Chapter 5

Salvador’s office was as ominous as ever. To anyone else, the place was unsuspecting, even playfully cluttered. There were costumes and wigs and set pieces and photos of past years’ plays everywhere. One wall showed a cast photo of the school play for all twenty years Salvador was at the school. All of the plays won some kind of award of merit in a county drama festival or something.

The most ominous thing about the room was how his desk didn’t face the door. He had some kind of closet installed in the room that was next to the door, so you had to walk into the room and then turn to your left to face Salvador’s desk. Much like everything else about the guy, you couldn’t just wave and walk in. You had to knock, wait for his response, and then enter and turn to display yourself to him.

When I entered, the only thing he said was “Hello,” and he refused to say anything more until I directly asked him a question. He was looking over some papers the entire time we talked. And I say ‘we,’ but I spent most of the time talking. He spent most of his time listening. It didn’t take long for me to start talking about what was going on, as if we never stopped from last year.

Seemingly halfway through realizing this was another one of our sessions, Salvador’s eyes suddenly lit up with a realization and, with a stern face, he held up a hand. “I’m going to need you to stop,” he informed me. “I heard what you said, but I can’t hear any more.”

I paused, nearly being stopped mid-sentence. “Why?”

“I need to clarify two things,” he said seriously. “One, you ended last year saying that you were okay. If these talks resume, I’m going to need you to be honest with yourself and let me know you’re not okay.”

I needed to tell him that I was not okay...? Sounded ass-backwards. What if I didn’t want to say that, and just needed someone to talk to?

“Two, these talks need to be for things where I can provide insight, as a teacher.” He sat back in his chair, looking intently at me. “This can’t just be weekly chats about your relationship problems.”

I paused. “I thought ... but ... Last year, like ninety percent of what I came to you about was basically relationship problems, wasn’t it? You said life is a lot like drama, an-”

He held his hand up again, but didn’t speak immediately, opting instead to swivel in his char. “Yes, I suppose it was,” he admitted. “I can’t help but feel like I got too involved in your personal life last year as it was. I am your teacher, not your friend, Adam. If you need to talk to your friends about this, go talk to your friends your age. I wanted to help you feel more comfortable talking to your own peers, not to replace them.”

I was silent for a bit. I wanted to refute his points, but as much as I was ... frankly angry at Salvador, I knew that what he said was at least something a lot of adults believed, so I couldn’t exactly call him unreasonable for it.

He took the silence in the room with grace, and gave me more time than he should have before asking, “Was there anything else?”

“So ... what do I do if I tell my friends about my problems and they don’t get it, or they tease me about them?”

“Tell them it’s serious. If you need an adult’s opinion, I believe you have a good relationship with your parents.” He wrote some things down on his paper. “I want you to figure things out for yourself, Adam. You’re old enough. You’re mature enough. And aside from that, I shouldn’t be having a student whisper into my ear every week about the increasingly sexual situations my own students get into.” He sat back again. “It just isn’t right. I have a responsibility, as a teacher, to discourage that kind of openness. Some types of openness are good. Some aren’t. This isn’t.”

I sighed, but found myself slowly nodding. I weirdly never considered it, but yeah, telling a teacher I had sex with a student of his probably would be weird for someone in charge of facilitating teenagers, wasn’t it? “That makes sense.”

“Yes it does,” he told me. “I will be seeing you next semester, correct?”

“You will,” I told him.

“Good,” he replied flatly, moving onto another paper.

I sighed again, and turned to leave. “Bye, Mr. Salvador,” I told him. He didn’t reply.

“I guess I won’t see him until next semester,” I reflected to Nicole as we walked side-by-side in the hallway.

“I got no such luck. I have drama, second period, and if you think grade nine drama class is tough, I got news for you.”

I chuckled. “It’s Salvador, so I believe it.”

She scratched the back of her head. “I bet most universities don’t cover what this guy does in their first year of dramatic arts,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “We’re reading about dudes like Antonin Artaud and Peter Brook. We have to do a whole-ass one act play to finish the semester. We have to do a thousand-word personal essay on our feelings about drama every week. A thousand words, every week! That’s, like, four thousand words a month.”

“Knowing you, I bet you get up to four thousand words a minute,” I joked.

“Nah, I sit at around ninety-two pretty consistently,” she recounted, as casually as one would recall their first period class. “But still, who the hell would willingly subject themselves to four thousand words a month?”

