Foreign Exchange (8 page)

I
look at him. He meets my eyes, smiles a little, but it’s a sad smile. He types again.

I probably should go, though. Your mom’s just going to get more irrita
ted and then she’ll take it out on you and Eddy.

My smile turns sad too.
Then he adds:

It’s not like we can’t do this again.

After a pause:

Right?

Like I said, I’m better at showing things than with words. I slip my hand under the table, onto his leg, and lightly stroke up and down a few inches along his rough jeans. Moving my hand on him is a whole new sensation, at least for me. And I suspect for him too. His eyes close for an ultra-long blink.

I lift my hand away and type:

Absolutely
.

Chapter Eight

I spend the whole night, not exactly fantasizing, but
reliving
the moments I had with Sawyer. Well, okay, fantasizing, too.

Sawyer’s
bedroom light is still on when I finally fall asleep. I’ve plugged my phone into the charger downstairs, but now I wish I'd used the charger in my room. Maybe I’d be brave enough to text him.

At five a.m.
it looks like his light is still on, but it could be the reflection from the early morning sunlight. I check my email, then after taking my time getting ready and applying a little makeup, I linger outside the front door, hoping I could just happen to be walking away from the house when Sawyer drives by. We could have a few minutes in his Jeep alone together before we reach the school.

But I don’t see any movement in the Bishop house before it’s time
to leave. Still, it's only half an hour until first bell, when Sawyer is sure to be at his locker—
or mine
—waiting for me.

I
rearrange my books and wait until the hallways are swarming with activity before making the trek to his locker in the science wing. I don’t want to look like I’m some kind of crazy stalker, after all.

Once I make the decision, I’m moving so quickly, I barely see the people I’m passing. I barely see Matt
Driediger until he steps into my path.

“Jamie. Hi.” 

“Oh. Hi!” My heart flutters out of surprise.

“
You busy at lunch?” 

“
Um…” I glance ahead to the science wing. “I’m not sure. Why?” Before he can get another word out, I say, “Hey, maybe we can talk more later? I really need to get notes from someone before the bell.”

I smile and reach over to
brush his forearm. He smiles big, nods, and steps out of my way.

Again, I feel slightly guilty. Tristan says he’ll consider it a good trade-off—a little extra attention for helping me out—but I
still feel so dishonest. I swallow down that thought and instead think about last night and Sawyer. About how unfinished we’d left things.

And I want to finish them.

I’m pretty sure he does, too.

I round the corner into the science wing
, but stop suddenly, seeing Sawyer down a small corridor that leads to the gym. The corridor is empty except for Sawyer and Amelia, the trip-leader from our World Arch class.

He's facing away,
with his arm propped up against the wall like he's trying to shield their conversation. Amelia is looking at him seriously, nodding her head.

They're not super-close, but still, a rush of jealousy runs through me.

But, no. It's not like she's a hot cheerleader or the flirty type of girl I
've seen Sawyer with before. I quickly berate myself. It's not like anything is happening, and besides, Sawyer Bishop is not exactly the type of guy I could get possessive about. I know these thoughts should clear my head. They should make it possible for me to back away and head to my own locker, in hopes of seeing him later when he's not so busy.

But I can't help myself. I bend down and pretend to tie my shoe. Then I open my book bag and sort through papers like I'm looking for something specific.

“Jamie.” Suddenly he's there, hovering over me. And Amelia is gone.

“Hi,”
I say, standing, my face beaming like someone plugged me into a wall socket.

He smiles back, but not nearly as excited-looking. His eyes are rimmed with red
like he's really tired. “Have you heard from my sister again?”

Not exactly the topic of conversation I'd hoped for
. I nod. “I got another email. She got to Milan fine and is settling in.”

Sawyer pulls out his phone. He looks at me, then
at his phone, then back at me again. Maybe he really was up until five a.m., because he's not acting like he's had much sleep.

