Dayton

Dayton didn’t drift toward their table like she was trying not to be noticed. She cut across the cafeteria with the same controlled pace she’d used in the hallway, tray balanced under one arm, the…

The Roosevelt lunchroom was doing what it always did, which was pretending it wasn’t a zoo.  Trays clattered like cymbals. Chairs screeched. A hundred conversations rose and fell in overlapping waves, every laugh…

The lunch line twisted through the cafeteria like a lazy river, slow and clogged and impossible to fight. Nobody cut. Nobody could. You just floated forward with the rest of the school, tray…

The office door clicked shut behind them, and the hallway outside felt louder by comparison, like someone had turned the world back on.  Dayton adjusted her backpack strap higher on…

Hayden was mid laugh, still riding her own “expired lip gloss” joke, when Dayton’s phone started buzzing like it was possessed.  Not a text buzz. Not a polite little brrp. A full on, vibrating in her pocket, someone is FaceTiming you right now insistence. …