“Hey, some people have to do more than twice that for a living,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well, those people are dumb,” she countered. As she walked, she accidentally elbowed a guy she was walking past. “Oh, sorry dude,” she casually told him, walking by.

“Watch it, slut!” the guy growled back. It sure seemed like guys were warming up to calling girls ‘sluts’ openly this year. Either that, or I just started noticing it this year. Either that, or-

Yup, it was Rodney. Clearly no cheerier for having been reported by her. I had to wonder, did Nicole really elbow him, or did he try to walk into her again like he did the last time? Either way, it was clear the dude hadn’t given up on being a practicing member of the Church of Douchebaggery.

Nicole, of course, wasn’t fazed. She was clearly annoyed by being called a slut in public like that, but her reply was immediate and yet also effortless. “I fucked your dad last week. I see why your mom left him.”

When the words left Nicole’s lips, it was like two spotlights shone on the two of them. The few students around us who could hear Nicole erupted into a cacophony of “ooooooh”s and laughter. Even if it were just the two of them, I doubt Rodney would have taken that sitting down, but now, spurred on by his public emasculation or whatever, his expression turned into one of pure rage. He charged at Nicole, clearly swinging his fist at her, not caring how many people were around him. It was clear on his face: he just had to hit her for what she said.

Big mistake. I backed away, knowing Nicole’s expertise, and she just rooted herself, waiting for him to get just close enough before strategically sidestepping inwards, and unleashing her counter. In the space of a second, after stepping inwards so that they were facing each other, she deflected his punch with her right hand, then wrapped her left arm around his punching arm, using her right hand to push the side of his face away so he couldn’t easily retaliate. All it took was a strategic squeeze from Nicole’s constricting arm to make it clear that not only was Rodney stuck, he was defeated and, probably in a decent amount of pain.

As soon as it was clear he wasn’t going to try that again, Nicole let go of him and let him collapse to the floor, suddenly aware of the crowd she caused. “C’mon, everyone, no one benefits from a crowd like this,” she chided them. “Classes start soon, get going!” She turned to me. “That should go for you too, squirt. There’s gonna be fallout and I’d rather you not be here for this.” She gave me a half-smile. “Trust me, I’d rather you turn around and start walking, please.”

I gave her a look before doing as she asked. Hazelwood took fights seriously, or so I was told, and it was pretty public what just happened, but I worried about one thing – was it as clear to them as it was to me that Rodney started it?

“Now of course, since it’s an E.R. verb, it keeps the “e” in all but the yo conjugation – just like A.R. verbs,” Mrs. Luciano went on, her face flustered from having to explain it to the slower kids in the class about three times. “Can we move on to-”

The crackle of the PA system took Mrs. Luciano out of her speech. We all turned to the system and heard the beep – it was a longer one. That meant the system was paging the class directly.

Mrs. Luciano walked over to the system and pressed the button to communicate. “Hello!” she greeted melodically.

“Don’t you mean, ‘hola?’” one of the kids joked, then mimed grading a paper.

“Hello hello,” the nasally old voice of the secretary greeted the classroom. “Do you have an Adam Watson in the class?”

“Yes, he’s here now,” Luciano replied, looking right at me for confirmation.

“Could you send him to the principal’s office right now, please?” the secretary asked.

“Yes, he’ll be right down,” she dutifully replied, amongst the chorus of ominous “ohhhh”s that always came with a student being called to the principal’s office. I had a pretty damn good guess why I was being called down, but I wasn’t going to give that information to the class, as mature and amazing as they all were.

Without even needing to say a word, I left for the principal’s office, fearing the worst. Did someone see me there and presume I did it? Was Nicole being expelled? Was I being expelled? Did Rodney have some dirt on me? Oh, fuck ... was Jarrod maybe Rodney’s younger brother and he sent Jarrod to spy on us to find something bad?

I arrived at Mr. Scott’s office and knocked on the door. Mr. Scott answered with a surprisingly warm demeanor.

“Hello, Adam!” he greeted me. “How are you doing?”

“Uh...” I looked into the room to see Nicole and Rodney sitting, looking away from each other. “I guess I’m nervous.”

