Chapter 16

“You know, I’ve been in this game for a lot of years, and I got out alive. That makes me the right age,” Michael de Santa’s voice rang from Nicole’s television.

“Yeah, I know how you feel,” Nicole replied dryly, the controller in her hand. Her legs were draped over mine, with me sitting up on her bed, and her lying across me, facing the TV. “You sure you don’t want a turn?” she asked, holding the controller towards me.

“Nah, I like watching you play,” I told her gently, rubbing her legs sympathetically.

“Okay,” Nicole replied, not unhappy to get to keep playing. It was cute.

“ ... Then you can rip people off and get paid for it,” Michael’s voice continued. “It’s called capitalism.”

“Ugggh...” Nicole groaned.

“Three, two, one...” I joked, knowing she was headed for a rant.

I was spot-on. “You know, at least GTA four had the sense to make their critique of corporate America a bit more subtle, which is insane to say about a GTA game, but here we are. Plus, capitalism was idealized through this idea of labor creating value to escape the rentier-based economy, not reinforce it. Not a single one of those fucking writers have ever read The Wealth of Nations, Adam. Not a single fucking one.”

I grinned, looking at her. “Are you done?”

“No,” she replied brattily, still fired up yet smiling at me. “I bet you anything that this is just going to get more common with time. We’re going to get kids going ‘fuck capitalism’ and they don’t even fucking know what it is. You really think we’re living in a system where labor is given value and landlords have been cast aside? Or wait, do you think capitalism invites landlords? Maybe people are just going to think that capitalism is corporate America – as if a single fucking free market non-state-capitalist country has ever existed – all because you’re too dumb to notice we live in a reskinned mercantilist dystopia? Ugh!” She paused. “Okay, now I’m done.” She chuckled. “Did you even take in a word I just said?”

“Like, I didn’t understand it, but if you care about it, I’m listening and I’m trying to follow along,” I told her with a chuckle.

She chuckled again and turned back to the TV, shaking her head. “You’re the only guy that puts up with me,” she told me with a flat, dead voice. “The fuck was I thinking breaking up with you? I should be fucking marrying you.”

I laughed. “That would end so badly for both of us.”

“Yeah, well, y’know.” There were no bad feelings as the both of us let that topic float away into the air. It was odd, being able to make lighthearted banter about not being in a relationship anymore, even though I felt like she was so much more than a friend. It was like we transcended relationships or something. We lived through it, and man did we ever get our hearts broken through it, but ... was it really that bad to have these kinds of feelings for each other and not top it off by saying, “we’re a couple again”?

Plus, it was nice to feel like I could pursue anyone I wanted ... well, almost anyone. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t still have some kind of feelings for Zelda, and those feelings were not dulled down at all after she saved my ass from getting expelled. Plus, there was that little incident of me having a threesome with her and getting to see her naked. That was a thing.

I was lost in my own world of thought for a bit before realizing that Franklin was standing motionless in the game. My eyes shifted from the TV, to Nicole, back to the TV. I leaned forward and saw that same far-away look in Nicole’s eyes, and gave a small sigh as I moved her legs off of me and sat her up on the bed.

“Hey, c’mon,” I coaxed, keeping her back up with my hand, feeling my heart sink. It always did when Nicole got like this. “It’s okay. Everything’s fine. Things are fine. I’m here, I’m ... I can just be here for you. You can put your head on my shoulder if you want.” She didn’t move, so I gingerly moved her head until it rested on my shoulder. It was like I was maneuvering a puppet. “It’s alright. You can keep your head here as long as you want. Until you get better. I’ll be the shoulder to put your head on. I’ll be ... I’ll be Shoulder Man.”

I hit pause on her game and hugged her from the side with my other hand. Selfishly I wasn’t the biggest fan of just sitting in awkward silence in an uncomfortable position, but this wasn’t about me. I was selfish with her one too many times. Never again. I held her, not too tightly, and time passed us by. Was it a minute? Ten? Thirty? I wasn’t sure. It felt like an eternity passed before I heard her slowly exhale. I took my head off of hers and looked at her. She was blinking slowly.

She eventually came back to the world, then started to laugh. “ ... Shoulder Man?” she asked humorously. “I’m fucking calling you that every day now, I hope you know that.”

I grimaced. “Great,” I replied sarcastically. I felt a kiss on the side of my head, and turned with a smile to face Nicole. “Hey.”

