Sudden Superhero

17. Protector

THE NEXT DAY at school, Ben stared at my arm almost the entire morning. My arm was covered by my sleeve, but he knew that I had the computer on there, and he seemed to really want to see it.

So, when we were walking down the hallway toward the cafeteria for lunch, I pulled up my sleeve and showed it to him. Last night, I'd had to carefully cut open the leather on my jacket sleeve to take out the computer cuff, which kind of looked like a flat, black watch with a few grooves and edges. Now it was on my arm, just a few inches below my wrist, and he snickered when he saw it.

"It looks like a bracelet," he said.

I raised an eyebrow defensively. "What, men can't wear bracelets?"

He raised an eyebrow to counter mine. "Men? We're teenage boys."

"That counts."

"No it doesn't."

"Hi, guys," Fei said, falling in step next to me. She leaned forward so that she could see Ben, too, when she asked, "Excited for the dance?"

"Oh yes," Ben replied enthusiastically. "I've been working on this new move."

I groaned. "Not another one."

He gave me a look. "I promise you won't end up on the floor this time."

"That's exactly what you said last time."

Fei laughed and pulled up the video of last time on her phone. Ben shoved past me to get a better look, and I just shook my head and stared straight ahead as we walked. Even though I was trying not to pay attention, I heard the video of last year's dance. I heard Ben's scream as he flailed his arms, and I heard my shout of surprise when he fell right on top of me, and I heard Dana's cackle of laughter and Fei screaming, "I got it on video!" Despite the fact that it was an event I would never live down, I still smiled.

And then we got into the cafeteria, and my smile quickly gave way to an eye roll and a shake of the head. It was loud, annoyingly loud. I always told myself that I would never be the kind of person who hates on the freshmen, but they were so loud.

So loud, in fact, that Ben and Fei and I exchanged wary glances, and we made a silent agreement to go up to the library instead. This Saturday was their big competition in Boston, and they were still studying avidly, but the library meetings had been cancelled for now because of everything that was going on: the dance tomorrow night, the statewide tests coming up, and just plain old schoolwork in general.

The three of us settled down at a table, and Ayomikun and Kevin joined us within minutes. I suddenly thought of my heart-to-heart conversation with Mom, when I'd told her that I never wanted to bother anyone, and I realized with dismay that I never let myself connect to these people. How often did we see each other? Almost every day. But, I never kept up a close friendship with anybody but Ben.

"Why don't we all meet before the dance?" I asked. I'll admit it: I asked timidly, like I was afraid of rejection—to be fair, I really was—and I couldn't ignore the sharp blinks of surprise that were directed my way. I knew what they were thinking. Of everyone here, why would I, the recluse, be the one who wanted to hang out?

"It was just a thought," I continued, spearing a piece of lettuce with my fork and staring down at my salad. "So we can hang out. Before you all go to Boston for the weekend."

Fei tilted her head a bit, thinking on it. "I'm down. We can meet at my house, if that's okay."

Ayomikun shrugged. "Sure."