“That’s fair enough,” he replied. “Come on in.” He closed the door behind me and went to sit down at his desk. “Now, I’m sure you have some idea of why you’re here. About four minutes before the start of third period, there was a fight between these two students, and both of them confirmed you were a close witness.”

I shot a look at Nicole, then back at Scott. “Am I really the best witness to ask here...?” I asked gingerly. “Isn’t this, like, a conflict of interest?”

“Yeah, everyone knows I’ll beat the shit out of Adam if he doesn’t immediately take my side and lie for me,” Nicole noted gently and nonchalantly.

“Nicole,” Mr. Scott warned, “not now.” He turned back to me. “That is true, but any other witness we can confirm couldn’t get a clear view of the fight, and I’ve been led to understand that you could. I know you and I’m going to trust you to be a hundred percent honest with me. Could you see the whole thing?”

I chewed my lip. “It went by fast, but yeah, I could see the whole thing.” I stole a look at Rodney. “Is this a he-said-she-said we’re dealing with?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t answer that,” Mr. Scott gently deflected. “Who, would you say, threw the first punch?”

I inhaled and exhaled slowly, reconstructing the scene in my head. “Rodney,” I said with confidence, hearing contesting sputters behind me. “He ran at Nicole with a punch. Nicole defended herself.”

“And did Rodney back away after Nicole, as you say, defended herself, or did he try something else?”

I hoped Nicole didn’t actually plan on me lying for her, because I could not look in Mr. Scott’s eyes and lie like that. “No, she pretty clearly incapacitated him,” I replied truthfully. “She had like a grip thing on her arm, or rather, with her arm, and after she let go, he just kinda went on the floor.”

“There, see?” Rodney spat at Scott.

“I never said otherwise,” Nicole dryly replied.

“You two, I want to hear no more talking,” Scott ordered. “Can you give a full account of everything physical you saw?”

I tried. For a good few minutes, I recounted every detail I saw of the grip and how it worked – Nicole tried to interject at one point to correct me on which part of the arm she constricted, but Mr. Scott shut her up – and by the end, Mr. Scott was sitting on the edge of his desk, arms folded, nodding.

“And one more thing. What led to the first punch, why were they fighting?”

My view narrowed as I stared at the wall. It would have been so easy to just say, “Rodney called her a slut.” But if I did, Rodney would no doubt interject with what Nicole said, and I couldn’t help but feel like Scott would only care about what Nicole said. Something about what little he did, barely anything more than lip service, made me question if telling him was even a good idea.

“ ... Adam?” he asked.

“I wasn’t focused on it. I don’t really remember,” I fibbed, mumbling towards the wall.

“You don’t remember anything Rodney or Nicole said?” he pressed.

“Told you this guy was going to lie,” Rodney spat. “Nicole yelled out plain as day, she was glad my dad died.”

Even with Nicole replying, “Funny how none of the witnesses remember that,” I froze. His dad died. Jesus, that was rough. This situation sucked.

Mr. Scott noticed immediately. “You okay? You seem troubled.”

“No. I’m, uh, just sorry his dad passed.” I turned to Rodney. “That’s awful. I’m sorry, dude.”

“Shut up,” he dismissed me.

I turned back to Scott. “I think I would have remembered if Nicole said something about being glad someone is dead. You saw how it affected me here. I’m 100% sure I didn’t hear that. Nicole doesn’t say stuff like that.”

Mr. Scott sighed, and nodded again. “Okay. Thank you, Adam. You can go back to class.”

I was glad to hear that. With little more encouragement, I slowly walked out of the room, catching Nicole’s gaze as I walked past. I left the room swiftly, only to be greeted by Sydney and Rick in the hallway.

“Oh, hey,” I awkwardly greeted them. “You guys here for Nicole?”

“Yeah, it sounds like shit is getting rough in there,” Sydney acknowledged, looking off towards the office.

“I don’t recall seeing you guys around during the fight,” I pointed out.

“Oh no, we weren’t,” Rick replied. “We’re just, like, here for her. She texted us saying this stuff is getting to her and we just wanted to be there for her.”

“Really? She didn’t text me,” I replied, not being able to help my tone carrying my hint of jealousy.

A brief pause floated between us. “Well, be here for her too then,” Sydney awkwardly said. “Why not, right? You’re her boyfriend. Who better than you?”

“Yeah, but if she texted you guys but didn’t text me-”

“Then she’ll be pleasantly surprised to see you stayed to help her too,” Rick smoothly finished.

