Free The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord Page B

I was the only one with any level of discomfort, but I had earned it—all those nights, squinting my eyes in fake sleep while their bickering voices carried into my bedroom.
    “You know,” my dad said, “when you fall for someone, it’s involuntary, kiddo. Even when it’s for the second time with the same person. You’ll see someday.”
    Also involuntary: my scowl. I was the one in high school. I was supposed to be giddily going on dates and looking hazed over with happiness—not my middle-aged parents. All I had were a few hopeful conversations with Ryan Chase and a list of things that might make me feel happy again. It usually took being with my friends or my grandma to makeme feel happy. But last night, when I took my list down to only four? It was the happiest I’d felt, being alone, in a long time. I needed the satisfaction of crossing off another item—it had felt so charged, so definite.
    I glanced over at my dad, desperate for a subject change. “So … I’m thinking about doing QuizBowl at school. It’s like a game-show-type trivia thing.”
    He sat up straighter. QuizBowl was squarely inside my dad’s wheelhouse. I’d heard stories of his victories at bar Trivia Nights in college, and he tried to get Cameron and me to play Trivial Pursuit Junior for years when we were little. “Really, kiddo? That’s great !”
    Once I saw the excited look on his face, I knew I really had to do it. My parents watched me suffer so much sadness that they couldn’t take away. I think I wanted them to see that I was doing better these days. And maybe I wanted to make myself see it, too.

Chapter Seven
    “All right,” Ms. Pepper called, after the bell rang. “This isn’t the first week of school anymore. Time to get down to business.”
    The chattering died down, and she picked up papers from off her desk.
    “On the first day of class I told you that I had two goals for this year,” she said as she passed a handful of papers down the first row. “For you to learn about one another and literature. This in-class assignment will serve as a refresher on Shakespearean themes you’ve previously studied in Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar . It will also help you get to know a fellow classmate, as you’ll be working in twos. You’re not in kindergarten, so pair yourselves off. I’ll trust you to pick someone you don’t already know well.”
    Max poked me in the back before Ms. Pepper even finished talking. “Wanna work together?”
    Morgan was already chatting with Maggie Brennan. Ryan Chase was too far away to ask, and I didn’t want to get stuck without a partner.
    “Sure.” I spun in my seat to face Max, noticing the faint imprint across his cheeks and forehead—the remnant of chemistry lab goggles.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Nothing,” I said, not wanting to embarrass him.
    The first section read: WHAT’S IN A NAME?
    “Full Name,” I read aloud. “Is it Max well ? Or Max imillian ?”
    “Neither. Just Max.” His mouth pulled into a half smile. “Max Oliver Watson.”
    “Paige Elizabeth Hancock,” I said, watching him write it down “Okay, next question. Are you named after anyone?”
    “My grandfather and my godfather.” He pushed up the cuffs of his shirt. “Although, when I was little, I thought I was named after Max from Where the Wild Things Are .”
    I smirked at the idea of Max being anything like Max from the children’s book. Highly unlikely. Max Watson was more “volunteer tutor” than “king of all wild things.”
    “What about you? Are you named after anyone?”
    “My parents just liked the name Paige, I think, but Elizabeth is because my mom is a huge Pride and Prejudice fan.” I thought for a second. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that, actually.”
    His head jerked toward me. “Really?”
    “Yeah. Guess it never came up. Elizabeth is a pretty standard middle name.”
    “No,” he said. “I mean really ‘Elizabeth’? You seem much more like a Jane