Meg’s eyes locked on to Devon and a split second later, he noticed her. Everything in his posture declared that he wanted to come over to talk, though he was clearly hesitating. For Meg, this was out of the question. Luckily for her, Alicia had her back to him, and class was about to begin, so she took full advantage of both factors to get far away. Pretending she had seen nothing she resumed her conversation, speaking a little quickly for her liking.

“No worries Lisha, we’ll do smoothies another time,” she looked at her watch conspicuously. “Alright, I’ve got to run to class, or Mr. Garfield is going to be on my case for being late. I can meet you here at lunch to grab the homework.” No sooner had the words left her mouth that she was off and running before Alicia could reply.

Alicia curiously watched as Meg sped walked down the hallway before she turned around to go in the opposite direction. Devon was there to greet her. He was short and thin for his age and would subconsciously move cautiously when close to Alicia’s towering figure.

“Hey Alicia,” he said a little awkwardly, “I guess I just missed Meg huh?”

“Yeah, I don’t think she noticed you.”

Devon shrugged his shoulders, trying to be as casual as possible, “Yeah, I guess not.”

******

Class was getting hard to sit through. Not only because of the immense rift Meg felt between her classmates but also because she wasn’t feeling so well. During her second period, she had felt lightly nauseous but thought nothing of it. Her third period was when she had begun feeling gassy. She had had to excuse herself twice during class to go to the bathroom and just sit on the toilet, hoping the vertigo feeling would pass. By the end of her third period, it eventually did, and she shrugged it away, telling herself she had eaten something bad.

When the end of fourth period bell rang, Meg made her way to the locker hallway with the intent of picking up the pre-calc assignment that Alicia had promised her. When she got there, she waited for her friend on a nearby couch, scrolling through her phone to pass the time. Twenty minutes passed and there was still no sign of Alicia. Assuming that she was late, Meg pulled her lunch out of her locker and ate as she got lost in social media boards. Ten minutes later and Alicia had still not shown up. Meg was getting tense now. The closer she got to her fifth period, the more she regretted having forgotten that assignment. It was a big one and the stress of not having it was starting to sink in.

She pulled out her phone to text Alicia about her whereabouts, when she heard footsteps in her direction.

“Hey, Meg. I’ve been looking for you.”

She looked up to see the face of Devon Lord looking at her with big anxious eyes. “What do you want?” she asked bluntly, surprised at how cold her response was, especially considering she was a nervous wreck looking at him.

“I…I don’t know,” he stuttered, his eyes lowering to the ground, “I just haven’t talked to you in a minute. It being Christmas break and all.”

Interactions had been bearable since they had learned of the pregnancy. Once Christmas break came around, neither Meg nor Devon reached out to the other and, until the wedding, had not interacted once. Even on that January 1st, there wasn’t much chit-chat in the midst of the preparations, ceremony and general unpleasantness of the day.

“Talk about what? What do you want to talk about?” Her dread was turning into frustration.

“I just think, a lot of things happened, and we should probably process them, I think, maybe.” Devon’s discomfort was clearly on the rise. Meg had noticed that he had also taken his marriage band off. She expected to feel relief but somehow felt bitterness instead.

“Yeah, you know what? Let’s talk. As a matter of fact, I have a question for you.” Meg’s tone was sharp and poisonous. “Why didn’t you fight it? The wedding was my parents’ idea and I tried to stop them. But you did nothing. Why?”

“I don’t know Meg. I tried to bring it up with my dad, but he kept telling me it was the right thing to do,” answered Devon in a small voice. “I didn’t know what –

“THAT WAS HIS REASON TO YOU?! ‘IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO’?! ARE YOU JOKING?!” Meg stood up from her seat, ready to pounce.

“I’m so sorry Meg, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do.” Devon was backing up and cowering his face behind crossed arms.

“YOU DID NOTHING, DEVON! NOTHING!” Meg’s shouting was starting to attract the curious eyes of students who were heading back to class.

Devon tried to tone her down, nervously shifting his watering eyes all over the place. “Meg, can we talk about this later? Please?” he begged.

“I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!” YOU’RE THE ONE WHO WANTED TO ‘PROCESS THIS’,” she quoted Devon with sarcastic hands, “WELL HERE YOU GO, I’M PROCESSING! HAPPY?”

“Meg, please…” Devon was almost as small as his voice.

“AND WHY THE FUCK DOES YOUR DAD EVEN CARE IN THE FIRST PLACE HUH? YOU EVER THINK TO ASK HIM THAT?”

Devon had given up on speaking. He was pathetically looking down at the ground, tears welling up his somber face. His arms were limp against his sides. He had accepted the role of punching bag. His resigned body made Meg angrier. All she wanted was for him to scream back at her. To prove to her that he was as hurt over the matter as she was. She wanted to get physical. She wanted a fist fight between the two of them.

Devon gave her none of those things. He just stood there lifeless, and it sucked the life out of Meg as well. Her anger subsided, leaving only a vacuum of emptiness. She breathed deeply and turned around to get her bag. She wanted to go home.

“Forget it,” she spit out before gathering her things and walked away from the inanimate husk that was Devon Lord. He made no move to stop her. He just stood there, head down, shoulder’s slumped, quietly crying.

Meg walked out the school doors, paying no heed to her final three classes. She didn’t even have the assignment for one of them anyway. She got in her car and drove home. She failed to notice Alicia watching her go from the parking lot, curious as to what had just occurred.