Chapter 1
THE THIRD-GREATEST TRAGEDY of my life is that I don’t live in a film noir.
The second-greatest tragedy of my life is that it’s 498 days until my eighteenth birthday, which means 498 days until I get to leave San Miguel, California, more specifically, Presidio High School, and, more broadly, my holding pattern of a life here.
Don’t worry about the first-greatest tragedy, because it happened a long time ago and isn’t interesting or special at all. It happens to lots of people, and I prefer to focus on the ways I’m not like most people.
Here are two examples:
Everyone else at lunch is wearing shorts and T-shirts, and I am wearing a trench coat.
Everyone else is eating lunch together, and I am eating alone.
Which is fine. It’s good, actually, because it gives me space to think about things.
Like how nobody would ever eat a brown-bagged lunch in film noir. I can’t think of any noir I’ve seen where the private investigator eats a chicken focaccia sandwich, and I’ve seen pretty much every movie in the genre. Nobody goes to high school in film noir, either, but no matter how many times I ask, Dad won’t let me drop out. So here I am.
You’re probably picturing me in a school cafeteria with a lunch line and tables fiercely guarded by rival cliques, but you shouldn’t. That’s a trope. Every kind of movie has its tropes—the things you know you’re going to see, the things you start to expect—and is there a bigger one for teen dramas than cafeteria cliques?
Maybe there is. I don’t watch a lot of them.
But this is Southern California. Nothing is indoors if it doesn’t have to be, so benches and metal tables are scattered across the open-air campus. Everything here is sprawl, from freeways to lunch spots. And the only person who seems particularly attached to any given table is me.
Someone clears their throat. When I look up, there’s a whole crowd of someones gathered around my table.
Like I said, high school cliques are a trope, not reality, but if I had to sum this particular group up, I’d label them the Future Ivy Leaguer Overachievers. Perfect GPAs. Lots of extracurriculars. Would murder you with their bare hands if it meant moving one spot up on the class rank. Maybe that’s not fair, I think, when I see Lily hovering in the back, looking uncomfortable. But after what she did to me . . . maybe it is.
And standing in front—so close her legs are touching my table, clearly in charge, clearly the one who cleared her throat—is Mia. I’m not sure exactly where it falls on my list, but the existence of Mia McElroy is definitely some type of tragedy.
If my life were a noir, Mia would be described in the script like this:
But this is just high school, and Mia’s just a girl with the personality of a piranha.
“Hi,” Mia says, drawing out the word over five seconds so I can better hear the go fuck yourself subtext underneath. “We’re going to need the table.”
You’re probably imagining her in a cheerleader uniform, but you shouldn’t. That’s another trope.
She clears her throat again. “Did you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“So . . . ?”
“So, I don’t agree.” I take a bite of my sandwich. “You don’t need the table.”
“We do need the table, actually.”
“Shelter is a need. Food is a need. Are you going to eat the table?”
“Oh my God,” Mia mutters.
“Mia,” I hear Lily say, but I refuse to look at her. “Maybe we could—”
“We need the table because, unlike you, we have actual things to accomplish this lunch period,” Mia says. “We’re planning the Key Club’s community food drive, which I know you couldn’t possibly care about, because you don’t care about helping the community, or like, anyone besides yourself.”
I point at the lumbering guy at her shoulder—her boyfriend, I can’t remember his name—who’s texting on his phone, oblivious. “Really? He’s helping with the food drive?”
Mia looks behind her. When she swats at her boyfriend’s arm, he jumps out of his skin. “Could you get off your phone and do something about him?”
Mia’s boyfriend shoves his phone in his pocket so fast you’d think it was on fire. He looks at me, then back to her. “But . . . he’s just sitting there.”
“Yeah, exactly,” I say. “Thank you, Hired Goon.”
“What?” he says.
Lily leans closer to Mia. “We could go on the lawn. If Gideon doesn’t want to move—”
That’s the first time I’ve heard Lily say my name in five years. Which wouldn’t be remarkable, except she used to say it every day, when we were still best friends.
“No.” Mia folds her arms. “We need a hard surface, and we need the space. He doesn’t. There are plenty of other tables he could use—”
“But this is my table,” I say.
“Smaller tables, more appropriate tables for one person—”
“I always sit at this table.”
“—that would work just fine if Gideon would stop being so selfish.”
I don’t know what else to say to her. I chose this table in my second week of freshman year and I’ve sat here every single day since and so I have to sit here now. It makes perfect sense in my head, but I can tell from the way they’re all staring at me it makes no sense to them.
