#before rtc

She sits and watches with increasing trepidation as the seats around her begin to fill, though the one directly next to her stays empty. Each new face through the door sends a new thrill of anxiety surging in her chest. Will her partner be James McKinnon, the guy who egged the Principal’s car over the summer? He probably doesn’t even know who she is.

Maybe it’s Brittany S (not to be confused with Brittany C, who is actually quite a nice girl), who spends all of her time giggling in the back of the classroom and going to the bathroom every ten minutes. Quinn’s going to be forced to do all of the work if she’s stuck with her.

Or, worse, what if it’s Anna Haas? The thought makes nausea roil in her belly. Anna probably doesn’t remember but in fourth grade she’d called Quinn firecrotch and Quinn had cried about it for a day straight, even though she hadn’t really even known what it meant. And then she’d gone home and asked her mom to explain, and that had caused a whole new world of trouble.

But James, Brittany S, and Anna all end up sitting elsewhere to her relief and soon, the entire classroom is full, save for the seat next to her.

Disquiet prickles at the back of her neck. She knows it’s ridiculous and they’re all literally in their assigned seats, but it feels like everyone’s purposely giving her a wide berth, like she smells bad or something. And she definitely doesn’t; she’d woken up super early this morning to shower and get ready before her dad woke up. She smells like jasmine and vanilla, if the description on her bottle of Dollar Store shampoo is to be believed.

Her Casio shows nine on the dot and Mr Ward stands up, right on que. “Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to English Literature. I have very low hopes that all of you have actually finished your assigned readings, but-.”

The room to the classroom flies open and someone stumbles through, their chest heaving as if they’d sprinted from the other side of Brookside High. Their left shoe is untied and their hair is in disarray, but they’re smiling, lips curling around the puffs of their panting breaths.

“Fashionably late as ever, I see,” Mr Ward says wryly, regarding the student with a raised brow. “I thought we were turning over a new leaf this semester?”

“Sorry, Mr W,” you say, wiping your hair from your forehead. “Consider my leaves turned, I swear, it won’t happen again.”

Quinn’s heart does a terrifying flip in her chest. It does another few loops as Mr Ward gestures towards her desk, like it’s on the world’s most terrifying rollercoaster.

“You’re lucky I’ve already got a headache and don’t feel like filling out the paperwork to give you a late slip. Go, sit, and keep your mouth shut until I say you can open it.” Mr Ward’s trying for stern, but there’s the hint of a smirk pulling at his moustached upper lip.

You mime zipping your lips and then half-walk, half-jog to the back of the classroom, waving at a few other students as you do. Quinn’s heart is beating staccato in her chest and when you pull out the chair next to her, she’s worried that it’s so loud that you’ll be able to hear it.

You offer her a little wave too, as if you’re friends, despite the fact that the two of you have never even spoken before. Quinn goes to wave back, an aborted flutter of the hand, and feels heat in her cheeks at the awkwardness of the motion.

Mr Ward continues to talk and normally she’d be listening, even taking notes, but the thud of books and rattle of pens as you get comfortable is extremely distracting. You’re still breathing a little heavy from your grand entrance, too, and Quinn is hyper aware of the rhythmic whistle of your exhales. You’re sitting next to her, a sizeable gap between your bodies, but for some reason, she feels like you’re in her freaking lap. Her skin feels itchy, something funny settling in her stomach. She shifts a little in her chair, hoping to dispel it.

She forces herself to pay attention to the teacher and, through a combination of tuning in to the end of his explanation and flicking through the packet on her desk, she gathers that they’re doing a project about the Great Gatsby, the book that they had read over the break. In their assigned pairs, they need to pick a topic from the list provided by Mr Ward and then write an essay about it. That sounds fine to her; she likes the book, had enjoyed reading it over the break, and scanning through the topics, there’s several that she finds compelling.

She hopes that you’ve read the book. It’s not long, so surely you have. Worst case, Quinn’s pretty sure that there’s a movie based on it, so she can always ask you to watch that just to get a sense of the story.

Mr Ward finishes speaking, and the entire class erupts into noise, students turning to their assigned partners. That means that she needs to talk to you now, too. Anxiety skitters up her spine, forcing her back ramrod straight.

She turns to you, a slow motion of the head, her fingers tapping a nervous beat against the desk. You’re already looking at her. Your cheeks are still flushed and there’s mascara smudged on your eyelids.

“Hey, Quinn, right?” you say, leaning back in your chair at such a degree that Quinn’s shocked you don’t teeter over. “Nice to meet you.”

You introduce yourself, as if she doesn’t know who you are. Of course she knows who you are; you’re not one of the popular girls, necessarily, but you go between different friendship groups like a party yacht in the Mediterranean Sea, welcome wherever you dock. Quinn hasn’t been to many parties, but you’ve always been at the ones she has, laughing, smiling, in the middle of the group. Your mother is a retired athlete of middling talent, a tennis player, the closest thing that Brookside has to a celebrity even though she’d last competed over a decade ago. Quinn’s dad says that she had quit to get married and have kids, like all career women inevitably end up doing, even though your mom’s career-ending shoulder injury is common knowledge in Brookside.

“Nice to meet you,” Quinn says. It suddenly occurs to her that she might be able to make a friend here. You seem to be friends with half of the freaking school, after all; befriending you must be easy if everyone else has managed it.

