The class flies by without me conjugating a single verb, and before I can shove my books back into my bag, Caleb is out of the classroom. I hurry to follow him, seeing his back move swiftly down the hallway, when I hear someone call my name.

“You okay?” I turn to look at Caitlin, confused as to why she’s talking to me until I remember that we’d planned to do more debate prep during lunch today. Looks like I’m spending lunch in the library instead of at the table outside that I’d started to think of as our table. At least I’ll be warm.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” I shrug my bag onto my shoulders. “Just a little braindead from declensions.”

“I always thought you were crazy for keeping up with Latin.” She shakes her head as she starts to lead the path down the hallway to the library. It’s loud—lockers slamming left and right, sneakers squeaking on the scuffed-up linoleum, people making lunch plans—but Caitlin doesn’t seem bothered by the mass of bodies and noise swirling around her.

What is that like? To move so confidently through the world that you don’t even flinch when a football goes soaring over your head?

And then I remember Caleb’s balled-up fists when he was describing how Henry was harassing Caitlin at the dance and realize I’m being narrow-minded and petty and just because Caitlin swishes her hair over her shoulders effortlessly as she glides through school doesn’t mean she never has reason to flinch.

She’s talking about how Spanish is so much more valuable than a dead language like she’s trying to sell me a Rosetta Stone and I resist the urge to roll my eyes.

“You’re not wrong,” I agree, “but I’ve got those pesky doctor parents who have lofty medical school dreams for me, so Latin was pretty much the option.”

“Ah.” She nods sagely and looks sideways at me. “Aren’t parents fun?”

I half smile as we step into the library. It’s like entering a weird parallel dimension where everything is muffled and musty. The noise from the hall fades away as we move through the shelves to the back table that we’ve been studying at for the past few weeks. We sit down, pulling out our lunches and settling into our usual debate prep rhythm, placing index cards strategically around the table and cracking open our notebooks. Technically, eating isn’t allowed in the library but, as always, no one is here. Not even the librarian.

“How was your weekend?” Caitlin asks around a bite of her sandwich.

“Eh”—I shrug, also chewing—“it was all right. Nothing eventful.”