“Hi,” she replied, almost shyly. “Uh ... thanks.”

“I get it, today has been rough on you,” I replied.

She shook her head slightly, feeling my face with her hand, where my bruising was. “I don’t get you,” she murmured. “After all this time, I don’t get you.”

“Hey, it’s only been a year and a bit,” I pointed out, then stole a kiss from her lips. “But I’m sure there will be a lot more.”

She lowered an eyebrow and leaned away, smiling disapprovingly. “Too coupley,” she instructed. The two of us went back to gaming for a bit before realizing how late it was, and with a sigh from both of us, we concluded that I should be heading home. I got my things and then mentally prepared myself for the walk of shame – the walk to Nicole’s front door.

Sure enough, when we went down the stairs, Nicole’s dad was home. I steeled myself, Nicole’s hand supportively rubbing my shoulder, and walked downstairs. As we descended, Nicole whispered, “You don’t have to say anything.”

I smiled politely at her, but couldn’t agree. Once I was on the ground floor, I cleared my throat. “Hell-”

“You’re not staying for dinner,” Mr. Baker’s voice cut through my words like scissors through paper.

I paused. Okay, this was playing the game on hard mode, if that was the expression. “I understand that I was-”

“No,” Mrs. Baker cut in dourly, seemingly on the same wavelength as her husband. “You’re not going to give us a speech. You’re going to leave, now. You already came into this house when you weren’t welcome, and Nicole, we’ll be talking about that later.” Neither parent had looked me in the eye yet. My eyes flickered to the jar on the counter behind them, the Disappointment Jar or whatever – it was full.

I cleared my throat. I’d really need to impress them if I wanted to come over again. “I-”

I felt Nicole’s hand clamp down on my shoulder. “I get what you’re trying to do,” she breathed into my ear. “It’s not going to work. Just trust me, give it time instead. I’ll make them okay with it.”

I hesitated, then stopped. I looked at Nicole, then at her parents. With a sigh, I trudged back towards where I left my shoes. Once they were on, Nicole and I were out the door, walking back to my place.

“What did you tell them?” I asked, trudging through the snow.

Nicole shrugged noncommittally. “What didn’t I tell them?” she asked, cool as a cucumber. “Plus, they’re dealing with the car shit right now too. I’m, uh, not their favorite kid right now, and with one dead and the other not speaking to them, it’s not like I got stiff competition.”

I wanted to ask what that comment about ... who was it, Spencer? ... not speaking to them meant, but, time and place. “And you plan on turning it around?”

“I’m Nicole Baker. What can’t I do?” she asked with a slight laugh.

I shot her a smile, and we said our goodbyes. I was glad to see her in such a good mood. I liked to believe that I helped her through her episode and I was the reason why she was so happy tonight and that I was special, but ... maybe that was wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking indeed. After the party and the fight and all that, I was ready to never experience drama ever again, but as always, the universe had other plans. The first trick the universe played the next week came on Monday morning, when I accidentally saw Megan and Zelda together in some secluded hallway. They weren’t kissing, but clearly there was some tension going on. Zelda had her hand on Megan’s shirt collar, pulling her in, telling her something assertively with Megan looking like she was drinking in every word. Zelda was some kind of budding dominatrix for sure. Unfortunately, I stood there staring for too long, and once Megan saw me, she turned pink and ran, right past me, towards her first class.

I watched her leave as Zelda approached me from behind with a hearty sigh. “Thank you, Adam.”

“Hey, I didn’t-”

“I know, it was a joke,” she replied, disappointment still clouding her voice. “Still, that’s progress, and it’s not like you don’t know about me and her. Maybe someday I’ll ask you to be our lookout boy when we meet before school again.”

I smiled cockily. “And what would I get in return?” I asked her.

Her smile was just as cocky. “Maybe I’ll let you borrow her once or twice. After all, unlike me, she seems to be operating under the delusion she’s not a lesbian. It might be healthy for her to do something with a guy every so often.”

My jaw nearly dropped. “Jesus...” I muttered. “You think she’s a lesbian?”

“A hundred percent. Never been more sure. And until I need to go back to Denmark, she’s mine,” she added without a hint of shame.

“Wow. You’re as horny as a ... as a guy,” I mumbled.

She shrugged. “I’m getting used to American culture,” she joked. “You’re the one that decided to have sex with a girl while another girl gave her the ride of her life.”

