“I’m gonna get food,” I shouted, to stall having to sit on the “white side.”

I wish I could tell you that I left. I wish I could tell you that I refused to play in this segregated sandbox. But in the end, I got my burger and planted my ass where I was expected to plant it.

Josh Easley, my best friend who I didn’t actually know, made room for me. I resented that. I resented him, because Leo and Angela’s absence was eating at my guts like an alien. I kept looking over to the other side, to see if maybe they might be there, but no such luck.

Layton was at our table, too. With Katie. She was like an oasis in this desert—but was she still the same Katie? I simply didn’t know.

Layton was nursing the loss of tonight’s game in his own personal cone of misery that he was happy to extend over us. “I can’t believe we lost to the stinking Phoenices!” Layton said, which made Norris snicker. Any adjective with the word “phoenices” made him snicker. “What, you think it’s funny?” snapped Layton. “Maybe if the rest of you played a little harder, we’d be celebrating instead of kicking ourselves.”

He grabbed his burger and bit into it with such angry force, half of it squirted out the other side. He cursed and complained that their buns were too small. Which also made Norris snicker.

I looked at Katie, but she wouldn’t make eye contact.

“Dude,” said the Easley kid, “they’re a strong team. We knew it would be rough.”

“That’s right, just make excuses,” growled Layton. And then he looked over at Katie, who was doing her best not to join his pity party. “Are you really gonna eat that whole basket of onion rings?” he asked her—but it was more of an accusation than a question, and it really rankled me. “How many have you had already? Do you know how many calories are in those things?”

“You ordered them!” she countered.

“Layton, c’mon, leave her alone,” said Easley, “it’s not her you’re mad at.”

Layton pursed his lips and let out a long slow breath through his nose. “Fine,” he said. “It’s just that . . .”

But with all of us looking at him and wondering how he was going to justify food-shaming Katie, he had nothing.

“Never mind,” he grumbled, then he turned to Katie. “Eat whatever you want, I don’t care.”

But she pushed the onion rings away. “I’ve lost my appetite.” Then she got up and stormed toward the bathroom.

Once she was gone, Layton looked at us with a smirk and shook his head. “Girls, right?”