From the Jump(10)

The truth is, I’m not even happy.

Should I be happy that I’ve somehow become the go-to designer for foods so gross that they need to be rebranded so people will put them in their mouths? Should I be happy that my shoes feel like mousetraps have snapped shut on my toes? Should I be happy that Roger was willing to take me on a bike ride so long that we’d have to smear packs of chemical gel onto our tongues just to survive it?

No. I whisper it silently again, rolling it around in my mouth, savoring the feel of it.

Maybe it’s still there twenty minutes later when Mr. Dailey addresses me in front of the group. Maybe it has settled itself on my tongue like a runner crouched at the starting line, taut with the desire to be released. Or maybe it’s been building since Deiss pulled away the curtain to reveal a wall. Whatever the reason, when Mr. Dailey announces that my next project is not only another food project but bone broth, the most disgusting one I’ve received yet, I’m as surprised as anyone that I don’t just nod politely as I’m expected to do.

“No,” I say instead.

The word comes out simply, coolly, decisively. There are a few gasps around the room, but the biggest show of surprise comes from Mr. Dailey himself. He looks positively stunned, and who could blame him? I’ve always been his yes-girl. In fact, if our office had a yearbook, I’d probably be in there as Most likely to give away her firstborn if formally requested by management.

I brace myself for my impending regret—regret for behaving rashly, for embarrassing myself in front of my coworkers, for disappointing my boss, for endangering my career—but it doesn’t hit. All I feel is a thrill of excitement working its way up through my chest, powering me like a surge of electricity. This might possibly be the most alive I’ve ever felt.

“But—” Mr. Dailey begins to speak, almost certainly intending to explain that the bone broth project wasn’t an offer as much as an assignment, but he’s cut off by the wave of my hand.

I engage my beauty queen smile. “No.”

And it turns out Elena was right. It does feel good.





THEN


I had refused to get out of the car. In fact, I’d gotten behind the wheel and moved the car farther away, just to physically mark my objection to the night’s event. Graffiti was an eyesore. It was also illegal. And I didn’t care how many times Simone declared it decorative or Mac claimed it would be good practice for my graphic design classes; I had no intention of participating.

I’d been sitting in the driver’s seat in the dark for about twenty minutes when the cop came flying into the gravel parking lot like a stunt driver on crack. He did that thing where you hit the brakes and the car keeps moving, spinning around so his headlights spotlighted the crumbling wall my friends were marking up. It would’ve been badass if it weren’t such overkill. Actually, it was kind of badass, especially the way it caused my friends to whip around, gaping at the headlights like startled deer. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I might’ve laughed.

Oddly, my first instinct was to look at the drawings that the moonlight had been too dim to illuminate from this distance. I made a mental note to ask Phoebe to jot down those flowers for me when we got back to the dorm; they would be the perfect addition to a digital sketch I’d been working on for my Editorial Layout class. And I swooned a little at the sight of Mac’s Mac & Phoebe and the halfway-completed 4 that was presumably meant to have become 4ever.

My second instinct was to check on my friends. Unsurprisingly, Deiss was stepping back to lean nonchalantly against the wall, even as the hand that held the spray paint can slowly lowered from the word Deftones down to his side. Mac and Phoebe had covered their mouths like they were trying not to laugh. Simone had fluffed her hair and was unsubtly adjusting her cleavage. Belatedly, I ducked down, praying the officer would assume the car was empty.

I was convinced he was going to arrest them, maybe even take them directly to prison, so I kept my grip tight on the steering wheel, determined to provide a getaway car if he tried. It proved unnecessary, though. Less than twenty minutes later, he was gone and they were back in the car, laughing and comparing tickets.

“My dad is going to kill me,” Phoebe said, looking at me with wide eyes even as she giggled.

“My dad is going to lawyer me up and demand I contest it,” Simone said.

I wondered what Deiss’s dad would have to say, but I didn’t bother asking. He’d never even confessed aloud to being born to human parents, leaving us to wonder if he might’ve been created in some lab with excellent speakers and a varied playlist. After two years of friendship, we’d yet to be able to get him to share anything of his past. Once, Simone pushed too hard to figure out what state he was from, and he’d walked out of the room, strolling back in three days later like nothing had happened. We stopped asking him questions after that.

I pulled Phoebe’s ticket out of her hand, my mouth falling open as I read the print.

“Four hundred dollars?” My gaze shot between their hands, taking in the tickets. “You each have to pay a four hundred dollar fine?”

“At least we didn’t get arrested,” Mac said.

I shook my head as I started at the car. “Sixteen hundred dollars. Just so you could doodle on a wall. What a waste.”

“Was it?” Deiss was in the passenger seat beside me, and he slid on his seat belt.