In the tumultuous landscape of early 2000s high school, Kit Dodger, more commonly known as Dodger, navigates the corridors as a junior on the fringes of social acceptance. Behind her nondescript facade lies a clandestine operation: she runs a covert...
"Can't explain all the feelings that you're making me feel / My heart's in overdrive, and you're behind the steering wheel / Touching you, ooh-ooh / Touching me /Touching you, God, you're touching me."
— I Believe in a Thing Called Love, The Darkness
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Cole J: Meet me @ the Lexicon at 2. In the upper stacks 823.808 (84)...come alone. Or don't. That was creepy. Sorry.
I read and re-read the text Cole sent me first thing this morning. When my eyes popped open at 10:30 a.m., I rolled over and grabbed my phone. I was convinced I'd dreamed his text and our Messenger conversation.
Not only was his text from last night still there, but an unread message was waiting for me.
Meet me at the Lexicon.
The Lex is the big library in Inbridge, the biggest city in our area. It's about a thirty-minute bus ride from my place. Normally, I would bike, but I don't want to show up all sweaty and gross.
I scurry out of bed and jumped in the shower. I agonize forever about what to wear. A tiered mini skirt, Uggs, and a long-sleeve T-shirt? No, that looks like I'm trying too hard. Maybe a pair of boot-cut jeans with a white tank top and a cardigan? Too formal.
Gah. Why am I so pressed?
I crumple the sweater in my hands and launch it across my room.
"Woah!" my mom's voice cuts through my growl of frustration. "Easy there, kid."
"Way to knock, Mom," I respond as I fish around in my closet, searching for something. What? I won't know until I know, you know?
"I should have knocked. It's just that I got a little worried when I heard what sounded like a Gremlin running loose in here. I thought, 'Kit tends to leave Pop-Tarts all around her room. Maybe she inadvertently fed one after midnight and is now fighting for her life. As her mother, it's my duty to barge into her private space and save her.' You know? But you're right. I'm sorry."'
I stop my search for the perfect outfit to fix my mother with what she calls my 'patented teenage girl stare.'
"That was the most long-winded and roundabout way to apologize." I shake my head at her, a slight smile forming.
"Well, now that I'm in here—can I ask what you're up to?"
I freeze. Mom and I used to be so close. Before...everything, I would have been only too eager to tell her about Cole, about this date—is it a date?—whatever it is. But things aren't the same. She's always on me about going out and making friends. I just know her reaction will be outsize, too much. It'll make me anxious, and then I won't want to go. I settle on a fraction of the truth.
"I'm just trying to find something to wear. I need to go to the library to start an essay for school."
