***

After school, Wren instructs me on where to go. He leads me to the airport, almost all the way in Columbus. After a few more turns, we’re in an airport-adjacent suburb, complete with cracked road, constant overhead noise from the planes as they go rumbling by, and faded yellow grass yard. Chipped paint houses and trash line the streets. A pair of tennis shoes hangs mournfully from a power line above. I park, and follow Wren. He leads me up the stairs of a tiny, two-story house with clean, yet old-looking windows. The porch is weather-beaten and strewn with plastic kid’s toys. A woman answers the door, peering through the screen.

“Wren!” Her face lights up. “Come in, come in!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Hernandez.”

“Is this a friend?”

“Yeah, she’s helping me at the food bank.”

“Oh, how nice.” Mrs. Hernandez wipes her hands on her apron and holds one out to me. “I’m Belina. It’s good to meet you.”

“Isis. Nice to meet you too.”

“Well, come in! Don’t just stand there in the cold!”

She ushers us into the tiny house. It smells like spicy meat and fresh laundry. A porcelain image of Mary hangs from almost every wall, and the couches and chairs and tables are shabby, but clean. Two kids race by, screaming and chasing each other with toilet brushes, using them like swords. Mrs. Hernandez snaps something in Spanish at them and they cower and immediately run into the bathroom.

“Sorry about that.” Mrs. Hernandez smiles. “I’ve been baking tostadas all day and letting them play with whatever.”

“As long as they don’t wave those swords around the food,” Wren jokes. She laughs, and motions for us to come into the kitchen.

“Would you like some juice? I have milk, too.”

“No, it’s alright. We’re just here for a moment. I wanted to know if you could get me your WIC paperwork. I need the pin on it and I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I’d drop by.”

“Of course! One second.”

She shuffles upstairs. Wren turns to me and sweeps his arm around.

“It’s cozy, isn’t it? Four bedrooms. Three baths. Not bad for a single mom with two mouths to feed.”

“It’s nice, but I don’t understand –”

“She works as a maid. Almost minimum wage.”

“So how does she get the mon –”

“Jack.”

I immediately start choking on nothing. “What?”

“He sends the money. Through me. To Belina, I’m a student who works with the food bank’s outreach program to supply funds to single mothers. But in truth it’s only her who gets the money.”

“But why –”

“I don’t know what Jack does exactly to get this money,” Wren interrupts coolly. “But I have an idea. If only someone could confirm it for me, I’d be very grateful.”

I bite my lip. “I can’t. He made me promise, Wren. He has my voice on tape –”

“I understand. That’s more than enough. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.”

“You can’t tell him you know.”

Wren chuckles. “Do I look like I have a death wish?”

“So –” I lower my incredulous voice. “So why Belina? What did she do?”

“It’s not what she did. It’s what Jack did.”

It dawns on me, a slow crawl of illuminating light-thought.

“Whatever he did that time in middle school. That’s linked to Belina?”

Wren nods. I’m about to ask another question when Belina trundles down the stairs. Wren makes a show of checking her papers and making small talk. So the money’s not just for Sophia. He lied. But why? Because he didn’t want me to know? Why the hell would Jack feel he owes Belina money? It’s a nice thing to do, but it has to have a reason. I feel like I’m missing some huge part, the one clockwork gear in the middle that’ll connect all the others and make them move in tandem.

Wren and I take our leave, Belina waving from the porch and my head filled with more questions than ever. Wren won’t answer any more of them, keeping his mouth shut the entire way to his house.

I go home and scribble madly on paper like it will help me unravel the threads.

Two men hired by AveryBaseballbatSophiaWren with cameraJackBelina Belina moneyJackAveryWren fear SophiaJack Jack jack Jack Jack???jack

Sophia

Sophiais important

Jackloves her

My stomach twists.

Jack lovesher

***

There’s a sad finality as Thanksgiving approaches. People start freaking about college application deadlines. Teachers nag us to finish them and turn them in. The weather gets bitter-cold, the last of the trees shedding their golden fall leaves. The piles turn to mulch, and mulch turns to dirt the winter-fall rains wash out of the gutters and streets. Nothing is pretty anymore – gray skies and gray earth and gray, naked trees shivering in the breezes.

After two weeks, Kayla’s conquered the act of looking at Jack without bursting into tears. Wren was there with a box of tissue on her way to mastery, though, and for that she smiles at him more and even sits with him and I at lunch. Something’s brewing between them, and it makes me smile knowingly, because even if they are two hopeless nerd idiots, they are my hopeless nerd idiots, and I only want the best for anything of mine.

Avery’s comeback was a lot more anticlimactic then we all thought it’d be. She just showed up one day for school, dressed in her same clothes and with the same savage smile on. The girls flocking around Kayla instantly swarmed back to her, Kayla not included. A surge of pride ran through me when Kayla turned her back on Avery’s motion for her to come over. Kayla laced her arm in mine and we strutted away like the bad bitches we are.

Jack hasn’t looked at me, much. Which isn’t weird, since I know I’m a maggot on his shoe and all, but it’s a little odd he doesn’t like being in the same room as me, either. World History is the worst – he’ll make excuses to go to the nurses, and most days he’ll just straight up play hooky and never show for class. But I see him walking around campus and going to other classes. It’s only the class we share he never shows up for. I’d confront him about it, but I’m still torn about what really happened that night. His explanation made sense, but it didn’t ring true. It didn’t feel right.

And I’m bored. God, so bored. Now that we aren’t warring, my days are filled with nothing but homework and staring at teacher foreheads, wondering where they got their worst zits when they were my age.

I sit in Evans’ office, serving the last of my detention. One more day and I’m free of grading his easy-peasy papers and watching his balding head shine in the light of his self-inflicted glory.

“So, Isis.” He clears his throat. “The deadline for Yale’s application is next week.”

“I’m not going to an Ivy, Evans. We’ve discussed this previously. To death.”

“There’s no point to life if you don’t go to a good college,” he insists.

“Have you watched the Food Network recently? Eating is a fantastic reason for living.”

“If I may be completely honest with you, Isis, college is mostly for drinking and crying,” he says. I smother a laugh, and he becomes all business again. “But where you decide to go to drink and cry sometimes gets you far. Like, for instance, Harvard. You can get a mediocre grade in a mediocre-earning field and get a degree but it will be a Harvard degree, you see? It’ll speak volumes more than an Ohio State degree about your level of commitment.”