The next day, after homeroom, Caledon dropped by Michelle’s locker and passed her a brown paper bag.

  “My mom’s pot pies,” he expined. “There were leftovers. I microwaved a slice for you this morning.”

  Her huge intake of breath dragged a giant gasp out of her as she received the bag.

  “Wow!”

  He squinted. “Did you just gasp?”

  “Sorry. I got excited.” Her friends told her to stop it all the time. Apparently, it always startled Hailey into thinking there was a bug in the near vicinity. Michelle made a mental note to herself to tone it down as she peered down into the bag’s contents. The generously rge slice was warm and stuffed with filling. “It smells so good!”

  “You’ll love it,” he assured her.

  She beamed at him, suddenly appreciating her boyfriend much more.

  “Thanks!”

  Since they had the same css after this, they walked to their cssroom together. They arrived to find that the seat beside Michelle’s usual desk was taken, although her usual desk itself remained vacant.

  “Oh,” Michelle said. “Guess we’re gonna have to sit separately today.”

  “There are two empty seats next to each other,” he said, pointing to them.

  Michelle stared at the two desks that were right in front of the teacher’s desk. Disdain twisted her lips. “You’re kidding. There’s no way I’m sitting there. I’m a back-of-the-cssroom kind of girl.”

  Caledon shook his head. “We’re supposed to sit together, remember?”

  “Oh, come on!”

  Just the other day, Marcus had informed them that, as a general rule, couples sat together whenever possible. The topic had come up because she mentioned that she never sat with Caledon in the few csses they share. She was used to either sitting with her friends or sitting in her usual seat by herself. If Caledon happened to take the seat beside hers, that was fine. If he didn’t, it wasn’t a big deal anyway.

  But everybody else’s reaction was over the top—they promptly eyed both her and Caledon as if they were some newfound alien species. When prodded, Rachel expined that couples generally sat together as much as they could.

  She then ended her expnation with, “But, well, if you don’t want to sit beside each other, that’s up to you.”

  “But you always try to sit together with Dennis, don’t you?” Michelle asked, confused.

  “Yeah, but that’s because we’re a normal couple.” Looking completely over the conversation, Dennis let out a zy yawn.

  Caledon bristled. “Hey, we’re a normal couple too.”

  “That’s right,” Michelle agreed, determined to defend the validity of their retionship to the death.

  “If Marcus wanted to sit on his own away from me … Well, he wouldn’t.” Scarlett turned a sweet yet sharp smile on her suddenly terrified-looking boyfriend. “Right, babe?”

  She had no idea Scarlett, who generally gave off kind and sweet girl-next-door vibes, could even make the expression of a shark baring its teeth at its prey. If she were being honest with herself, Michelle was a little frightened.

  “Babe, it’s not even a question!” he said soothingly, putting his arm around her and rubbing her shoulder. “I always want to be with you.”

  The sharpness left her smile, leaving it with only its usual sweetness. “Aww, thanks, babe. Me too!”

  Waving the strange memory away from the forefront of her mind, Michelle gazed sadly at her usual seat. “I guess I have no choice.”

  If sitting together was all they had to do to prove that they were a normal couple, it was a no-brainer.

  “It’s not that bad to sit here,” Caledon said tentatively, peering at her in concern. “Mrs. Brennan only calls on the people who sit in the back, remember?”

  “I wouldn’t know. She’s never called on me.”

  “Never?” He sounded skeptical. “Even when you’re always sitting there?”

  “Yup,” she said, sighing as she pulled the chair out from the table she was supposed to be sitting at. “Never.”

  Caledon yanked his neighboring chair out and dropped himself into it, all the while goggling at her. “Why? Everyone knows she only calls on the people sitting in the st two rows.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe because I always get an A?”

  She’d always been fairly good at math. It was straightforward as long as she put in the work to understand the concepts, and Michelle always listened in css. It probably helped that all her math teachers so far had been strict and everyone

  “I’ve noticed she doesn’t care whether you pay attention in css or not if you can maintain your grade,” he admitted. “I know a guy who sometimes does homework for other csses in this css. He doesn’t sit in the back, though.”

  “I wouldn’t care if I were her, either. I’d be paying more attention to the students who actually need the help.”

  Sighing again, Michelle stretched her legs out under her desk.

  Mrs. Brennan came in with her usual all-business air and stride, dumping a thick stack of papers in her arms onto her desk at the front of the cssroom. Michelle squinted at them, but it wasn’t hard to figure out from this close that they were st week’s test papers.

  All chatter in the cssroom died down, leaving a hint of faint whispers here and there. Everyone knew not to talk when css was in session unless they wanted to get called on to answer questions.

