Page 14 of Left on Read

And here’s yet another Fun Endeavour Fact: Our homerooms are gender specific.

The voices around me have basically blurred together, but one takes shape.

“He’s trying, he really is,” Piper insists. He’snottrying. I haven’t even been listening, and Iknowhe’s not trying. She’s pouring her heart out again, agonizing about her boyfriend, Bryce. I dislike everything about him, even his name.

I’m deeply afraid she’s going to end up marrying him. I don’t know her well enough to personally grab her by the shoulders and scream,Dump that boy,but I’d really like to. He’s cheated on her at least twice, the last time very publicly. I fully expect him to be theguy at our ten-year reunion walking around the dance floor seeing if anyone wants to do body shots.

Iwould want to be saved from that guy, but if he got caught with his hands in another girl’s pants in the third-floor bathroom, then he’d need to be saved fromme.I wouldn’t be sitting here in homeroom saying he’s “trying.” I don’t even know what that means.

Piper keeps talking, but there’s a look in her eyes that’s strangely vacant. It’s almost as if she’s not all there. Like some part of her is still in the hallway in front of that bathroom, where everyone watched her heart break.

Bless Mrs. Jacobs, she sits on top of her desk with her legs crossed underneath her, and she just listens. She does this for all of us, listens to anything we need to say, but where there’s an absence in Piper’s eyes, there’s apresentnessin Mrs. Jacobs’ gaze. She has this way of making you feel seen like no one else can. Her attention is priceless, and her patience is limitless. I always wait and talk to Mrs. Jacobs alone after homeroom instead of presenting my every vulnerable thought to the class.

I’m actually kind of concerned about Piper. She seems … off.Not okay,in a way that’s unsettling. Briefly, I consider talking to her about Bryce for real. But I’m not sure I have the tact necessary to handle that. If everyone else failed to convince her to break up, what chance do I have? I know her friends tried, and, in frustration, they’ve started to distance themselves.

“Thank you for sharing that, dear,” Mrs. Jacobs says, glancingat her watch as soon as Piper finishes a sentence. Her patience is limitless, but her sense of time management is razor-sharp. “Does anyone have a final comment on Piper’s thoughts?”

Piper kind of deflates in her chair, her long blond hair falling over the back of the old, wooden, high-backed lab stool. Around us, everyone begins filing out.

“Hey, … Piper,” I say, cringing at my own boldness.Don’t do this, Nova,I try to tell myself.

Piper turns around, her wooden stool swiveling on its ancient legs. Her eyes are empty, still, but a little watery. The tears are kind of welcome, actually. I can handle those. I’m intimately familiar with crying, although I’m 100 percent sure that I’ve never shed theseparticulartears.

“I don’t want to overstep, or tell you how to live your life, but …” My fingers pick at the skin on my thumb with a ferocity that really hurts. “You know it’s okay if this doesn’t work, right? Like, if he’s not trying hard enough. Or if you decide that he’s hurt you too much. Or if you just … don’t want to be with him anymore.”

My muscles tense as I wait for Piper to react. I expect her to lash out, cry, yell, even lunge at me. She doesn’t do any of that. She doesn’t do much of anything. She just nods. Once, twice. The third time is pronounced enough that it actually looks like a nod. Then, she gathers her things and leaves the room.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Mrs. Jacobs mutters, untangling her legs and climbing off of her desk.

“What do you mean?” I ask, moving to the desk in the middleof the front row, where I sit when I talk to Mrs. Jacobs privately after homeroom. We have a routine, and I need it like I need sunlight. If my mind is a plant, this is how I photosynthesize.

“You giving out sage life advice. I’m very proud.” She straightens the papers on the corner of her desk with a wry smile.

“Well, I can’t be a social disaster forever.” Or maybe I can. I guess we’ll see.

“You’ve never been a social disaster, Nova.”

“Okay,” I scoff, not believing her in the slightest.

She doesn’t argue with me because she’s one of the only people in my life that never does. Instead, she sits back in her desk chair, crosses her arms, and gives me the full force of her attention.

“So, how’s your English class?” she asks, her eyes lighting up with an excitement I wish I still felt.

“It’s … fine. It’s a class. Everything’s good.” I choose my words carefully, because I don’t want her to know how awful things are, how badly Dr. Lowry’s making me feel about the subject I’ve loved my entire life. The one I love so much primarilybecauseof Mrs. Jacobs.

She can’t know about that.

“Just fine?” she asks, raising her brows. That’s a consequence of our weekly chats. She knows every expression on my face. Beyond what I’m saying, she knows what I’m not saying.

“Just fine.” I nod. “Hayes is in Dr. Lowry’s class too. Ask him.”

“Oh?” Her brows raise again, somehow even higher. “And how do you feel about that?”

I grit my teeth. “Unenthused.”

“I assume the two of you will be running against each other for Beta Club president?” she asks, deftly changing tacks.

Yes. Obviously. He’s still my most bitter rival.