.

By the time he reached Tyler and Marcus by the front steps he was laughing at something, head tilted back, completely easy. Every inch the golden boy. Every inch Dax Montero, star quarterback, most popular guy at Riverside Heights, person who had never heard of me.

I sat in the passenger seat and watched him become someone else.

Then I looked at the clock.

Five minutes, that was the deal.

I counted them.

The side entrance was around the back of the building, past the gym, through a door that was always propped open by a folded piece of cardboard that had been there so long it had fused to the floor. I'd used it before...not for this reason, just to avoid the main hallway when things were bad. Which was most days.

I slipped in, the corridor back here was quieter, mostly lockers for juniors, a stretch of empty wall with an old trophy case nobody looked at. I kept my head down and moved toward the main hall.

My locker was on the east side, section C. I'd had it for three years. I knew which way the lock stuck, knew to lift the handle slightly before turning or it jammed, knew the shelf inside was crooked and everything slid to the left.

I turned the corner into the main hallway.

I kept walking, eyes forward. Almost there... section B, almost at C, almost...

"Well."

I stopped.

Brynn Whitley was leaning against my locker.

Not near it, on it. Arms crossed, one shoulder pressed to the metal, like she'd been there a while. Like she'd been waiting. Madison was to her left, Chloe to her right, phones already out because of course they were. A few other people had slowed down without fully stopping, that specific hallway thing where everyone pretends they're not watching while definitely watching.

Brynn looked at me the way a cat looks at something that has just walked into a corner it didn't know was a corner. Patient and pleased.

"There she is," she said.

I didn't say anything. I just needed to get to my locker, I could do that. I could walk forward, open my locker, get my books, leave. Simple four steps.

I walked forward.

She didn't move.

I stopped in front of her. "I need my locker."

"I know." She didn't move. "In a second." She tilted her head and looked at me like I was something she was evaluating. "You look terrible, by the way. Like you didn't sleep."

"Can you move, please."

"I heard you got kicked out," she said. Like we were talking about the weather. "Your stepmom just... what, threw you out? With trash bags?" She glanced at Madison. "Is that what Sarah's brother said?"

"He said trash bags on the lawn," Madison confirmed. "Like, plural. Multiple bags."

"Multiple bags." Brynn looked back at me. Her smile sharpened. "So where are you sleeping now, fatty? Under a bridge?"

The hallway slowed.

That's the only way I can describe it...everything got slightly more deliberate, the way it always did when Brynn found her target. People who'd been walking past started walking slower, someone laughed, quiet, from a few feet away. Someone else pulled out their phone.

I felt my face go hot and I hated that. I hated that my body still did that, still broadcasted every hit, still couldn't stay neutral when she aimed at me in front of people. I'd been dealing with Brynn Whitley for three years and I still couldn't make my face stop.

"None of your business where I'm sleeping," I said. My voice came out steady which was a small victory.

"No?" She pushed off the locker and stood up straight, which meant she had about three inches on me, which I knew she knew. "Because you look like you slept outside. You look like you slept in a ditch somewhere." She leaned slightly closer. "And you smell weird again. Like yesterday. What is that?"

Baby powder, from Willa's diaper this morning.

I'd scrubbed my hands. I'd changed my hoodie... the spare one, the one that hadn't been spit-up on yet, I'd thought I'd gotten rid of it.

"I don't smell like anything," I said.

"You really do." She wrinkled her nose. Performed it for the people watching. "It's like... baby powder? Which is so random. Unless..." She stopped. Made a face like she was thinking. "Are you babysitting somewhere? Like, for money? Oh my god." She looked at Madison. "Is she babysitting strangers' kids for, like, cash? For a place to stay?"

"That's so sad," Chloe said, filming.

"I'm not..." I stopped. Because anything I said right now was the wrong thing. Deny it and she pushes harder, confirm it and she has a story. Say nothing and the silence confirms it anyway.

There was no right answer, there was never a right answer with Brynn. That was the whole design.

"Where are you staying, Astrid?" she asked. Quieter now, which was somehow worse. Like we were having a real conversation. Like she actually wanted to know. "Just tell me, I'm asking nicely."

Down the corridor, past the section B lockers, I could see the edge of the main entrance hallway, a group of guys from the football team, someone's jacket, a familiar laugh.

Dax.

He was maybe forty feet away with his back to me, one hand on Tyler's shoulder, saying something that made the whole group c***k up. Tyler shoved him, and he shoved back. Easy, comfortable, the physical language of people who know each other well and like each other.

Forty feet away, and he didn't turn around.

"Fatty." Brynn snapped her fingers in front of my face. Not hard, just enough. "I'm talking to you."

I looked back at her.

"I found a place to stay," I said. "It's fine, and I'm fine."

"With who?"

"A family."

Her eyes narrowed. Fractional. If I hadn't been looking right at her I would've missed it.

"What family?"

"Nobody you know."

She stared at me for a moment. That calculating look again, the one that meant she was filing things away, building something. Then the smile came back.

"Okay," she said lightly. She stepped aside. My locker was free. "You can get your stuff."

I stepped forward and opened my locker. My hands were completely steady, I was very proud of my hands.

"For what it's worth," Brynn said, behind me, at a volume carefully calibrated for the surrounding audience, "wherever you are? They're probably just feeling sorry for you." A pause. "That's the only reason anyone lets someone like you in."

Madison laughed, Chloe said oh my god, Brynn in the tone that meant she loved it.

I got my books, I closed my locker and I walked away without looking at any of them.

Down the corridor, Dax laughed at something else his teammate said.

He didn't turn around.