Unfortunately, It's you

Three days before school started, someone stole my parking spot, keyed my dignity along with it, and I didn’t even get her name. In my defense, I’d been circling that grocery store lot for a solid two minutes, hazards on, patiently waiting for the ancient minivan in the spot to back out so I could claim it — a small, reasonable goal on an otherwise unremarkable Saturday. Then, out of nowhere, a hatchback the color of a traffic cone swooped in from the opposite direction and took it. Clean. Efficient. Merciless. I parked three rows back and walked over, mostly to see the face of whoever had just committed a crime against basic parking-lot decency. She was already out of the car, phone in hand, completely unbothered. “That spot was mine,” I said. It came out more indignant than I intended, but I stood by it. “There’s no name on it,” she said, not even looking up. “Also, you were going like two miles an hour. That’s not parking, that’s contemplating your life choices.” “I was being careful. Some of us don’t want to hit shopping carts.” “There were no shopping carts.” “There could have been.” She finally looked up. Dark eyes, unimpressed, already done with me, like I was a mildly annoying weather pattern she had to wait out. “Wow. Okay. Good luck with that anxiety, champ.” “That’s not — I don’t have anxiety, I have awareness.” “Sure you do.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and started walking toward the store entrance like the conversation, and possibly my entire personality, had been settled. “Have a good one, Speed Racer.” “It’s not even about the spot anymore,” I called after her. “It’s the principle.” She didn’t turn around. She did, however, raise one hand and wave without looking back, which was somehow more infuriating than anything she’d said. I stood there a second too long, replaying it, trying to figure out if I’d won or lost that exchange. I decided I’d lost. Comprehensively. Then I went inside, bought the protein bars my mom had sent me for, and told myself I would never think about Traffic Cone Girl again. I thought about her twice on the drive home. Three times if you counted the version where I came up with a better comeback in the shower, which, for the record, I do not count, because everyone does that and no one talks about it. By Sunday I’d mostly forgotten her — filed under Petty Grievances, Minor, Resolved — and spent the rest of the weekend the way I spend every weekend before school starts: half-dreading it, half-counting down to seeing my friends again after a summer of everyone being scattered across different camps, jobs, and family trips. Milo had texted the group chat approximately forty times since June, mostly memes, occasionally something that suggested he’d had an actual thought. Dre had been suspiciously quiet, which either meant he was busy with training or plotting something. Knowing Dre, it could genuinely be either. Monday morning arrived the way first days always do — too early, too bright, backpack too stiff from a summer of not being used. I found my schedule taped inside my locker door where I’d stashed it after registration, confirmed I had AP Bio first period with Ms. Alvarez, and told myself this year was going to be fine. Better than fine. Junior year, a class schedule I didn’t hate, friends I’d known since middle school. Low bar, but I was clearing it. I walked into the classroom, found a seat near the window, and had approximately four seconds of peace before the door opened again and Traffic Cone Girl walked in like she owned the room. I watched it happen in real time — she scanned the seats, found the one open desk, which was, infuriatingly, one seat away from me, and sat down before she looked over and realized who was next to her. I watched it land. Recognition. Then horror. Then something that might have been a laugh she refused to let out, pressed flat behind her lips. “You,” she said. “Me,” I said. “Small school.” “Unfortunately.” “I could say the same thing.” “You could,” she agreed, already pulling out a notebook like this was beneath further discussion. “But you won’t, because you’re going to spend the whole class trying to think of something clever to say back to unfortunately, and by the time you think of it, it’ll be lunch.” She wasn’t wrong. That was, in fact, exactly what I did for the next forty minutes while Ms. Alvarez went over the syllabus, and I hated that she’d called it before it happened. The bell rang. She was out of her seat and through the door before I’d even finished packing my bag, and I sat there a second too long — again — trying to figure out if I’d just lost round two. I had. It didn’t matter. I already knew this year was going to be a problem.