“
She's...everything's okay with the exchange program?” he asks. His words are tentative. Is he suddenly worried because he hasn't heard from her again? Maybe his dad has been freaking out.

“
Everything's fine, Sawyer. She says the schoolwork is going to be harder than expected because of not speaking Italian, but otherwise she's great. She's loving Europe.” He looks at his phone again. I put my hand out, for him to pass it over. “Here, you want me to show you the email?”

He opens his email program and hands me
his phone. It takes me a minute to figure out how to log in through his browser, but I hope I can put his mind at rest. My email is coming up on the screen when the first bell rings. I have English first class and my teacher's a real stickler about tardiness. I glance down the hall toward my locker.

“
You go,” Sawyer says, his palm open for his phone. “I'll look it over and see you in class later. Okay?”

“I—” I’m not sure what to say. Tristan’s been talking about finding my dad in her emails. It’s our big secret and she’d been adamant about not sharing it with anybody. But I think I can trust Sawyer. And, after all, it is
my
secret to keep. If I’m making a mistake it’ll only hurt me. “Okay,” I say, finally, passing his phone back to him. Our fingers brush against each other, but we don’t have time to let them linger.

By the time I get to English, I'm
thinking of another problem. Tristan hadn't wanted me to tell anyone about her modeling over there. But he was her go-between with her parents. She obviously trusts him, at least to some degree. I’ll have to tell Sawyer not to mention it to her, just in case.

By lunchtime I'm purely excited to spend time with Sawyer. Except
, when I go to meet him at his locker, he's down that same corridor again with Amelia.

It's not like they're touching or close, but still, their meeting looks so private, and it immediately kills every bit of confidence I'd had earlier.

“Hey, Jamie.”

I turn around and Matt’s there,
grinning down at me. I force a smile. “Um. Hi.” I move a few feet sideways, away from the corridor, in hopes it won't be obvious that I was jealously lurking.

“I
'm going to put together some papers for the Spain trip. I thought you might want to help?”

I
s he rescuing me from a lunch hour of worrying about Sawyer, probably far more than I need to?

“
Sure,” I tell him. Besides, Matt is really the one I need to focus on, with a little over a week until our trip.

“Come on. Let’s go.”

It turns out Mr. Echols isn’t in his classroom, but he’s left out the paperwork he wants us to take care of. Amelia’s been the main trip planner, but of course she's busy talking to Sawyer right now.

“I’m surprised Mr. Echols asked you to do this,” I say.

“Actually, Amelia asked me,” he says, and I bristle at hearing her name out loud. “But I asked Mr. Echols if I could come in here at lunch time, since this has to be done before the meeting.”

I nod
, surprised that Amelia has prioritized talking to Sawyer over finishing up important trip details.

“I hear you’re going to be translating,”
Matt says.

I feel my face flush. S
eñora Martinez, my Spanish teacher for the last three years, told Amelia she should ask me to help translate for the trip. Amelia’s a Harvard-bound senior, and had never spoken to me before that, so even though she’d originally planned to hire a native translator—a professional—I had gulped down my fears and told her yes. Or rather,
Sí.

“Um, I guess I’m going to try,” I tell Matt.

He waves a casual hand in front of his face. “I’ll bet Mr. Echols speaks some Spanish. And I’m sure most others in the group speak the basics. I wouldn’t worry.”

I follow his lead
, collating papers that look like our schedule of events for the trip. I try to catch sight of when the excursion to the Pyrenees Mountains will be. Tristan and I decided that would be my best chance to get away. Unfortunately, Matt and I are collating too fast, and I can’t find it.

“So you’re going on the trip, too, huh?” I ask,
stupidly. Not only is he a student leader, but I’ve also seen him at the last three trip meetings. To cover my lame question, I repeat it in Spanish.
¿Usted va en el viaje?

A
smile lights his face and Matt Driediger looks nearly as excited as I am about going to Europe. “That’s awesome! And, yeah, it’s going to be great!”