“Why are you being so weird about this?” Mia snaps. “Just pick a different table.”
“I’m not being weird.”
“Of course you are,” she says, then gestures at . . . well, all of me. “Who the hell wears a jacket when it’s eighty degrees?”
“It’s a trench coat. I always wear a trench coat.” This gets no reaction. “People used to wear stuff like this all the time. And fedoras. And shoes that weren’t made of plastic.” I can tell I’m not helping my case, but I can’t stop. “If someone from the 1930s or the ’40s saw the way you dressed, they’d think you were the weird one. Not me.”
“Wow. So you’re really still doing it.” When she smiles, it’s toothless. “You’re still playing detective.”
I didn’t play a detective, I was one. Was.
“I’m not a detective.”
“It’s almost cute,” she continues, “how committed you are. Almost.”
“You know, Mia, why don’t you ask somebody else for their table?”
“Because you’re the one eating alone.”
“I always eat alone.”
“Yeah. You do.” Mia locks her sharp eyes on mine. “Have you ever wondered why?”
Maybe I could have left it there, if she hadn’t said that. Or if it was someone else saying it. But after what they all put me through—Mia included, Mia especially—it’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself.
“Your boyfriend is cheating on you.”
Mia’s eyes bug out. The aforementioned boyfriend’s mouth drops open.
“Excuse me?” she says.
“Oh.” I blink at her. “That means he’s seeing somebody else.”
She puts both hands on my table. “What the Jesus fuck is your problem, Gideon?”
“It’s not my problem,” I say. “It’s your problem. Yours and—” I turn to her boyfriend, who still hasn’t closed his mouth. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember your name. Colton, Ashton, Braxton . . .”
“Matt,” he says.
Okay, so I’m not batting a thousand.
“Matt,” I repeat, “I’m sorry to be doing this to you, Matt—well, not that sorry, you are cheating on her.” I take a breath and focus back on Mia. “Did you see how panicked he got, when you interrupted him before? I bet that’s been happening a lot, lately. Right, Mia? He’s all jumpy?”
Matt’s phone rings in his pocket. Just once, a high, musical alert. He ignores it. “And see, that’s interesting,” I say. “That text alert, it’s not the default tone. And no offense, Matt, but you seem like a default kind of guy.”
“Dude,” he says. “Don’t do this.”
Mia whirls around on him. “Don’t do what, Matt?”
“I’m betting he programmed a special tone for one contact,” I say. “A very special contact.”
“Give me your phone,” Mia says. “I want to see your phone.”
“What? No!” Matt’s hand rests protectively over his pocket.
“I just want to see your phone,” she repeats, deadly calm. “Why can’t I see your phone?”
“You don’t need his phone,” I assure her. “There are other clues.”
Matt throws up his hands. “Clues? Nothing is happening!”
I point at Matt’s face. “He’s trying to grow a beard, too. Can you see that? I mean, it’s not working, but—” I shrug. “Do you like beards, Mia? I bet you don’t. So who’s that for, do you think?”
“Shaving was irritating my skin!” Matt protests.
“His clothes are new, too, like he’s trying to impress somebody.” I gesture at his pants. “Forgot to take the size sticker off.”
Matt looks down at his jeans, swears, and rips off the sticker.
“What the hell is going on?” Mia yells at him, though she’s pointing at me. “Is that little asshole right?”
Five feet six is exactly average height for a sixteen-year-old American male, but I don’t think she’s in the correct mental state to hear that right now.
“Babe, of course not,” Matt pleads with her.
“It’s Ava Clark, isn’t it.”
“Does Ava Clark wear pink lip gloss?” They stop and turn to stare at me. “Like sort of a peachy color, kind of neutral, little bit of glitter?”
“Why?” Mia, vibrating with rage, bites off the word. “Why, Gideon?”
“Oh, no reason.” I point to my own shirt collar. “Just the stain on his jacket.”
Mia looks for it. Finds it. And that’s when she really explodes, a volcanic ball of righteous fury erupting in the middle of the open-air quad.
“What is that, Matt?” she demands. “Whose is that?” She gestures to her red lips. “Because it’s definitely not mine!”
“Mia,” he says, eyes shifting around the crowd that’s started to gather around us. “I can explain.” She waits. He flounders. Then—“Did you know humans were never meant to be monogamous?”
Swing and a miss, Hired Goon.
“I can’t believe you!” she shouts at him. “You are, you’re cheating on me!”
“Yeah. He is.” I lean forward and smile at her. “Have you ever wondered why?”
For a second, Mia almost looks like she’s going to slap me.
Then she does slap me.
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