Paper Flowers (Pretty Plastic People) ★

005. Gossip at Aquino High

005. Gossip at Aquino High

At Aquino High, the more you know about people, the more power you have over them.

The next morning I show up to school not sure how I'm going to react to seeing Spencer in the hallways. I'd stayed up the whole night thinking about our frozen yogurt get-together and how I'd seen the form for the flowers in his folder; had my name not been clearly filled in under the "recipient" heading, I would have never imagined that they had been intended for me.

Other than our quick chats in calculus and sometimes English class, Spencer and I barely interact. I consider us to be friends only in the loosest interpretation of the term: he's buddies with Taylor Cunningham and by extension hangs out with my sister and her group of friends. He stops to talk to me in the hallways and flashes me his megawatt smile on occasion, but to go so far as to assume he liked me? It was a fantasy, not a reality.

My three bouquets of roses are still in my locker when I open it to sort through my books for the day. The sinking feeling in my stomach confirms that I should have taken them home, set them in vases, and watered them to ensure they don't die. Already, the petals on the bouquet nearest to me--Liam's--are withering slightly.

I'm contemplating whether or not I should go ask a chemistry teacher to borrow a beaker to fill with water when a shadow falls over me. I turn around and see Celia Carter studying me. She looks like she recently got her eyebrows done at the brow salon Allison frequents, because they seem even more groomed than usual.

"Three bouquets?" she asks, studying the flowers propped up inside my open locker.

I wonder how many bouquets she received--if, for some reasons, Spencer sent flowers to both of us. "Yeah," I say absentmindedly, turning back to my books. I pull out my calculus textbook and straighten the sticky note I have affixed to our current chapter. "I wasn't expecting it, so I'm still trying to figure out who left them."

She pulls the bouquet with the withered flowers closer to her and inspects the tag. "Your boyfriend?" she asks, wrinkling her nose. "You have a boyfriend?"

Since I'm not sure how clear Liam wants me to be about our status, I clear my throat and say evasively, "It's an inside joke."

"Oh? With who?"

She's prying--I know it. She's hunting for gossip the way she always does, nosing around like she's going to catch somebody with their guard down. Maybe she even saw the paper in Spencer's folder and wants to confirm what she thinks she already knows.

"Just someone I know." I scan the busy hallways for a savior, anyone who can come and scoop me away from this conversation. Where's Cassidy when I need her? "Did you get any flowers?"

Fingering the petals, she gingerly places the bouquet back in my locker. "Yes." She says this as if it's completely obvious, as if Celia Carter never doesn't get flowers on Valentine's Day. "It was an anonymous bouquet too, though."

Now she's picked up the other two bouquets and is investigating them for similar tags. I want to tell her to stop getting in my business, that she won't find but she's looking for, but a part of me refrains. Let her think I have three secret admirers. Let her realize I've outdone her.

She doesn't find any more tags, so she sets the last two bunches of flowers back in their spots. Just when I think she's going to leave me alone, she swings the door of my locker so that she can see the blue Post-It note still stuck to the front. "Still only a nine?" she inquires, pursing her lips. "You'd think that with all those bouquets you'd at least be able to scrape a ten."