Sound reasoning, but shit, what do people say to make friends?

All prior knowledge and instinct on how to interact with others like a normal person flies from Quinn’s brain with the grace and disastrous potential of an airplane on fire. All of her friends, the few that she has, have been her friends since preschool and she doubts that pointing at the sandpit and asking you if you want to play dinosaurs will win her any favour.

Compliments! She can give you a compliment. “I like your -.” She scans your upper half frantically, looking for something to comment on. “Bracelet! I like your bracelet! It’s cute.”

Said bracelet is a pretty, delicate golden chain, dotted with tiny purple stones. It drapes over your wrist in a way that she’d normally find benign but for some reason, she’s drawn to the way it sits on your skin, how it slides down your forearm when you lift your hand.

You grin at her. You have a pretty smile, she thinks, even though you have a mouthful of braces. “Aw, thanks! My dad got it for me for my birthday. Hey, you’re good at this class, right? I remember reading a poem you wrote in the Brookside Verse last year; it was really good.”

A mixture of mortification and hot, sticky pride fills her belly. Mr Ward had insisted that she submit the poem to the school’s arts magazine: had she known that they’d actually pick hers to be published, she never would’ve agreed. The idea of anyone, but especially you, reading it, makes her want to throw up.

“I don’t know if I’d say I’m good,” she mumbles, praying for the blush that’s turned her face red to recede. You’re going to think she’s such a loser!

“Well, I would,” you say. “I really liked it. Will you have anything in the next one?”

“I’m not sure yet. I didn’t know you read the Brookside Verse?” she blurts out and damn, that sounds like she’s calling you an idiot, as if your interest in the art’s magazine is something wildly out of character, worthy of being questioned, and what is wrong with her?

“I had an in-school three-day suspension in the library,” you say, “and I wasn’t allowed to like, read any books or anything, and they obviously took my phone, but there were heaps of copies of the Verse around, so I read it then. I liked the bit that compared the girl’s lips to fruit.”

“Oh,” she says, a little lost for words. She likes that line too, the bit about lips like an overripe fruit, ready to split and spill. “Thank you. I’m happy you liked it.”

“So, wordsmith,” you say, and your words are teasing but in a fun way, not a cruel one, said like it’s a secret only the two of you share. If Quinn had been blushing before, she’s outright on fire now. “Do you have any preference on what topic we do? I like the sound of one or four, but I’m happy to do whatever.”

“Four sounds good.” The words come out more like a squeak.

“Cool!”

The next ten minutes are spent working out the specifics of the assignment and she’s pleased by the way the two of you split up the work; you seem more than happy to do your fair share.

“We’ll probably need to talk outside of class to work on this,” you say, tapping your pen against your lips. You both have notebooks open in front of you and whilst Quinn’s been taking detailed notes, you’ve been aimlessly doodling in the margins. She does think she can see Gatsby’s green light scribbled in one corner, though, and a little jotted car that may be his Rolls Royce, so at least you’re on-task.

“Yeah, probably,” Quinn agrees. The assignment is extensive and you’re going to have to work pretty closely together.

“I’ll add you on Facebook so we can message each other,” you suggest. Quinn does her best to hide a wince.

“I don’t have it, sorry,” she replies apologetically. Social media is a big no-no in her house; her parents barely allow her to have her own cell phone and even then, she has to give the device up once a month for her mom to go through it.

“All good. Can I borrow your phone?” you ask.

Helplessly, hopelessly, Quinn pulls out her cell phone and passes it across to you. It’s an older model, a hand-me-down from her older brother, the screen cracked despite her best efforts. There’s no code on the phone; she isn’t allowed to have one.

She watches your fingers fly over the screen and then jumps a little when she hears a ding come from your pocket. You pass her phone back, looking pleased with yourself.

“I just texted myself, so you’ve got my number,” you clarify. “So we can organise a time to work together. We can meet at my house? Or yours, if you’d prefer. I’m easy.”

“Yours is good,” she replies, too quick, the words tripping over themselves on their way out of her mouth. Let hell she’ll ever let anyone over to hers.

You brighten. “Awesome! Any afternoon works for me. If we end up working late enough you can have dinner at mine too; mom and dad always make enough food to feed like, a million people.”

You laugh and Quinn laughs with you as if that’s an entirely relatable sentiment, when in reality, she’s almost certain that her own cupboards are bare and that she’ll be scraping the sides of the peanut butter jar tonight to hopefully scrounge together a single sandwich.

Does all of this laughing mean that you’re friends now? She has no idea. Do people invite not-friends over to their houses for schoolwork and dinner? You’re probably just this outwardly friendly to everyone; you’ve probably got a rotating roster of friends barrelling through your door each afternoon, eager to spend time with you after school.

“How does Wednesday sound?” you ask her.

“Wednesday works great.” Lord knows that she hasn’t got anything else on.

“Great,” you say. “It’s a date. I’ll text you my address now.”

Your head ducks down to your phone, no doubt to send her your address. You therefore aren’t privy to the flush that overtakes her at those words, burning red-hot from her ears all the way down to her chest.

It’s a date. She tells herself to calm down and stop being so weird, because obviously you don’t mean it like that, but the blush doesn’t get the memo.