Page 6 of Left on Read

After fifteen minutes she puts her phone down.

“Well, this has been fun,” she says, pushing herself up with herpalms flat on the desk. “I’ll see you all Wednesday. We’re starting with Jane Austen.”

I let the paper fall from my fingers. My hands come to rest against my face. Around me, people start leaving the room, including Dr. Lowry. I don’t see her, but I hear her heels clicking against the floor.

“Wait …,” Hayes starts. I move my hands. We’re the only two people in the room again. “Was Jane Austen even American?”

“No, Mr. Collins, she wasn’t.”

OfficialEndeavourHigh:Beta Club: Please be nice to the freshmen today.—Mrs. J.

“Jane Austen, Esha, can you even believe—” I whisper, as much bite in my tone as I can convey at a low volume. This room is stuffed with people, and it’s nearly impossible to have a private conversation.

Esha rolls her eyes. Her first-day-of-school look is more daring than usual: the flowy ivory dress goes past her knees, as required, but the straps might be thin enough to get her dress-coded. “You love Jane Austen.”

“Yes, but—” Someone bumps my shoulder as they walk by, and they mumble an apology. I don’t respond. They couldn’t hear me in this frenetic room, anyway. It’s our first Beta Club meeting of the year, and I swear half of the school is here. I get it, we’re all high-achieving students or whatever, but I would really appreciate less of a meat grinder. “Yes, I love Jane Austen,” I start again, pressing my palms together to keep them still, because thinking about this makes me feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. “But she’sBritish.American Lit and British Lit aredifferent.There was a whole war about it.”

“The revolution was about a bit more than that, but okay.”

I wave my anthology. “Thisis what we’re supposed to do. Read throughthisbook, and—” I’m interrupted when someone bumps into meagain.From somewhere deep in my chest, a growl emerges that truly sounds feral.

Because Hayes bumped into me.

Of course he did.

Hayes’s eyes widen, and it would be comical if he weren’t socloseto me. Why is everyone socloseto me? My skin starts to crawl because my body naturally revolts when people are in my space.

“It’s okay, Novella.” He smiles, or smirks, or something. I’m not great with faces. (All I know is that his is objectively handsome, something I hate admitting, even to myself.) “I’m not gonna hurt your emotional-support book.”

“Funny.” I squint at him.

“Are you okay?” He squints back at me, like I’m some specimen he’s looking at through his beloved microscope. But I’m not a worm or a plant cell or a piece of a squid. He just sort of makes mefeelmicroscopic, sometimes. Small, brainless, and completely dissected.

“I’m fine.Why?” I don’t even know the reason he’s asking.

“Your face is all puffy.”

“Oh.” My eyes drop to my feet, which are fidgeting. Some part of me is always fidgeting. “Well, your face is all … square.” His faceiskind of square, but not in a bad way. In a beautiful way. Comeback of the century right there.

“Good one.” He rolls his eyes. “But I was asking because you very clearly ran out of class to go cry in the bathroom this morning.”

I straighten my posture, certain he’s mocking what he sees as fragility. So I cry a lot. Who gives a shit? “Yeah,” I say defiantly. “I do that.”

“She does do that,” Esha says, speaking for the first time in this strange conversation. She, unlike me, is entirely unbumped. She has this innate power to carve out space for herself anywhere, even in a crowded room.

“Oh. So that’s just like … part of your life?” Hayes starts. “I thought it was my fault.”

“Just give me a minute,” I tell him, tapping my pointer finger against my chin. “I’ll come up with somethingelseto blame you for.”

“I’m sure you will. Climate change, maybe.” He rolls his eyes again.

“Works for me. I heard you don’t recycle.”

I’m not finished yet, and I’m about to blame him for something else, like taking the last bag of Doritos out of the vending machine in the canteen, but then someone slams into my back. The book flies from my hands, and all sense of balance leaves me. I’m going down. It’s possible I’ve just been hit by a bulldozer, and this is the moment before all my bones are flattened.

A hand wraps around my shoulder, and instead of hitting the ground in a bone-crunching heap, I am pulled upright and … held.

“For God’s sake, Luke, who raised you?” Hayes huffs, and that’s when I realize he’s got me, because I hear his words through his breath on my ear.