As he flipped through the pages, I leaned from my own chair to look over his shoulder. When he was finished, I pulled away to sit properly back into my chair. 

“What do you think?” I asked nervously as he closed my notebook and handed it back to me. 

“You are so good! Those were so beautiful,” he told me. I saw that he was telling the truth in his eyes. He really did appreciate them. At least, I think. 

“Thank you,” I said quietly. I get embarrassed by compliments easily. 

He smiled, and I smiled back. I was about to say something else, but I was interrupted by the warning bell signaling that it was 7:55. I looked up at the clock, then looked back at him. I opened my mouth to speak, but a voice behind me cut me off. 

“Good morning, Iris.” 

I jumped in my chair, startled. Turning around, I looked curiously at my best friend. She never greeted me like that, and it was scaring me. 

I was about to worry if I had done something wrong to upset her, but saw her smile. It was wild. Mischievous. Almost dangerous. Now she was really scaring me. 

“Uh... Uh, good morning, Dahlia!” I chirped nervously. I purposefully avoided the nickname I had for her because some instinct deep in my mind knew that now was definitely not the time.  

Her smile widened slightly as she slyly shifted her gaze quickly to my desk partner and back to me. 

“So...” she said, trailing off very slightly. “Who’s this?” 

I turned to look at him, and just then noticed the surprisingly small distance between us. As we made eye contact, the same realization seemed to come to him, and we automatically moved away from each other. 

I looked back at Dahlia and said, “Oh, uh, yeah. This is Emilio Martinez. He joined our math class yesterday.” 

“Oh, is that so?” Dahlia asked. Okay, seriously, what did I do? What did I do? “Hi, Emilio. You’re in my history class, right?” 

“Yeah, but I transferred out. You’re Dahlia, right? Iris told me about you,” Emilio replied. 

“Oh yeah? All good things, right?” Dahlia asked. To whom she was asking, I didn’t know. 

“Yup, all good things! Anyway, where were you yesterday?” I asked Dahlia, driving her attention away from my new friend and back onto herself. 

“Oh, um, my mom dragged me all the way to Wisconsin to... Uh...” 

Strange. This one, innocent question managed to fluster and perhaps scare Dahlia. She was avoiding answering the question. Why? 

“To what?” I asked, urging her to continue, suddenly suspicious. 

“To... Um...” Dahlia trailed off again. What was she hiding? 

“Dahlia?” I said, drawing out the syllables. 

She turned away and put her things on her desk, and sat down. 

“Well... I, uh...” She continued to stall, trying her hardest to hide whatever it was she was hiding. 

“You...?” I encouraged again, leaning towards her. I was leaning out of my chair so far, I might end up breaking my neck from falling!

“I-” Dahlia started, probably to trail off into meaningless stutters again, but she got interrupted. By the school bell. It was 8:00, and classes were starting. 

Dahlia took that opportunity to use the excuse, “Oh, class is starting. Shh!” 

I gave her the stink eye, but she turned away from me to stare at the front where Mr. Davis was taking attendance. Before I could get in trouble, I also turned to the front to look at Mr. Davis. I turned slowly, keeping my gaze lingering accusingly on Dahlia. 

She’ll probably crack under the pressure. 

Luckily, the world was on my side. We were told to work in pairs with partners of our choice, and I immediately pounced on my best friend. 

“Dahlia!” I said in a near shout. She jumped in her seat, and I saw a flash of fear and maybe what could have been dread cross her face. “Partners? Great.” 

I didn’t give her a chance to object and just motioned for her to slide her desk over to sit closer to me. She hesitated, but did begin to push her desk towards my own. 

But, before she could move her desk very far and before I could interrogate her, we heard Mr. Davis address Emilio. 

“Emilio? We have an odd number of students here, so you might have to join another pair to make a group of three.” 

“Oh, okay. Hey Dahlia, Iris? Can I join you two?” Emilio asked us. 

“Yeah, of course,” I told him, but most of my attention was trained on my best friend as they both moved their desks over to sit on either side of me. 

Dahlia pulled out her homework and moved to start getting ready, but I interrupted by using my hand to cover her pages. 

“Dahlia,” I said. 

“Yes?” she asked nervously.  

“Dahlia?” I said again, this time in a question. 

“Yes?” she replied, still nervous. 

“What were you doing in Wisconsin? When you were gone yesterday? What did your mother drag you there for?” 

“I... can’t tell you,” was what Dahlia said evasively. 

“Of course you can tell me, Dahlia,” I told her in what I hope was a comforting tone. “You can tell me anything.” 

“No, it’s not that... It’s just...” 

I waited. Dahlia looked down at her notebook and flipped mindlessly through the pages. 

“I was there because I... My mom, I mean, was looking at... Nearby, uh...” 

“Nearby what?” I asked desperately. Well, maybe not desperately, but definitely curiously. 

“My mom dragged me there to look at... To see if... Maybe I could... Would, more like...” 

At this point, even Emilio was intrigued. He was leaning forward, over his desk, and also towards the two of us. 

I leaned back just enough to let him see Dahlia better, but also so that I could still be able to stare at Dahlia’s face. She had her head down, angled towards her notebook. She seemed to want to cover her face with her hair, but she had it pulled into our usual ponytail. This way, I could see the... Shame? Fear? The negative emotion that played out on her face. 

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Opening her eyes, she lifted her face and turned to me. That was when she said something absolutely and completely devastating. 

“We were looking at potential boarding schools for... me.”