“Hey now,” I replied competitively, “remember that I was her original boyfriend. I’m the one that made her love sex.”

“And then she hated it, if I recall correctly,” Zelda countered with zero hesitation. “You had to make her love it from when she felt, at worst, neutral about sex. I got her to want me when she hated sex. Not bad if I do say so myself.”

The image of Megan throwing snow on that hill and screaming flashed in my mind. She hated that she loved sex again. “Um ... just be careful,” I replied, losing my smug demeanor. “She could get hurt.”

“She’s obsessed with me,” Zelda replied dismissively. “She’s just temporarily embarrassed about it. You’ll see.”

I gazed worryingly at Zelda. I may have underestimated her, and not in the fun way.

The universe wasn’t content to play just one trick on me. The next trick was played the next day, at lunch. Right before the bell rang, Megan got as sick of Carson’s PDA with Sabrina as I was, and finally decided to pipe up.

“Are you two even trying to hide it anymore?” she accused, probably less playfully than she wanted to. That said, her annoyed tone wasn’t undeserved – I mean, Zelda and Megan were clearly fooling around too, but from how they associated at lunch, no one could have guessed it. For all of Zelda’s confidence, she never once tried to do anything with Megan, and frankly, I was looking to see if she would.

Sabrina only giggled. “Should we tell them?” she asked.

“We can see,” Athena laughed.

“No, no,” Sabrina dismissed her. “Carson and me are dating now!”

Zelda smiled diplomatically. “Congratulations,” she said with little emotion, clearly still not a big fan of him. Megan’s brow furrowed for a second, but upon hearing Zelda’s congratulations, her anxiety melted and she nodded and smiled. Athena looked surprised, but was also happy.

Why wasn’t I happy? I should have been. I wanted to be. But when I looked at Sabrina, I felt ... betrayed somehow. There was a time where it felt like the only girl that could have possibly been my girlfriend after Nicole was Sabrina. And now, she was dating Carson? They had nothing together. All they did was fool around at lunch. That wasn’t couple material. That wasn’t couple material at all.

I couldn’t resist asking Sabrina to wait behind after the bell rang, and even though she was confused, she accepted it. The others left for class and I asked Sabrina if we could walk slowly to her locker together and talk, and with an unsure expression, she agreed.

As we walked, my legs felt like they were made of lead. This was already weird, and every second spent confused was just going to make things weirder for Sabrina. “I just want to say something that’s been on my mind,” I began. “I’m really happy that you’re with Carson and you’re happy now, but ... I dunno. I thought something was happening between us for a bit, and that seemed to go kind of ... quickly. Like, we were flirting and getting along so well and suddenly we were ... not. Right? Isn’t that weird? Didn’t we have something going?”

Sabrina was just giving me a weirded-out, uncomfortable expression. “Um, no, I don’t think so,” she replied.

“What?” I blurted out, stopping. “Sabrina, we were saying stuff like, ‘you’re the only person who gets me’ and having deep life chats. We were...” My cheeks burned. “The s-sex ... felt different, with you,” I added in a quiet voice. “None of that meant anything to you?”

“Well, we were only friends with benefits, right?” Sabrina asked. “Besides, it was really clear that no one is going to make you move on from Nicole for a long time.”

I straightened my back. “Is that what this is about?”

“No!” she protested. “I’m literally just dating Carson because I like him! Like, I’m sorry, but I just don’t see you like that! Okay??” She paused. “I’d like to walk back to my locker by myself please.” Without waiting for me to answer, she clutched her bag to her chest and started powerwalking away, leaving me dumbfounded.

So what, all that time we spent, that was nothing? It was that easy to throw me to the side when she discovered some new boy? Was that it? I stopped talking to Morgan for her! ... Well, Morgan made it pretty clear she was a dead end too, but still! Even if Sabrina stopped wanting to have sex with me, fine, but ... We talked like we were the closest of friends for, like, weeks. How did she even find the desire to throw all that away? And all just because she found a new boy to fuck. How insulting.

I rolled my eyes at nothing and started to walk towards my locker. This just wasn’t my week.

Part of me was kind of happy my friend group were all hooking up with each other and getting serious. Megan and Zelda, for instance, were cute together, and I liked both of them a lot. As much as that one encounter with Zelda was a bit of a red flag, it was a one-off event. At the lunch table she was perfectly pleasant to be around, unless Carson was saying something particularly awful, and she was an amazing friend to have in drama class. It was clear Salvador was starting to like her. Salvador liked to insist he never played favorites, but...