Ugh, Rick was being nice. I almost didn’t want him to be nice. I wanted to dislike him, but he wasn’t giving me enough material. Aside from maybe smelling a bit like BO, I had nothing on the guy. I kept looking at him, and he gave me a smile. “We all want Nicole to feel better, right?”

“Right,” I replied, a little more weakly than I wanted. It was what I wanted, but I dunno ... I wanted her to feel better thanks to me. I wanted to feel like the one who knew her best. I didn’t even know who Rick and Sydney were last year, so they couldn’t have possibly been that important to her. More importantly, there was no way that she both met them this year and got closer with them than with me in that same timespan without ... something ... happening. I dunno, something wasn’t right.

We waited for a bit until someone left Mr. Scott’s office. Rodney left first, so of course, all three of us looked off in some random direction as he walked by. A few minutes later, Nicole emerged from the office, saying something with a sarcastic smile to Mr. Scott. The smile vanished like lightning when the door closed.

“Nicole!” Sydney called out gently.

Nicole looked up to see us three and rolled her eyes, a smile forming on her face. “You guysssss,” she chided, jogging over to us. “What are you all doing here?” She started giving me a playful noogie as Sydney spoke.

“You said this shit was getting to you, so we all wanted to be there for you,” she said with a smile, as soon as the noogie ended, the two shared a hug. Then Nicole hugged Rick, then after, she faced me with a pained, muted smile like how Frodo looked at Sam at the end of Lord of the Rings.

“Wasn’t that something?” she asked with no emotion. “Aren’t you glad I told you to scram?”

“I’d do it a thousand times if it meant shit like that happened to you less,” I told her.

“C’mere,” she replied, pulling me into a hug and kissing me on the lips. At the end of the kiss, her eyes were somewhat misty. “Thanks for sticking around for me,” she replied. “I won’t lie, I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Just means I should do it more,” I cheesily replied. “Next time, text me too. So what was up with ... all that?”

She let go of me, then got this thousand-yard stare even as she remembered. “Yeah,” she simply said. “Turns out his dad kicked the bucket a few weeks ago. I knew his parents were divorced, but that part, I uh, wasn’t privy to.” She sat down next to us on the nearby bench. “For the first time ever, I kinda agree with Scott here. That was reckless of me. I didn’t know the whole story.” Her voice started to quiver. “I was not expecting to feel bad for Rodney of all people.” She exhaled a few times, then looked Sydney right in the face. “It turns out actions have consequences. Who knew?”

“You can’t know everything,” Sydney soothed her. “And he was being a dick. You did what anyone wou-”

“Of course he was being a dick, you idiot,” Nicole spat back, looking down at the floor. “I would be a dick if I lost my dad too. I’m sure I ... have ... been.” Her voice started to get choked up. “I’m sure that I’ve acted in ways I...” Exhale. “Wasn’t proud of, after ... you know.” I knew the expression on Nicole’s face, I knew it well. Memories of the graveyard came flooding back.

“I can’t speak for everyone here, but I only knew you after that happened,” Rick interjected. “And you’re ... headstrong, but not a dick, Nicole.”

“I’m a dick to him.” She pointed at me, still looking at the floor. “Maybe because he knew about Mitch. I sure as fuck was a dick when he found out. I think it’s natural to be a dick about shit like that. I still have nightmares to this day, I can’t even imagine what ... what Rodney...” She cleared her throat. “I’m gonna write him a letter. I wanna make this right. I’m gonna write a letter, and I wanna talk to Scott about this shit. Maybe set up an assembly. Let these kids who lost people know they’re not alone. As a matter of fact...” She got up and walked with determination back towards Mr. Scott’s office.

“Nicole,” Sydney called out with determination.

“What?” Nicole asked, still walking away from us.

“You told me to tell you if I spot any periods of hypomania from you,” she replied gently. “I think we’re seeing one.”

“I don’t care,” she dismissively replied, knocking on Mr. Scott’s door. “I need to do something. I can’t just do nothing. Don’t you get it? Doing nothing is how we ... it’s how we get here. We need to do something. If I’m not doing something, I may as well be dead.”

Her last sentence echoed in the halls, with no one knowing what to say to that. Eventually, the door opened and Mr. Scott popped out, murmuring something I couldn’t hear.

