I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know more about Marcos’s motivations.

“So yesterday, that was weird, right?” Jack asked the next day as we were getting ready to leave English class.

I raised an eyebrow. “What was weird? The fact that the chessboard Mr. Rush claimed was carved soapstone from Kenya was clearly dyed clay?”

Jack looked at me like I was out of my mind.

“Fine. Yes, it was weird that Marcos Grayden followed me to the library, ate some cake, and stayed for a lecture about chess.”

“Right? Any one of those things would be unusual by itself, but for them all to happen together on the same day?” Jack shuddered. “Creepy.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Marcos eating cake could be normal enough. Like, I could imagine him having a slice of his brother’s birthday cake.” I put my tablet in my backpack and pushed in my chair.

“Yeah, but you’ve seen him with his brother. You’ve seen him smile. I’ve just seen him . . . lurk.”

I followed Jack to the door. “He wasn’t lurking. He was eating cake and listening to a lecture like everyone else.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “That guy scares me, and he should scare you too.”

I wondered if Jack had a point. Marcos should scare me, and he had in the past, but somehow he didn’t scare me so much anymore. Not after I’d seen the way he smiled at his brother. Not after he’d sat through an entire chess lecture listening attentively the whole time.

The fact that he called Dylan and company assholes probably helped as well.

“You don’t think he plans to join the chess club, do you?” I asked Jack, mostly to get a rise out of him. It worked.

“Do you think?” Jack’s eyes went wide.

I laughed. “No. I don’t. He was in it for the cake. He told me as much.” Although if that had been the case, why hadn’t he just left after serving himself? It would have been easy to leave early. No one would have stopped him.

I had math with Ms. Nelson right before lunch. It was not my favorite class. I’d done far better in Geometry. Algebra two was not my speed.

It was a little eerie to be in this room when it was full of students. I half expected to see Marcos glowering in the corner by himself. Instead it was full of people chatting and shuffling paper as they worked their way through the group assignment.

While my group was getting started on the day’s problems, Ms. Nelson stopped at our table. Her shoulder-length black hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. Her nails were freshly done in burgundy nail polish that matched her blouse. She was always immaculately dressed.

“Tristan. You still owe me a retake of the last unit final. Time is running out. The window closes at the end of the week.” Her Indonesian accent was still noticeable after living in the US for over a decade.

“Shoot. That’s right. When can I take it?”

“Are you free this afternoon?” she asked.

“Oh sure. That would be no problem. Better sooner than later.”

She nodded. “See you after school.”

During lunch, I managed to keep to myself.

Dylan, Caleb, and Dominic were talking to someone on the far side of the cafeteria for the duration of the lunch period. It might even have been a friendly conversation. I couldn’t tell. I was just happy to have escaped their notice during one of my least favorite parts of the day.

I didn’t much like the part of the day when classes let out either. If my buddies didn’t have time to harass me in person, they’d find other things to do. I’d learned to expect unpleasant surprises of one kind or another.

At the end of the day, before heading to Ms. Nelson’s class to retake my test, I opened my locker to find that someone had poured glue through the slots at the top. It had dripped down the length of the door and pooled at the bottom. It hadn’t dried yet, at least.

I had made friends with the janitorial staff my first year at school due to “mishaps” like this. I looked around for someone with a cleaning cart nearby.

“Mr. Ramirez, can I borrow some cleaning spray and a rag?” I asked.

The custodian looked at me over his thick glasses. “I cannot give you chemicals Tristan. Rags, yes. Spray no.”

“I really need some kind of solvent, though. Water won’t cut it.”

“Show me,” he said.

I walked him to my locker where the glue had continued to run down the inside of the door.

“You know who does this?” Mr. Ramirez asked. It wasn’t a question, and it wasn’t the first time we’d had this conversation.

“It’s not that bad. Do you have anything that will get rid of this?” I asked.

He dabbed at the sticky substance with a cloth. “I think so.” He took out some cleaner with citric acid that was designed to dissolve tape residue.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said when Mr. Ramirez began scrubbing at the door. “It’s my locker.”

“If cleaning the school is not my job, then why am I wearing the uniform?”

“But it’s not—”

Mr. Ramirez cut me off. “No arguments.”

Once the locker was done, I raced to Ms. Nelson’s room. “Sorry I’m late. I’m glad you’re still here. Something came up, but if you still have time. . .”

“Sit down. I was just grading some papers.” She rummaged around in her file cabinet until she found what she was looking for. “Here you go. Unit test retake. May the odds be ever in your favor. And the evens. Sorry. Bad math joke.”

“Yeah.” I kind of laughed.

After struggling through the test, I brought it up to Ms. Nelson’s desk.

“Did that feel any better the second time around?” she asked.

“Not really, but it will feel better if it gets me a passing grade.”

Ms. Nelson laughed. “Stay here and find out.” She took out her purple grading pen and looked over my answers. I didn’t have high hopes for doing well—I had retaken the test more or less on a whim. If I was lucky, I could pull a C.

Once she was done marking the paper, she handed it over to me. Luck had been with me. I’d managed to get a C plus.

“Next time you want to retake a test, maybe study for it ahead of time,” she said as she took my test back and filed it away.

“Yeah. This still beats an F.”

She nodded slowly. “True, but I think you can set your sights a little higher, Tristan.”

I was leaving school late, which was always a dangerous prospect. If I left right away, there were still enough witnesses that Dylan and his pals would leave me alone. There was no such guarantee later. They’d find me inside the school or outside depending on where cross-country was meeting. They stayed in for weight training or workouts in the pool sometimes.

When I left Ms. Nelson’s, the hallways were relatively empty. I quickened my steps, hoping to make it to the door without incident.

I had a little warning. They were never completely silent. I noticed their presence behind me moments before Caleb crashed into me with his shoulder, shoving me into the wall. I would almost certainly bruise, but that was nothing new. “Hey there, Prissy. Why are you in such a hurry to leave?”

I didn’t respond. I’d learned that interacting with them only made things worse.

“I heard you made a mess in your locker today,” Dominic said. “You should be more respectful of school property.” He grabbed my backpack out of my hands and threw it on the floor.

“What are you looking at?” Dylan asked. “Are you looking at me? Don’t look at me.”

“Yeah. You know he doesn’t like it when fags stare at him,” Dominic said, kicking my backpack down the hall. It didn’t go far since it was full of textbooks. It also had my school-issued tablet. I had to hope that the padding would protect it. I hadn’t paid for the protection plan. That had probably been an oversight given the abuse my bag was subjected to on a fairly regular basis.

“I wasn’t . . .” I forgot my rule about interacting.

Dylan shoved me into the wall. “Nobody wants to hear what you have to say. Nobody can stand that girly voice of yours.” He narrowed his eyes at me.

“You’re way too pretty to be a boy. Are you sure you’re not a girl? I mean, you’re almost too gay to be gay. Which Disney princess are you, anyway? Maybe the Little Mermaid. Doesn’t he look like the Little Mermaid? He’s only missing that long, red hair.” Dylan reached out as if to grab a handful of my disappointingly brown hair.

Just then, a voice sounded behind us.