“Good. We’re going to start today’s warmup with our undulation movements. Adam, you’re going to lead them. Go.”

... It was a lie. Like, even I could tell I was one of his favorites, and I wasn’t the only one. I almost turned pink as I got everyone on stage and started directing people to accent their movements appropriately, knowing that below the surface, a few of them thought I was this stuck-up little teacher’s pet.

“It’s all about the buildup, the buildup,” Salvador repeated from the audience seats. “Slow and slight, slow and slight, slow and slight, large!”

I saw one of the students roll their eyes. On autopilot, I opened my mouth. “Hey, come on, no eye-rolling. Focus!”

I turned pinker still. Zelda, not stopping her movement, nonetheless smiled in surprise. The kid I called out, as well as a few of his neighbors, scowled at me. I didn’t even mean to say anything, it just sort of ... came out. I avoided eye contact, continuing to be the example everyone used, until Salvador was satisfied and gave us our activity of the day. Once he started, we all went to our seats, and Zelda promptly got out her phone to text me a single word.

Wow.

I turned to her. “Shut up,” I whisper-groaned. I couldn’t wait how she was planning to use this moment to further decode me or whatever. Hell, I couldn’t get it out of my head either. Was this me leading, or me turning into a dick? Hell, in this class – forgive me, Salvador – was there even a difference?

“Can I ask about Jason?” I asked uneasily.

Athena’s mood visibly dropped, despite the fact that she was playing her favorite game. Some kind of Pokemon game for the Gamecube. It came out like a decade ago. There had been like three new generations of Pokemon since, but Athena apparently just played this one over and over. “Um, what do you even need to ask?” she replied hesitantly.

“I’m just wondering what even happened, to be honest,” I replied. “Like, if he’s still going to Hazelwood, if you two still talk...”

She sighed and paused her game. “No, we don’t. I already wasn’t planning on talking to him when we broke up, and I’m definitely not fucking talking to him anymore. And that’s not going to change. Happy?”

I clearly hit some kind of sore spot. “Okay, okay, sorry...” I soothed.

She exhaled. “No, it’s fine, I’m sorry. It’s just ... he was such a big part of my life for so long ... and TBH, I feel like a dumbass.”

“A dumbass? Why?” I asked.

“Um...” She started, looking at the controller, handing it over to me. “Do you want to play? I can’t talk and play at the same time.”

“Honestly, I prefer watching you. I barely get how to play Pokemon,” I insisted.

“It’s really easy, but okay,” she conceded, putting the controller down beside her. “It’s like, I spent a lot of time just being in a relationship, and I was, like, telling myself that if I put in enough effort, it would all pay out. He liked me a lot, I ... I still think I liked him a lot. It’s just that stuff became too much, you know?”

I nodded along, supportively patting her thigh. She lay back on her bed and I followed suit. We both stared up at the ceiling as she continued. “And like, now I’m wondering if ... if I just told myself I liked him or something. Like, if I just wanted to be desired or something. TBH I didn’t feel bad at all when I cheated on him. I felt, like, nothing. It felt like we were somehow already done.”

I shivered, remembering Nicole having described something similar. I never even thought about whether she would have cheated on me. She had no reservations about kissing me when I was with Megan.

“Now it feels like I wasted my time with him,” Athena continued. “Like, I could have been with a guy I liked, or having fun sex with someone else, or ... or even on my own, but like, happily on my own, you know?”

I nodded. “I think people feel like that a lot,” I commented lightly. We sat in silence for a bit, and eventually her foot found mine. Wordlessly, we began to have some kind of wrestling match with our feet, until Athena won. We both chuckled quietly.

She turned to me. “Are you doing okay with you and Nicole being splitsville?”

I shrugged. “We’re still close, and that’s nice,” I revealed. “There was a time where I thought our friendship was for sure over, but it feels like we can survive anything.”

“Wow,” Athena murmured, leaning in towards me. “I’m jealous.”

“Don’t be,” I laughed. “It comes with a lot of bullshit. Occasionally one of us makes a nuclear-level bad move and we spend like a week not talking to each other. We’re basically that toxic on-and-off couple where everyone is waiting for them to block each other for good.”

