Dropping the Ball

4. Freshman Year

Freshman Year

In which Micah appears . . .

I shouldn’t be nervous. It’s the first day of school on the campus I’ve attended for three years. But that was the middle school. Today I start at the upper school. It’s on a completely different part of the grounds, and since many kids don’t start at Hillview until high school, there will be at least one new face for every face I know.

One more step puts me officially on the upper school grounds, other students streaming past me from the parking lot and into the school like that last step—first step?—isn’t a big deal.

How many of them will know about the scandal surrounding our family? How many of my classmates will rush to tell the ones who don’t know?

A flash of purple catches my eye as Madison—finally done touching up her makeup in the car—passes me. She’s wearing metallic leggings and a black corset top, crappy quality that I know she hates. When she came downstairs to drive us to school, Mom said, “This is not who we are.”

Madison had shrugged. “It was made in one of our factories. It’s exactly who we are.”

The outfit is a protest, and Mom doesn’t say anything else because we both know the next line out of Madison’s mouth if Mom keeps pushing. You’re lucky I’m going to school at all . She tried to drop out of Hillview for public school over the summer to make a point that she wasn’t going to take our parents’ “dirty” money. They had to threaten to pull the Armstrong endowment that funded scholarship students at Hillview to make her stay.

It’s been like this since the factory collapse last year. If she and Dad aren’t in a shouting match about it, her silent treatments are just as deafening.

As she disappears into the building, I glance down at myself to make sure I’ve done everything I can to deflect the attention Madison goes looking for. Khakis. Polo shirt. Hair in a ponytail. Nothing to see here.

I head straight into the bathroom and find a stall to hide in. As soon as I lock the door, my bestie chat lights up.

MEGAN

Grrrrls. We have cute new boyzzzzz.

LULU

I’ve seen 3

MEGAN

Where are you Kaitlyn

I’m supposed to meet them by the lockers we were assigned last week during upper school orientation, but walking the halls right now feels like volunteering for a public shaming, and I can’t.

Stomachache. See you at lunch.

MEGAN

First day nerves. Sorry about Chinese!

That’s my first class. The hardest language ever, but Dad thinks it’ll be good for me to learn it so I can communicate with our Chinese suppliers when I start working for the company. Lulu was going to take it with me, but she can’t because she’s Chinese and already fluent in Mandarin, so the school said no. Bad enough I have to take it by myself, but having it first period? Not how I want to start my first day of high school: in a subject I don’t know except for what I tried to practice on Duolingo this summer.

I stay in the stall until the bell rings, and then I slip out, eyes on the ground, and head to class.

The teacher asks our names and seats us alphabetically. I slide into mine and watch the other kids file in. I watch the new kids especially, most of them coming in with smiles, some real, some hiding nerves. Except one kid. One kid who comes in wearing a hoodie and jeans despite the late summer heat. And Vans fraying at the toe. Strong “I don’t care about impressing you” energy. Is it real or an act?

He tells the teacher his name is Micah Croft. Ah. He’s probably related to that Croft girl in Madison’s class. Their family owns a NASCAR team or something. He gives me a tiny nod as he walks down the row next to me to his desk, and for a split second . . .

The universe glitches.

Meeting his eyes creates the tiniest friction, enough for my brain to capture and imprint his face. Thin with high cheekbones, dark hair, light brown eyes in a thick fringe of eyelashes, and his mouth? It doesn’t look like it smiles much.

I drop my gaze without returning the nod. I’m not stepping out of my safety bubble until I’m very sure who I’m dealing with.

As if starting with Chinese by myself on the first day isn’t bad enough, Drake Braverman walks in.

I slouch, hoping there’s a new kid coming between A-r-m and B-r-a, but the teacher points him to the seat behind me.

“It’s Chinese, not death row,” Drake says as he passes me. “Smile, Kaitlyn.”

I do not smile.

I survive the day. If people are gossiping about me, they keep it low-key.

Only a hundred seventy-nine days to go.