  “I’m giving your tests back today. For those who got lower than a C-minus, come and see me after css,” Mrs. Brennan said, wearing a fiercer expression than usual as she began walking down the aisles and handing back test papers.

  Michelle gnced down at the rge A scrawled in Mrs. Brennan’s signature bright pink ink. She’d gotten a 96. Lazily, she flicked through the pages to see where she’d made the mistake.

  She’d just identified it when Caledon whispered, leaning over to look at it, “What’d you get?”

  She flipped the pages back to the front, showing it to him. “What about you?”

  He defted, tilting the corner of his test to reveal the C written on it.

  “At least you won’t have to stay behind ter,” she whispered with a shrug.

  “Noooo,” someone—from the back of the cssroom, it sounded like—wailed. “But I really studied for this, Mrs. B!”

  “All the more reason for you to see me after css, Glen. We’ll see what we can do about this.”

  “Noooo,” he cried again, and Michelle curiously turned to witness him loosen his grip on the test he’d been waving at the teacher and drop it. It hit the ground with a soft rustling noise.

  Lips twitching, Michelle swiftly turned back around to avoid being seen. Sure, she felt bad for Glen, but his reaction was still pretty hirious.

  “Poor guy,” Caledon murmured.

  No, poor me, Michelle thought to herself, tapping her fingers against the side of her desk. Just look at where I’m sitting.

  ———

  Lunch rolled around, and Michelle once again found herself sitting at her boyfriend’s table. They’d sat with her friends yesterday, so it was Caledon’s turn today.

  She wiggled excitedly in her seat, opening up the brown paper bag Caledon had given her earlier. Today, she had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in her backpack, but she wasn’t about to touch it before trying the delicious-looking pot pie in her hands.

  “What is that?” Rachel asked over her own tray of cafeteria food. “That looks nice.”

  “My mom’s pot pie,” Caledon said, beating Michelle to the punch. He set down his own tray of food on the table, easing himself into the chair beside hers.

  Rachel’s inquisitive look quickly shifted into teasing mischief. “Oh, I see. You’re already bringing your girlfriend lunch? Does your mom know?”

  “Yeah, I had to. She wanted to know why I wanted to bring a slice to school this morning. I usually just heat it up and eat it for breakfast.”

  Michelle bit past the fky crust and into the rich, savory filling. It was heaven in her mouth.

  “Hold up. You told your parents already? You’ve only been ‘dating’”—Lloyd used air quotes with his fingers here—“for three weeks.”

  In between bites of chicken pot pie, she gred at him. “We are dating.”

  “What she said.” Caledon nodded at Michelle. “Anyway, Michelle already told hers about me st Saturday. She announced it even earlier than I did.”

  “Truly amazing,” Marcus decred, starting a slow cp as Lloyd simultaneously said, “Unbelievable…”

  Eyeing them quizzically, Caledon started on his goush.

  “Thanks?”

  Jennifer winced. “I don’t think that was a compliment …”

  Michelle ignored them all, too enveloped in the delightful taste of her lunch. She’d have to repay Caledon somehow.

  “So what did your mom say?”

  Michelle jolted in response to Caledon abruptly whipping his head around to face her.

  “I forgot. Hey, I need your socials. Or a picture of you. My mom asked me what you looked like, but I didn’t have any photos on my phone.”

  They both turned at Dennis’ loud snickering. “You don’t even have each other’s socials?”

  “So what?” Caledon said with a defensive glower.

  “We’re going to exchange them right now,” Michelle added, grabbing her phone and pulling up Instagram. “What’s your name?”

  “Very cute couple.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lloyd nodding sagely at them.

  Jennifer nudged him. “Stop it.”

  Caledon got out his own phone, and they followed each other.

  “Oh, oh,” Michelle said excitedly at an idea that had popped into her head. “We should do that cringey thing. You know, that thing where couples put each other’s names on their bio?”

  The gleam in his eyes shone as if he’d been the one to have the epiphany. His attention already back on his phone, Caledon began tapping at the screen.

  “Yeah! We should do that one where you write ‘Caledon’s’ on your bio, and I’ll write ‘Michelle’s’ on mine.”

  Scrunching her eyes shut, Michelle groaned as a slight shiver of embarrassment traveled through her body. “Oh, yeah, that’s gonna make it so official.”

  Upon opening her eyes again, she gnced around the table in bewilderment at the three pairs of angry eyes trained on her … and Caledon. Caledon was also looking all around, evidently left in the dark by his friends’ reactions as well.

  “What?” they both said. “Why do you all look so mad?”

  LotteStarburst