Athena cocked her head, frowning in confusion. “So ... do you want to stop talking to her?”

“Hell no. Honestly, I’ve just learned to love the toxic,” I admitted. “Toxic is nice if it’s with her.”

Athena shook her head, smiling slightly. “You’re still in love with her.”

“I don’t even know what being in love is anymore,” I told her genuinely. “I even thought after Nicole that there was one girl I could kiiinda see myself dating, but now she’s just distant from me. It actually kind of pisses me off.”

Her face fell. “Oh,” she simply said. “It’s not me, is it?”

“What? No!” I instinctively replied. “No, it was...” Bad idea to tell her. “Some girl. You don’t know her.”

“Huh,” Athena mumbled, leaning into my arm. She kissed it once or twice, then playfully bit it. “What was she like?”

“Ow! ... She was nice,” I murmured, pulling my arm back.

“Wow, don’t get too wordy, you’ll bore me,” Athena joked.

I shrugged. “She was ... cool. She actually listened to me, it felt like she was always thinking what I was thinking ... I guess your usual stuff.”

“And how was the sex?” she pressed on.

“You’re just going to presume I had sex with her?” I asked.

She winked at me. “It’s you, of course you did,” she plainly answered, then stole a quick kiss on the lips from me. God, Athena was good at kissing. If there was a divine creator, they gave her the best lips on the planet. It was like her kisses were on another level. Everything about her kisses felt good, from the juiciness of her lips to her full eagerness in using them. She pulled back from the long yet innocent kiss, eyed the bulge in my pants, and smirked. “See? You got hard just from kissing me.”

I grinned sheepishly. “You kissed me, and your kisses are the best. Don’t blame me.”

She giggled, then dove in for another kiss. Before long, she was on top of me, grinding against me while we shamelessly opened our mouths, French kissing each other. It was really nice knowing that, despite our complicated past, Athena and I could fool around like this and both of us knew it didn’t need to be anything serious. Nicole and I could talk a big game about being friends that fuck and not getting feelings involved, but Athena could walk the walk.

And this happened every time Athena and I hung out. If anything, this time it took longer than usual for us to get to fucking. Both of us were eager to make up for lost time, happily taking each other’s clothes off, with Athena always insisting on getting her face close to my dick whenever she took my pants off.

“Mmm...” she moaned happily, sliding my pants and underwear off in one slow, satisfying motion. My rock-hard cock stayed contained, my shaft coming into view inch by inch, until it eventually sprang up and out of my pants, hitting my stomach before settling in the air. “God, I can’t get enough of this fucking cock,” Athena moaned, licking the underside of my shaft. She didn’t bother to wait for my response before taking me into her mouth, giving me another one of her amazing sloppy blowjobs.

Athena’s mouth was definitely talented. She’d taken in everything she learned from all the other blowjobs she gave me and put her knowledge to good work, using every trick her mouth could muster. And every time, there was something new she did.

“Check this out, stud,” she murmured once her mouth was off of my dick.

She put her mouth back on me, and her tongue started to give particular attention to the underside of my dick. It almost felt like it tickled, but in a really good way. I was actually squirming. I thought I knew everything there was to know about blowjobs, and yet here I was, squirming, all while Athena’s sloppy, wet, heavenly mouth was giving me new sensations I never thought I would feel.

“Ohh, fuuuuck...” I moaned, holding her head in place. I practically didn’t know what else I could even be doing. My cock was continuously throbbing in her mouth, and her tongue was causing me sensations I never even knew I could feel, and at this point, I had gotten quite a few blowjobs. There was no way in hell I was going to last long here.

“I’m either going to blow in your mouth, or we’re going to fuck,” I groaned.

Athena’s eyes looked up at me and sparkled, not stopping at all. She didn’t even need to tell me – she wanted both. I couldn’t even think straight, and leaned my head back and moaned, feeling my load firing out of my dick at mach speed. There was no other word for it – I came urgently, with even Athena being surprised at the speed and velocity of my punk firing into her mouth. She was Athena though, so she handled it with grace, swallowing every drop, her tongue still somehow nurturing my dick yet doing it gently enough to not cause me any pain.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” I murmured, realizing only then that her mouth was still on me. My cock had barely softened at all, and showed no signs of getting any softer. She and I both knew that, if anything, it was only going to get harder in the next few minutes.