“I have an idea about all this. It’ll be quick. Can I come in? Please?” Nicole asked, loud enough for us all to hear. Shortly after, she went inside and the door closed after her. We were back to just us three, with a decidedly different tone.

“She’s getting worse,” Rick noted out loud.

“Yup,” Sydney acknowledged, then turned to me. “Adam, Nicole ... she ... Jesus, how do I even explain this to...?”

Rick gave her a weird look. “He’s her boyfriend,” he replied, clearly baffled by her. He turned to me. “Hey Adam, do you need anything explained to you?”

“Was she recently diagnosed with anything, or is it just you guys keeping track of her behavior?” I asked.

“No diagnosis,” Rick confirmed.

“Then yeah, I know,” I replied uneasily. “At least I think I do.” I motioned to my arms, indicating lines.

“Sorry, what??” Sydney nearly exploded, making me freeze in place. My expression turned from understanding to horrified. “Like, cuts?”

Both of them were looking at me with wide eyes. A pit formed in my stomach. “You can’t tell her,” I immediately said. “She’d never forgive me.”

Sydney was breathing heavily, but Rick seemed to take it understandingly. “I guess that makes sense,” he acknowledged, then turned to Sydney, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, calm down. It’s still the same Nicole. It’s just ... more of a big deal than we thought.” He made her look at him. “The best thing we can do is be there for her.”

“She’s cutting,” Sydney said weakly out loud, to no one in particular. “She’s fucking cutting. And she never told us.”

“She never told me either. I found out,” I offered, hoping it would help.

I don’t think Sydney cared too much about how much she was telling her versus me. Maybe I should have followed that example. “We have to do more about this,” she told Rick.

“Like what?” he challenged her. “She’s just gonna cut us out of her life if we start, like, keeping her on a leash now.”

“Don’t say ‘cut,’ don’t say that now,” Sydney blubbered weakly, burying her face in her hands.

“Oh, get a grip,” he commanded, then turned to me. “You’re there for her, right? You’re helping her?”

“As much as I can,” I said with a sad shrug. And – can you keep a secret?”

“Sure.”

“Nicole can never know this, but I’m the reason the school got her a psychiatrist.”

Rick paused. Sydney did too. Eventually, he slowly said, “Adam ... I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do. Nicole hates being smothered. She also doesn’t do well with grown-ups thinking they’re better than her. I get you’re thinking that helped, but-”

“Are you serious?” I asked with a lot of heat. “I-”

The principal’s office door opening made us all stop in our tracks. Nicole, nearly unrecognizable from her previous sad state, skipped out, closing the door herself. “Another swing and a hit for Baker,” she proudly declared. “Shit is happening. Progress, baby. Progress. Swish!” She practically danced her way over to us. “The fuck are you all still doing here?”

Sydney was the first one to make a move, unable to hide her deep sadness. “I have to go,” she choked out, practically running out of the main hallway.

Nicole looked from Rick to me. “ ... Did I say something wrong?”

“The whole ... dad situation is hitting her harder than she, like, thought it would,” Rick lied with clear expertise. Everything from his tone to his facial expressions were on point.

“Oh shit,” Nicole acknowledged, nodding slowly. “Can’t say I don’t get that.” She shifted, then the light of excitement returned to her eyes. “Well, anyway, we might be getting an assembly for understanding family grief and shit. Scott says we gotta play it right – don’t wanna just give these people PTSD flashbacks when we wanna help. I said ‘sure.’ We start working. Scott and I work out this idea where...”

I couldn’t recall the last time I saw Nicole this excited in my working memory. I wasn’t sure if I was reassured or more scared.

“And some of these ... ehhhhhh, these buildings ... still stand today,” Mr. Kovacs finished clumsily. He always went ‘ehhh’ to stall when he couldn’t think of the word in English.

“Monuments, Mr. Kovacs,” I heard a voice call. I turned to see it was Baseball Kid from last year. His tone wasn’t condescending, just ... engaged. His book was open. Last year, he was definitely not the type to care about classes. Good for him, I guess.

“Yes, yes, monuments,” Mr. Kovacs replied. “Raise your hand next time. When we think of these, ehhh, monuments ... we think of the Colosseum, of course, and we think of all these monuments in Italy, but if we look at, eh, France ... we can see many examples of...”

