Parallel

shutting my book. “I’ll go back to the library.”
    “And . . . BAM. Toenail. Seven letters and a triple word.” Tyler waves his phone in Caitlin’s face. “Tell me I’m not a Scrabble genius.”
    “You’re not a Scrabble genius,” Caitlin parrots. Something across the room catches my eye. A cheerleader, doing some sort of signal with her hands. She’s looking right at our table. I see Tyler see it, too.
    “Oh, yeah?” Tyler’s voice is grander than it was a second ago. More dramatic. I see him glance in my direction, hesitating for a moment before continuing. “Let’s take a poll,” he says then, and stands up. When he does, his voice gets even louder. “Listen up, y’all!” he shouts as he mounts his chair. “I only have a few seconds before some nice, hardworking faculty member will force me to get down.” There’s a ripple of laughter as the cafeteria gets quiet. Tyler steps from his chair onto the blue-and-white-checked table, crunching a half-eaten chocolate chip cookie with his heel. What is he doing?
    “Raise your hand if you’ve played Words with Friends with me,” Tyler calls to the crowd. At least thirty people raise their hands. “Keep your hand up if you’ve ever beaten me!” The hands go down. “I think that qualifies me as a Scrabble genius, don’t you?” There’s some cheering and scattered applause. “Well, my friend Caitlin here disagrees,” Tyler shouts. Jovial boos fill the room. Caitlin leans back in her chair, smiling serenely, waiting for the punch line. Through the walls, I hear a rumble of thunder from outside.
    My eyes search Tyler’s face. Where is he going with this? Ms. Kirkland, our ornery assistant principal, hurries toward our table. I scoot my chair forward and make room for her, willing the old broad to hurry.
    “How am I gonna prove her wrong, you ask? With a fifteen -letter word.” Tyler has the crowd captivated, expecting the joke. He looks over at a table of cheerleaders outfitted in blue and orange for today’s pep rally. “Can I get an I !” he calls to them.
    “I!” they shout, clearly prepared for this.
    “L!”
    “L!” comes the echo. Pom-poms materialize. A couple of the girls are standing on their chairs, making Ls with their arms.
    “O!”
    “O!” Arms go overhead. More of them are standing on their chairs. Ms. Kirkland yells for them to get down, but everyone ignores her.
    On the “V,” Tyler’s voice breaks just a little.
    There’s no way he’d—
    He plows through the next eleven letters, not waiting for his echo.
    “E-Y-O-U-C-A-I-T-L-I-N!”
    Oh, yes. He would.
    Caitlin’s eyes widen. Her smile disappears.
    This is a disaster.
    “What’s that spell?” Tyler shouts. The crowd has reached fever pitch, hooting and hollering and banging their fists on the tables. Tyler raises his hands above his head, ready for the grand finale.
    “I! LOVE! YOU! C—”
    Before he can finish, I grab his leg and dig my fingernails into his calf.
    “Ouch!” he yelps. “What was that for?”
    “What are you doing?” I hiss, sharply aware of the fact that everyone in the cafeteria is staring at us.
    “What?” Tyler replies. “You said she wanted a grand gesture.” His eyes go from me to Caitlin. He sees immediately that this has not gone how he hoped.
    “What did he mean?” Caitlin’s eyes are boring into the side of my face, while mine are pinned on Tyler, willing him to jump in and help me out. I’m not sure how exactly he could fix things at this juncture, but some effort would be nice. “Abby,” Caitlin repeats, her voice like ice. “What did Tyler mean?”
    The cafeteria is completely silent. Ms. Kirkland just stands there, clearly at a loss for her next move.
    “Can I talk to you in the hall?” I ask meekly.
    “No. Answer the question. Why did Tyler say, ‘You said she wanted a grand gesture’?”
    “I was talking about Josh,” I tell her, keeping my voice down. “What he would’ve done if he’d been interested in me. Tyler must’ve taken it the wrong way.” I shoot a how-could-you-be-so-stupid look at Tyler, who’s still standing on the table.
    “That’s all you said?” Caitlin asks. In the fluorescent lights, the skin under her eyes looks greenish gray, the way it looked at the Young Leaders brunch the morning after prom last year, after we stayed up all night watching Sex and the City reruns and eating Twizzlers while our dates were passed out in lawn chairs by her neighbor’s pool. She’s