Sure enough, with another throb, I went full mast again in her mouth. Athena took her mouth off of me, grinning triumphantly, and assumed the position, getting on all fours on her bed. “You don’t want me to eat you out or anything?” I offered.

“Just stick it in me,” she practically barked. “I want to feel you inside me. Hurry up!”

What a fucking dream I was living. Athena’s pussy was beautifully puffy and glistening with wetness for me, a picture of pure sexiness. I lined myself up behind her, with her juices and the copious amounts of spit on my dick providing ample lube. She began to shake when she felt me enter her, with a low guttural moan escaping her lips. “Godddd, your cock is so fucking perfect,” she moaned.

“Your pussy is perfect too, Athena,” I moaned back. Even from behind, I could see her beam with happiness – I wasn’t sure if it was because I called her pussy perfect or because I used her name. Either way, I pushed until my thighs were touching hers, the delicious feeling of skin-on-skin savored by both of us. Once we were both ready, I began to thrust back and forth, with Athena moaning immediately.

I grabbed her hips and set us in a good rhythm, and she matched immediately, throwing herself back to meet my hips, her inner muscles working my cock perfectly. The feeling of her hips in my hands was so good, nearly enough to rival her blowjobs! I wanted to experiment more with her, but the feeling was just too good. I surrendered myself to pumping my cock in and out of her like an animal, drilling her with reckless abandon. Athena soon lost all of her inhibitions and started humping back into me like a wild animal too, moaning and cussing and repeating my name.

“Adam, Adam ... oh fuck, you feel so fucking good, Adam! Yes, yes!” She was bucking and shivering and giving herself in to the immense pleasure she was feeling, but then again, so was I. I wanted so badly to just fill her with my seed, I wanted to see her moan and arch her back. I wanted to claim her.

Before I knew it, my load had built back up and without so much as an “Ahh!”, I thrust deeply into her, knowing she was going to receive spurt after spurt inside her. I got my wish – Athena arched her back and took it, moaning up to the ceiling, enjoying the feeling of my warm load spilling into her. She nearly went cross-eyed, losing herself to the feelings, and I nearly whited out feeling the same pleasure of our unity. Athena’s pussy was heaven, no two ways about it.

We remained there for a few seconds before we both loudly exhaled at the same time, and giggled at the coincidence. I slowly pulled out of her and collapsed next to her, my face hitting the pillow. Moments later, I felt a hand gently pat my back. Figuring she wanted my attention, I flipped over. “Mm?”

“Oh! No, just ... you said you prefer when I stay here and stuff, so I’m trying to ... you know...” she clumsily stated.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “That’s really sweet of you, Athena,” I told her warmly. Wow. So her previous behavior wasn’t even just her being detached with a FWB, the idea of pillow talk or whatever was ... new to her. How weird. What the hell was her relationship with Jason even like?

I guess I didn’t really need to think of that much more. It seemed like Jason was expelled, even though I didn’t get a solid confirmation. Served him right, anyways. He was the one who punched me in the face. I deserved to win after that, and I did. Some part of me felt slightly bad for the guy, given he clearly thought the world of the girl who had just begged for my cock, but ... I heard it straight from her mouth. I saw how they interacted. I knew what he was like. It was good that they broke up. Maybe now Athena would find herself, whatever “finding” meant. Hell, whoever “herself” really was.

“This is the big one,” Nicole said authoritatively, pointing to the whiteboard with one of those retractable sticks. It looked more like we were being briefed on wartime strategy than a school dance, despite the whiteboard just saying “Valentine’s Day Dance” on it with a little drawn heart after it. “Couples are going to get PDA-y around each other here. The best way to prevent us feeling like we need to gauge our eyes out is to make the expectations clear upfront.”

Jarrod leaned in to whisper to me. “Why would Nicole of all females be the one to be weird about PDA? I thought she was the school slut or whatever.”

I wanted to warn him about Nicole’s superhuman powers, but it was too late. Even though Jarrod whispered so delicately even I could barely hear it, Nicole swiftly piped up. “Because, Jarrod, there’s a time and place for everything. I’m all for freedom of expression in this school, including love, but to do it in a crowded, grimy place with everyone else there, especially everyone else doing it ... it sets a standard. They might go too far, they might hurt some feelings, and they might tell other students with their actions that they too can go too far and hurt feelings.” She hit the desk in front of her with the stick. “Oh, and don’t call girls ‘females.’ It’s weird and off-putting.”