I audibly heard Zelda’s head hit the desk next to me. I couldn’t help but smile. Even though Mr. Kovacs ordered her to sit away from me in her first class, the next class she just moved back and he didn’t say a word about it.

I leaned in close to her. “Having fun?” I teased.

She slowly raised her head. “How can you take a subject as fascinating as ancient history and do this to it?” she whispered back.

“I bet most of the students here didn’t care a lot about ancient history in the first place,” I noted, silently adding that I was one of those students.

“Well, no wonder,” she replied, gesturing to Mr. Kovacs. “At my school, we don’t just have ancient history class, we have three types for different times and places. And all of the teachers ... care about it.”

“Maybe I should move to Denmark,” I joked.

“You’d like it. I also took a class on cryptography. That was probably my favorite class,” she added with a smile.

Her smiles were always so genuine. She seemingly never smiled without reason, she just happened to smile a lot. Like she was a particularly motivated person. Or ... maybe I made her smile a lot. That would be cool.

“ ... What’s cryptography?” I asked.

Another smile, although this one was an ‘oh, come on’ smile. “You’ve never heard of cryptography?” she asked. “I thought you were the native English speaker.”

I shrugged. “I never said I was good at it.”

“You seem good at talking to me,” she said slyly, giving me a sideways smile. “It’s the study of codes and ciphers and, um, making good passwords. It’s like locks and keys in words. It’s puzzle making and solving, but in a class.”

“Wow,” I breathed. “That actually does sound cool. That’s a class? Our classes are all boring required shit.”

“You have electives, don’t you?” she asked.

“Yeah, but in grade ten you don’t get that many,” I answered. “Drama was really the only actual choice I got to make.”

“Ooh, so you like theater, huh?” she asked, moving closer to me.

A loud cough on the other side of me made Zelda immediately shift back to her desk. Her eyes, and mine, and a lot of others, focused on the source of the cough – Megan.

She smiled innocently. “Sorry,” she offered. Most people turned away, but I didn’t. Megan looked right at me, and shrugged innocently. “Just clearing my throat,” she offered.

I shook my head. “You suck.”

“Not anymore. Find someone else.”

We stared at each other for a bit until we both broke down into smiles and giggles. I could hear one or two giggles from Zelda on the other side of me, but they were clearly more confused than anything.

I turned back to Zelda. “Where were we?”

“Who’s that?”

It was my turn to give a sly smile. “You really are a gossip.”

She shrugged innocently, giving me another million-dollar smile.

“That’s Megan. She and I used to be, uh, boyfriend and girlfriend last year.”

“Ahhh,” she replied, slowly nodding in understanding. “So, she wants to stop another girl from talking to him. Protecting her territory.”

“Well, I d-”

“I heard about this kind of thing in American high schools,” she continued, her knowing smile evident on her face. She was looking squarely at Megan. I turned back to note that, luckily, Megan’s head was turned in the other direction, focused on Kovacs.

I turned back to Zelda, digesting her words. “ ... You don’t have jealousy in Denmark? What? We’re still, like, teenagers.”

“Oh, we do,” she clarified. “But it’s fun seeing it happen in American high schools more. It’s just like the movies. When did you date her?”

Holy shit. It was earlier this year. That was insane. “Uhh, around January,” I replied. “We didn’t date for too long. Y’know, we were better off as friends.”

Zelda was still looking at her. “She’s cute. Nice work,” she said.

“Uh, thanks,” I replied awkwardly.

“I can see why it didn’t work out though,” she murmured. “She doesn’t seem like your type.”

“Have you even talked to her yet?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I just have my intuition.”

“What, does your cryptography class help decipher the human ... soul or something?” I joked.

She winked at me. “It’s all the same stuff, Adam.”

We quietly shared a giggle, then a pause. “Well hey ... if you wanted to talk to her ... or even get know some new people, you could have lunch with my group. She’s in it.”

That got her attention. I figured it would, given her always talking about how difficult she found making friends. “Yeah?” she asked eagerly. “I’d love to.”

I smiled and turned back to Mr. Kovacs, stealing a look at Megan. I wondered if this was going to bite me in the ass. Megan was really hounding me, making sure I was a good boy – but, like, I was making people like Zelda and Sabrina happy. Wasn’t this a good thing? We didn’t even do anything yet. Hell, maybe Zelda didn’t even like me, though I hoped she did.