Side Effects May Vary

Mr. Slaton clapped his hand loudly against his desk, giving one last warning for everyone to shut up before roll call. He called name after name and then Alice.

“Miss Richardson?” called Mr. Slaton.

She barely moved at the sound of her last name.

“Welcome back,” he said, smiling. “I’m sure you’ve heard this a thousand times today, but we’re glad to have you back. Quite a bit to catch up on. See me after class. We’ll get you squared away.” He waited for her to nod, before smiling and calling the next name.

If it hadn’t been for the Algebra 2 book on my desk, I wouldn’t have been able to say exactly which class I’d been sitting in for those forty-five minutes. I spent the entire period staring at Alice, and Alice spent the entire period pretending to sleep—I could tell by her breathing. (Weird, I know, but I’d seen her do a lot of sleeping in the last year.) When class was dismissed, she stood and waited for Mindi to pass her. With her shoulder, Alice rammed her from behind. Mindi tripped and dropped her books. I picked one up and then practically ran over her to try to catch up to Alice, but she didn’t stay after class like Mr. Slaton had asked her to. She disappeared, making whatever loomed between us grow a bit bigger.

I searched for her all day, but she didn’t show up for any of the other classes we had together. After last period, I turned my phone on and found I had a voice mail from Martin explaining Bernie had gotten tied up in court and they wondered if I could give Alice a ride home. I would have been cool with giving Alice a ride, if I could find her in the first place.

I covered every square inch of school, including janitorial closets and girls’ bathrooms, in forty-five minutes. Alice was nowhere in sight. I even checked the groundskeeper’s shed out past the track. I’d done as much looking as I could on foot and decided to head out to the parking lot.

Her phone sent me to voice mail over and over again. She was probably screening my calls. Either that or her phone was dead. Both were entirely plausible options. I left four voice mails. My artfully composed messages sounded something like this:

Voice Mail One: “Alice.”

Voice Mail Two: “It’s me, Al. Where. Are. You?”

Voice Mail Three: “I’m sorry, where did you say you were again?”

Voice Mail Four: “Alice, in case you were wondering, you’re not in the guys’ bathroom, but whoever was here last pissed all over the floor. I’m really hoping that wasn’t you. I give up. I’ll be in the parking lot.”

The cold air slapped me in the face, and I slid my gloves on, pulling the collar of my jacket up around my face to shield my cheeks from the burning wind. As I ran down the aisles of cars belonging to kids staying late for rehearsals and practices, I saw two figures sitting on the ground huddled together between a truck and an old Cadillac. I thought I recognized a spot of red on one of their heads, so I doubled back. I found Alice sitting on the freezing pavement, but without her beret on. Her cheeks and nose were bright red. And looking at her made my bones chatter even more.

“Hey,” she mumbled and wiped her running nose in the crook of her elbow. “This is Eric,” she said nodding to the guy sitting next to her.

From where he sat on the ground I could tell he was scruffy and broad with thick muscles. Thicker than my body could carry. Basically, he was all the shit you didn’t want to see in the guy sitting next to the girl you love. He was more man than boy, and he wore Al’s beret, while her nearly bald head was exposed to the freezing cold. Either he was even more selfish than Al or he was that stupid.

“Hey, guy,” he said.

Guy? Who called people that? There was something slightly familiar about him. “Are you in any of my classes?” I was really hoping this guy wasn’t some creepo Alice had picked up in the parking lot.

“It’s possible,” he said, shrugging his shoulders with a calculated effortlessness. “I guess I’m new.”

“Eric, this is my . . . this is Harvey.”

I flinched. “But you can call me guy.”

Alice crossed her arms tightly over her chest. She was not amused.

Then it dawned on me. “Study hall! You were in my study hall last Monday. Did you get moved to Johnson’s study hall or something?” I’d only seen him the once.

“Something like that,” he said, not even looking at me, but at Alice, like it was some kind of private joke only they shared.

I wanted to drive an entire continent between them, but instead I extended my gloved hand. Scruffy man-boy stared lamely like it was some kind of inanimate object.

“Right . . . okay,” I said, stuffing my hand in my pocket and directing my attention to Alice and away from His Royal Scruffiness. “Al, I’ve called you a billion times. I’m supposed to give you a ride home.”

“I’ll meet you at the car.” She didn’t even look at me; her eyes were locked on Eric Guy.

“I parked far away.”

“Sure, yeah.” She gave me a small smile.

I shook my head at her, but she’d already turned back to Eric. “I’ll be right back.”