She glanced over her shoulder, as though expecting to be apprehended at any moment, and Toby grabbed for one of the vanilla cupcakes.
“Fifty points for irony if we get food poisoning,” he said. “By the way, Phoebe, this is Cassidy. And you know Ezra.”
Phoebe, who was still basking in the glory of her cupcake heist, glanced at me and nearly dropped her iced tea. “Holy crap. I’m five minutes late and I miss the most historic lunch-table switch in the annals of the upper quad.”
“I thought you didn’t do annals, Phoebs,” Luke said with a wink.
Phoebe picked up a cupcake, smashed the frosting down with her tongue, and offered it to Luke with an evil grin. “I don’t know about that. How about some sloppy seconds, Sheppard?”
Luke took the cupcake and bit into it with relish, antagonizing her. I wondered how long they’d been dating. Phoebe, who was not, in fact, a notorious cupcake thief, was actually the editor of the school paper.
“So Ezra,” Phoebe said, sliding onto the bench next to Luke. “How’s life as a teenage vampire?”
Toby snorted, and Cassidy snickered through a mouthful of cupcake.
“Oh come on,” Phoebe continued. “You’re asking for it. Pale skin, black clothes, no lunch, and that whole brooding thing? It’s hilarious. You should get some body glitter and go after an unsuspecting freshman.”
“You should!” Cassidy agreed. “Tell her you’re a dangerous monster. And mention how good her blood smells.”
“Wrong time of the month on that one, and I’m getting slapped,” I muttered, and everyone laughed.
“You’re funny.” Phoebe passed me the last chocolate cupcake. “And I always thought your friends were laughing over their own farts.”
“Ninety percent of Eastwood’s male population laughs over their own farts,” Toby said. “Present company excluded, naturally.”
“How many points would I lose if I farted right now?” Luke asked with a chuckle.
“Don’t even think about it!” Phoebe warned, preemptively scooting away from him.
I peeled the wrapper off my cupcake and glanced toward my old lunch table, where Charlotte had climbed onto Evan’s lap. She was texting, her ponytail spilling over one shoulder. Evan’s hand was on her thigh. Suddenly, she looked up and caught me staring. She nudged Evan, who glanced over as well, clearly wondering what I was doing at a different table. But it turned out they didn’t really care, because half a moment later, they were sucking face.
“Come on, new girl,” Phoebe said, standing up. “Let’s go to the bathroom.”
Once Phoebe and Cassidy had gone, Luke chuckled and shook his head.
“Can someone please explain why my girlfriend is going to the bathroom with Cassidy Thorpe?”
“I know nothing about the intricacies of female pack behavior,” said Sam. “But I do know that we need to expand Friday’s guest list.”
Luke shot Sam a dark look.
“Sorry,” Sam muttered, glancing guiltily in my direction.
“What the heck?” Austin said. “I thought she disappeared, and now she’s at Eastwood? It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t make sense?” I asked.
“Any of it.” Toby balled up his cupcake wrapper. “But then, Cassidy always liked it that way. You know how I said she was unbeatable at debate? That’s not the half of it. She never seemed to try. She’d show up to tournaments in blatant dress code violations, throw a picnic in an elevator, and not even bother to come to the awards ceremony. She competed for this really snotty prep school, which made it even stranger. But she quit after winning the State Quals last year. Gave up her spot at the State championship four days before the tournament, and the rumor was that she’d left school suddenly, just completely disappeared.”
“Did you ever find out why?” I asked.
“Like anyone can get a straight answer out of Cassidy.” Toby laughed.
“Incoming,” Austin muttered, nodding toward Phoebe and Cassidy.
Everyone turned to stare at them guiltily, but I was watching something entirely different—the spectacle of Charlotte and Evan, and their all-too-public face sucking.
When the girls rejoined us, Phoebe glanced at my uneaten cupcake before reaching across the table to pat my hand.
“Don’t worry,” she teased. “There’s some nice O positive in the nurse’s office if you’re thirsty.”
8
I DON’T KNOW if you’ve ever been in line at the drugstore or somewhere, and the person behind you is chewing gum directly in your ear, and it’s so repulsive that you suspect they’re doing it on purpose and you’re a complete pushover for standing there and taking it. There was something about Evan and Charlotte that made me feel exactly like that. Something so deeply and personally offensive about the two of them all over each other that I just couldn’t handle it, even though the initial shock of it had originally fooled me into believing that I didn’t care.
So I might as well admit that, deep down, I’d known what I was doing when I decided to eat lunch with Toby instead of sitting with my old crew. Over the course of the week, I went out of my way to avoid my old friends, as I’d done all summer, and they seemed baffled by it, and more than a little bit hurt. I couldn’t figure out why they even cared. They couldn’t really have thought I’d turn up for that game of paintball or that last-minute rafting trip, or any of the other ridiculous things they’d texted me about. I mean, not one of them had even bothered to visit me in the hospital.