“I know! I’ve always dreamed of going
to Spain, and when Mr. Echols announced the trip last year, I couldn’t believe my ears. I can’t believe this is really happening and we’re going to be there in a matter of days!”
Take a friggin’ breath, Jamie.
I guess it’s just been a while since I’ve thought of the reality of my situation. Whenever Tristan and I talked about it, we never focused on the fact that I’d get to enjoy Europe in the process.

Matt
gives me an amused smile, like he finds my excitement cute. He shuffles our collated papers into a neat pile. “We should…hang out some—”

His words are cut off by
Mr. Echols walking into the classroom. “Good, good. I was hoping I had remembered to leave the door unlocked.”

“Oh. Yeah. I think we’ve gotten all the papers done,” Matt says.

Mr. Echols asks Matt if he'll run something to the office to make copies. I turn to see if he wants me to go with him, but Mr. Echols gives me another job, filling out some customs forms.

By the time the bell goes, I’m almost finished with the customs forms, so I quickly scribble the last few words, then race to my locker to get my books and return before the second bell.

W
hen I dash back into class, Sawyer’s already seated in his usual seat with his head down. Amelia is up at the front of the class, talking to Mr. Echols and not paying any attention to Sawyer. He's flipping through something on his phone, and again I think about signing him into my email earlier. Instead of feeling nervous, after having some time to think about it, trusting him makes me feel closer to him. Like we share our private emails with each other all the time.

“Hey.”
I sit down beside him.

He finishes typing something,
and then shoves his phone away before Mr. Echols catches sight of it. “Hey,” he says finally, smiling over at me. He still looks really tired.

“
Everything okay?” I ask.

He
blinks a few times looking down, and I wonder if he isn't okay. Is something really wrong? “Do you...” he trails off and seems to rethink what he's saying. Finally he opens his mouth again. “Do you think with the program... do you think everything's okay about that?"

I haven't got a clue what he's talking about.
Program? Like my email program? Or the college prep program the teachers always push in September? Which makes me realize, I've never asked Sawyer where he plans to go to college. Will it be somewhere close enough that I'll still see him? His frown deepens, and for a second I wonder if he's reading my thoughts again.

“
I don't know what's going on, but maybe...I mean, I think maybe she's over there trying to model.”

Oh.
Tristan's program… I swallow hard, realizing there must have been something in her email to me that tipped him off. This is the moment of truth, where I have to decide how much I can trust him. “I, uh, yeah. I think maybe she is, Sawyer. A little, maybe.”

“Tristan never does ‘a little’ of anything.”

I'm about to tell him how she made me promise to keep quiet about it and how he can't say anything to Tristan about knowing, but Sawyer cuts me off with, “I've done some modeling, Jamie, and I don't know, I just don't think it's safe, her over there, not knowing the language, and trying to break in? It's a scary and intense business.”

I admit, they're some of the same thoughts I had when I first found out
––but I wasn't
this
worried about her. I guess I was more concerned about her forgetting to look for my dad, or prioritizing her schooling.

I've had some time to get some perspective
, though. She’s over there in the first place to help me. She deserves to do something for herself too. I'm about to open my mouth to calm Sawyer down, remind him of how much she's learning
culturally
, when he says, “Do you know who she's contacted about modeling? Where she's been trying? Have they shown any interest in her yet or given her any payment?” His pause is barely long enough for me to open my mouth. “I need to get on that trip, Jamie. I need to stop Tristan from doing anything stupid.”

A host of emotions rush through me. Fear, anger, betrayal. His words bring me back to a time when Tristan was up for a big model
ing stint in Royal Oak, just outside of Detroit. Sawyer had said he had to stop her then too. And he did. He told their parents the place wasn't safe, even though he didn't know anything about it, and after that Tristan wasn't allowed to go. She told me all about how, now that she was finally having some success, Sawyer's jealousy was wrecking her career.