Isla and the Happily Ever After
Page 6

The student body snickers.
“We have a strict policy that ladies and gentlemen are only allowed to visit each other with their doors propped open.”
“Isla.” Kurt is annoyed. “You’re not looking at my phone.”
I shake my head and nudge him to pay attention. This can’t be good.
“Things will be different this year, upperclassmen. To remind you of the rules—” Nate rubs his head and waits for the gossip to stop. “One. If a member of the opposite sex is in your room, your door must be open. Two. Members of the opposite sex must be gone from your room by nightfall according to the weekday and weekend hours listed in your official school handbook. This means that, three, there will be no spending the night. Are we clear? The consequences to breaking these rules are big, you guys. Detention. Suspension. Expulsion.”
“So, what, you’ll be doing random room checks?” a senior named Mike shouts.
“Yes,” Nate says.
“That’s unconstitutional!” Mike’s sidekick Dave shouts.
“Then it’s a good thing we’re in France.” Nate steps back into the gathered faculty and shoves his hands into his pockets. He’s clearly aggravated by this new hassle in his life. The crowd breaks as abruptly as his announcement, and everyone is griping as we make our way towards first period.
“Maybe it won’t apply to us,” I say, hoping to convince myself. “Nate knows we’re just friends. And shouldn’t there be exemptions for friends who are in no way interested in each other’s bodies?”
Kurt’s mouth grows small and tight. “He didn’t say anything about exemptions.”
Because of our grade difference, our only period together is lunch. I head towards senior English alone and take my usual seat beside the leaded-glass windows. The classroom looks the same – dark wooden trim, empty whiteboards, chairs-attached-to-desks – though it still carries that feeling of summer emptiness.
Where is Josh?
Professeur Cole arrives as she always does, just as the bell is ringing. We have the same professeurs for each subject every year. She’s loud for a teacher, friendly and approachable. “Bonjour à tous.” Professeur Cole smacks down her coffee cup on the podium and looks around. “Good. No new students, no need for an introduction. Ah, pardon.” She pauses. “One empty desk. Who’s missing?”
The door creaks open with her answer.
“Monsieur Wasserstein. Of course the empty desk is yours.” But she winks as he slips into the remaining desk beside the door.
Josh looks tired, but…even tired looks good on him. He’s wearing a dark blue T-shirt with artwork that I don’t recognize, no doubt something obscure from the indie comic world. It fits him well – a bit tightly – and when he reaches for a copy of the syllabus, his sleeve creeps up to reveal the tattoo on his upper right arm.
I love his tattoo.
It’s a skull and crossbones, but it’s whimsical and simple and clean. Clearly his own design. He got it our sophomore year, despite the fact that minors in France are required to have parental approval. Which I seriously doubt he had. Which, I’m somewhat ashamed to admit, makes it even sexier. My heart pounds feverishly in my ears. I glance around the room, but the other girls appear to be at ease. Why doesn’t he have the same effect on them that he has on me? Don’t they see him?
Professeur Cole makes us push our desks into a circle. She’s the only teacher here who forces us to look at one another during class. I take my seat again, and – suddenly – Josh’s desk is opposite my own.
My head jerks down. My hair shields my face. I’ll never be able to talk to him about that night in New York.
Halfway through class, the guy beside him asks a question. The temptation is too strong, so I steal the opportunity for another glance. Josh immediately looks up. Our eyes meet, and my cheeks burst into flames. I avert my gaze for the remainder of the hour, but his presence grows larger and larger. I can practically feel it pressing up against me.
Despite the fact that our schedule is, thus far, identical – English, calculus, government – I manage to evade him for the rest of the morning. It helps that he’s skilled at both disappearing between classes and arriving late to them. Even when the next class is literally across the hall. When the bell rings for lunch, it’s comforting to resume Kurt’s company. We take the back staircase, the one less travelled. It’s the Right Way.
“Did you speak to him?” he asks.
My sigh is long and forlorn. “No.”
“Yeah. That sounds like you.”
Kurt launches into something about a freshman in his computer programming class, a girl who is tall and serene and already fluent in several internet languages – totally his type – but I’m only half paying attention. I know it’s dumb. I know there are more important things to think about on a first day back to school, including whatever it is my best friend is saying. But I like Josh so much that I actually feel miserable.
He has yet to make an appearance in the cafeteria, and it’s doubtful that he will now, because I saw him weaving through the crowd in the opposite direction. His friends graduated last year. All of them. If only I were courageous enough to invite him to sit with us at our table. But his friends were so much cooler than us.
Besides, Josh is aloof. Untouchable. We are not.
In the lunch line, Mike Reynard – the senior who was the first to shout during Nate’s speech – proves my point when he slams his tray into Kurt’s spine. A bowl of onion soup splashes its entire contents onto the back of his hoodie.
Mike pretends to look disgusted. “Watch it, retard.”
Kurt stares straight ahead in shock. A slice of baguette covered in melted Gruyère falls from his back to the floor with a splat. A soggy onion noiselessly follows.
My cheeks redden. “Jerk.”
“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” Mike says. Even though he did. He’s making fun of my soft voice.
I raise it so that he can hear me. “I said you’re an ass**le.”
He smiles, an orthodontic row of unnaturally sharp teeth. “Yeah? And what are you gonna do about it, sweetheart?”
I clench the compass on the end of my necklace. Nothing. I am going to do nothing, and he knows it. Kurt shoves his hands into his hoodie’s pockets, which begin to shake. I know his hands are flapping. He makes a low sound, and I link my arm through his and lead him away, abandoning our food trays. Pretending like I don’t see Mike’s and Dave’s pantomimes or hear their cretinous guffaws.