Anonymous

Thirteen

 Yay, it's time to round the kids up for the great class meeting. Isn't this fun.

"I know many of you have seen the new artwork created over the weekend," Ms. Kuise said. "This time, whoever the artist is, made it interactive. They posed the question 'what are you afraid of'? I have had a couple of you ask me if we were going to take part in it and the answer is no. The school will not support this."

"Ms. Kuise?" Eva asked.

"Yes?"

"If the school says we can't do it during class time," she began, "could we do it on our own?"

"That would require trespassing," Ms. Kuise said. "Are there any other questions? No, let's continue. Graduation is next week. However, that means this week we have not assigned you as much work as we usually would so you have time to complete everything without being rushed. This does not mean you can talk the whole day."

Awe come on. Why not?

"Ms. Tyruss, did I forget anything?"

Ms. Tyruss is their assisting teacher, if you were wondering.

"I don't think so."

"Hey," Jake said, walking up to Eva and causing Maggie and Amie to smirk and step away while obviously eavesdropping. "Do you want to bend the rules?"

"Even more than we already have?" Eva muttered.

"We broke those, we're just bending these," he said.

"What are you suggesting?" Eva asked.

"Talk to your friends and see if they'd participate in the question?"

"You want to trespass?" she asked. "Doing it for spray paint is one thing. Doing it for chalk is an entirely different matter."

"We do it during recess," he said.

What middle schoolers still have recess?

"When the teachers aren't in the classroom," Eva finished his sentence.

"Exactly," he said.

"I think they'd be cool with it," she said.

"Alright," Jake said. "I'll bring the chalk tomorrow."

"I can't believe we're doing this," Maggie squealed under her breath as she and Eva waited on the patio.

Watch it. You'll get caught.

"Just keep it down," Eva whispered.

"Here come Chris and Jake," Maggie said.

"Locker five," Jake whispered as they passed them.

"How long do we wait?" Maggie asked.

"A minute," Eva said. "It will make it less obvious."

"Two eighth graders going in every minute after the last pair exited won't see weird?" Maggie asked.

You have a point.

"Claire and Bailie are waiting five minutes after us," Eva said. "We are swapping up the times."

"You and Jake seemed to have worked it all out," Maggie hinted.

"How many times do I have to tell you nothing happened," Eva said.

"Well, I was talking to Chris and he asked me something," Maggie said.

Uh oh.

"What?" Eva asked.

"He said, you told Jake you were dating someone and asked if I knew who it was," Maggie said. "See, the thing is, I didn't know you were dating anyone."

Ooo. You are in trouble, Eva.

"I told him I did know, but wouldn't say," Maggie said. "I want to know who it was you were talking about."

"I don't have a boyfriend," Eva said.

"Eva," Maggie said. "I know you're gay."

Well, there's a plot twist.

"What?" Eva asked.

"You like girls," Maggie said. "I've known since the school dance two years ago. You were never interested in asking anyone, you never seemed to have a crush on anyone, you just didn't seem interested in guys."

"Yeah, well, none of the guys here are cute," Eva defended.

"Every single girl here would beg to differ," Maggie said. "Who is she?"

"It's been long enough, we can go," Eva said.

I can tell you this conversation is not over, even if it has been put on hold.

"Look at this," Maggie said, pointing to the concrete. "Someone put the kool aid man."

"And other people took it more seriously," Eva said sternly.

Well, she's not playing around.

When Eva and Maggie left, Maggie had written 'spiders' and Eva refused to say what she wrote.

"Locker five," Eva said as she and Maggie passed Ballie and Claire.

"Eva," Jake called from the basketball court. "Are you going to play?"

Okay, they can play basketball during recess, I guess it's not that bad.

"Sure. I'll be there in just a second," she answered. "Maggie, do you want to come?"

"No," she said. "I'll go find Amie. I'll ask her if she knows anything since clearly you won't talk to me about it."

"Maggie, that's not fair," Eva said. "Just because we are friends doesn't mean I have to share everything about my personal life with you."

Oh.

"You didn't even have the guts to tell me I was right when I said you like girls," Maggie said.

"I didn't think I needed to," Eva said. "I keep things to myself for good reason. Look at who everyone expects me to be: Ms. Perfect, Ms. Goody-Two-Shoes, Ms. Doesn't-Have-A-Fault. I'm not like that. I keep things to myself because most people would rather not know the real me. It's exhausting, feeling like you have to hide behind a mask all the time. I'm leaving the school and I'm not looking back. Next year, I don't care what people think of me, but no one here wants to know who I really am, so I don't let them."

That was a lot of words to come out of your mouth just there.

"Jake's the only one you told," Maggie said. "Obviously he gets it."

She stormed off.

"What was that about?" Jake asked while Chris and Ali began picking teams.

"She's upset I didn't tell her about Mary," Eva said.

"How did she even know?" Jake asked.

"She said Chris asked her who I was dating since you wouldn't say," Eva said.

"Sorry," he said.

"You had to tell them something," Eva said. "Thanks for not telling all of it." She paused. "I saw what you wrote, by the way. It was brave. Does Chris know?"

Jake shook his head. "I wouldn't let him read it."

"I wouldn't let Maggie read mine."

"She's pissed about that as well, I assume."

"Yep."

"Eva," Ali called. "You're on my team."