What I Don't Know Can't Hurt You

Chapter Nine

I collapsed onto my chair in English class, Ryan's words still echoing throughout my thoughts.

"Blonde, tall, skinny, and kind of nerdy."

No. I didn't care.

I glanced at Evelyn and Ryan, who were sitting next to each other.

The bell hadn't even rung yet, but Mrs. Jones still stood up and faced the class.

"I see a few people are late," she announced. "We'll start anyways. Can anyone tell me the definition of an antonym?"

Leo's hand shot up.

"Lily?" Mrs. Jones said.

"First of all, my name is Leo."

"Lily, this is really not funny."

Leo stood up and calmly left the classroom. I glanced at Taryn, who sighed and put her head in her hands.

I raised my hand.

"Quinn?" Mrs. Jones called on me.

"Can I go to the bathroom?"

"I don't know, can you?"

"May I go to the bathroom?"

"I suppose."

I left the classroom and saw Leo heading down the hallway towards the office. I caught up with him.

"Whatcha doin?" I asked.

"Getting someone fired."

"Sweet!"

We walked into the office. The secretary (whose name was Miss Levinson, according to the little nameplate on her desk) looked up.

"Can I help you?" she said politely.

"Um, could we speak to Mr. Samuels?" Leo replied.

"If he's not busy, I don't see why not." She stood up and entered the principal's office.

"Are you seriously going to do this?" I asked. Leo nodded.

Miss Levinson came back out, with Mr. Samuels right behind her.

"Ah, you two boys again!" he said in a friendly way. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Mrs. Jones refuses to call me by my name," Leo said.

"And I've heard her refer to me as a 'homosexual delinquent' more than once," I added.

"Miss Levinson, could you call Mrs. Jones down here, and find someone to supervise her class while I talk to her?"

Miss Levinson nodded and picked up the phone.

"Okay, you two boys get back to class," Mr. Samuels ordered.

We did as we were told. A few minutes later, a teacher I didn't recognize came into our classroom and said we could just play on our phones for the rest of the class. She didn't tell us her name, she just sat on a chair in the corner and watched us. It was pretty fun.

The next day, when we walked into English class, Mr. Samuels and the teacher from last class were standing at the front of the room. Once everyone had settled down, he made an announcement.

"Your former teacher, Mrs. Jones, has ceased to teach here. This is Mrs. Yates, who some of you may know, as she substitutes quite often around here. She has offered to fill in for Mrs. Jones until we can find a permanent replacement."

The class chattered and whispered. Taryn looked at Leo and I, wide-eyed.

"Did you guys-"

"Yep," Leo interrupted.

"So she-"

"She's gone," I said.

"I love you guys," Taryn exclaimed, high-fiving us.

That class was the best English class I had had since last June. Mrs. Yates was so much nicer than Mrs. Jones, and she made up a bunch of educational games instead of making us do boring worksheets.

When I bent over to get my backpack off the ground, I noticed a notebook lying on the floor. Someone must have forgotten it there.

"I'll meet you guys in the cafeteria, I'm just going to put this in the lost and found," I said to Taryn and Leo, waving the notebook in the air.

I flipped through the notebook quickly as I walked to the lost and found. It was just filled with doodles. I opened it completely. The page I flipped to was covered in hearts with the initials "RP+QC" inside them. "QC"? I was the only one with the initials "QC" in this class! Who was "RP"? I went through my class list in my head. There were two people with those initials. Rose Polsfut and Ryan Patterson. Neither of those made sense. Ryan was violently straight, and I was pretty sure Rose had a boyfriend. Maybe she didn't. It would make the most sense if she didn't. I told myself she was single, and I had just misremembered.

I joined my friends in the cafeteria. I was still like 15% sure Rose had a boyfriend. I tried to assure myself she didn't, because there was no way Ryan liked me. He obviously liked Evelyn.

Rose liked me, and Ryan liked Evelyn.

I really needed to start staying focused during school, but I sure as hell didn't start that afternoon.