Chapter 37 This Ends Today

Chapter 37 This Ends Today

Cole

I wasn't planning on eating in the cafeteria. I was going to get food and take it outside because I didn't want to sit with Tyler. I didn't want to deal with Jade asking me again whether I had posted anything publicly to correct the story about the photo.

I pushed the door open and scanned the room the way I always did, a habit from three years of reading a field before the play started. My eyes moved across the crowd and then stopped.

Wren was at the table by the windows. Her tray had food on it that wasn't hers. Her book was open and wet. Jade's squad was walking away from her table and two of them were still laughing about something.

I read the whole thing in three seconds.

I crossed the cafeteria without thinking about it.

The room went quiet gradually, table by table, as people clocked where I was heading. I heard my name said somewhere to my left and I didn't turn toward it. I pulled out the chair directly next to Wren and sat down.

She looked at me. Her face was shut completely the way it got when she was trying not to let anything show, but her eyes were red at the corners.

I didn't say anything. I set my tray down and started eating.

The cafeteria was almost completely silent.

Wren looked back at her book. She reached out and closed it carefully, like she was handling something already damaged, and set it on the edge of the table. Then she folded her hands in her lap and looked at the tray in front of her.

"You don't have to do this," she said, quietly.

"I know," I said.

"People are staring."

"I know."

She was quiet for a moment. "This is going to make things worse for you."

"Wren," I said. "Eat something."

"My tray has someone else's food on it."

I looked at her tray. She was right. I pushed mine toward the middle of the table. "Take the fries."

She looked at the tray and didn't move right away. I could see her trying to work out whether there was a catch, the way she always did when something happened that didn't match what she was used to. Then she reached out and took a few fries slowly.

I looked across the room without making it obvious. Jade was at her usual table near the center. She was sitting completely still with both hands wrapped around her cup and her eyes on me. I knew that particular kind of stillness. It wasn't calm. It was the opposite of calm.

"She's watching," Wren said, without looking up.

"I know," I said.

"Cole." She said my name differently than most people did. Like it cost her something. "Why are you doing this."

"Because I walked in and saw your book sitting in orange juice," I said. "And I didn't feel like walking to the other side of the room."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have right now," I said. "Stop trying to talk me out of it."

She picked up another fry and ate it and didn't say anything else. I ate my sandwich. The cafeteria started making noise again, low at first and then steadily working its way back up to normal. I could feel eyes still on us but I kept looking at my food.

I thought about the first time. Tyler in this exact cafeteria, the milkshake, and me standing there doing absolutely nothing because I was seventeen and afraid of what it would cost me to say something.

I had gone home that day, sat in my room and felt like garbage then gone to sleep and woken up the next morning, gone to school and acted like it hadn't happened.

I was done doing that.

"Thank you," Wren said, very quietly.

"Don't," I said.

She looked at me. "Don't what?"

"Don't say it like I'm handing you something you should be grateful for," I said. "Just eat."

She looked at me for another second, then looked away and reached for another fry. I took a long drink of water and looked at the window.

We sat like that for a few minutes. It wasn't comfortable exactly but it wasn't wrong either. It felt like the kitchen at midnight, both of us in the same space without needing to explain it.

Then a tray slammed onto the table across from us.

I looked up.

Tyler stood there with both hands flat on either side of his tray, leaning forward, jaw locked, eyes moving between me and Wren and back to me like he was running a calculation and coming up with an answer he didn't like.

"Cole," he said, low and tight. "What is this."

Not a question.

I looked at him. "Lunch," I said.

"Don't." His voice went hard. "Don't sit there and act like this is nothing. Every phone in this cafeteria is pointed at this table right now. Jade is sitting over there and I don't even want to tell you what her face looks like. Do you understand what you're doing?"

"Sit down or walk away," I said. "Those are the two options."

He didn't move. "You need to explain yourself. In front of everyone. Because whatever this is, it ends today."

Wren went very still beside me.

I set my cup down and looked at Tyler and kept my voice flat. "I don't owe you an explanation for where I choose to sit."

"After everything," Tyler said, and his voice dropped low, almost dangerous. "After everything I've covered for you this year. You want to throw it all away for this?"

I looked at him and didn't answer.

Tyler straightened up slowly. He looked at Wren for a long moment with something in his eyes that I didn't like at all. Then he looked back at me and shook his head.

"You're making a mistake," he said. "And when you figure that out, don't expect me to fix it."

He picked up his tray.

I watched him walk away toward the other side of the cafeteria and sit down hard at a table with two other players, who looked over at us immediately. Tyler didn't look back.

Wren let out a slow breath beside me.

"He's going to make this bad," she said.

"Probably," I said.