A scoff slipped out of her. “You think reading makes someone weird?”

Tiffany rolled her eyes. “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, he’s cute, but he’s just…different.”

I could feel Beverly’s frustration rising. She was about to argue, about to tell Tiffany where she could stick her judgments, but I cut in before it could go any further.

“It’s fine,” I said as we came to a stop in front of the cafeteria.

She turned to me, brows furrowed. “No, it’s really not.”

“Yes, it is,” I insisted.

Her jaw tightened. She wanted to argue. More than that—she wanted to sit with me. I saw it in the way her gaze flickered toward the empty spot at the cafeteria table, the way her fingers twitched as if she were ready to grab me and pull me there.

But I wouldn’t let her.

If Beverly sat with me, she’d be setting herself apart, making herself a target for the whispers that followed me wherever I went. I couldn’t bear letting them think less of her.

I glanced at Tiffany, then back at Beverly. “Go sit with your friend.”

Beverly hesitated, her mouth opening and closing as if she were about to protest. For a split second, I thought she would insist, that she would take a seat beside me just to prove a point. But then she exhaled sharply, frustration flickering in her expression before she gave me a slow, reluctant nod.

“Fine,” she muttered. “Suit yourself.”

I watched as she walked off with Tiffany, her back straight, head held high.

She didn’t look back, didn’t once glance in my direction.

I took my seat, opened my book, and didn’t read a single word. My eyes tracked the words on the page, but they blurred together because my mind was elsewhere, stuck on the feeling of being left behind.

The cafeteria buzzed around me; laughter, kids shoving each other for fun, the occasional clatter of a lunch tray being dropped. It was too loud, too chaotic.

Across the room, Beverly kept glancing in my direction, her fingers tapping against her juice box the way they did when she was either irritated or nervous.

She didn’t want to be sitting over there.

She wanted to be sitting here.

She wanted to be beside me, just like always.

I told myself that was a good thing. That it meant she wasn’t embarrassed by me. But it didn’t change the fact that Tiffany’s words still lingered in the air.

He’s just different.

What did that even mean?

Different from who? Different from what? Different was neither inherently negative nor positive—it simply was.

What’s “normal,” anyway?

Who gets to decide what’s considered normal?