“Hey, Jazzy.” I nudged Jasmine in the ribs to catch her attention. She’d been facing the other direction, deep in conversation with Gianna. “Tell me what you know about Holden.”
Jasmine whipped around to face me, her long dark hair swishing around her shoulders. “Holden Reece?”
I shrugged. We hadn’t shared last names. Lifting my arm, I pointed in his direction. “The guy right there?”
Jasmine’s caramel colored eyes followed my gaze and she nodded, an incredulous look on her face. “Why do you want to know about Holden?”
The odd way she was behaving made me wish I’d never asked, but there was no backing down now. “Um…just because we met last night at the gym and I was curious about him.”
“No way.” Her mouth dropped open. “And you talked to him?”
“Yeah, we talked for a little while.” An involuntary smile leapt to my lips. I wiped it away quickly, but Jasmine caught it.
Her eyebrows shot up. Reaching behind her, she latched on to Gianna’s arm. “Chloe has a thing for Holden Reece.”
Gianna’s neck snapped toward us, her high ponytail swinging with the movement.
My stomach twisted. “I do not. I was just curious about him.”
“They met at the gym the other night,” Jasmine shared with Gianna.
“Really?” Gianna’s eyes widened. “Did you tell him who you were?”
Irritated, I furrowed my brows. “And who am I?” I knew exactly what she was insinuating, but I wanted to make her say it out loud.
Gianna glanced around our table wearing a look of discomfort. “It’s just that Holden Reece doesn’t mix with girls like us.”
“Girls like us? And what kind of girl would that be?” I pinned my new friends with a challenging stare. I’d only known Gianna and Jasmine a few weeks, but already I felt pretty close to them. One of the perks of moving so much was that I’d learned at an early age how to make new friends fast. My dad was in construction management, and it seemed that every couple of years his company sent him to a new area to oversee the development of a subdivision. Luckily I could bring my tenor saxophone with me anywhere, and my musical talent gave me an in. The band gave me a place to belong. But on the flip side, it also set me apart. It labeled me.
Jasmine sat forward, elbows on the slick cafeteria table. “What Gianna is trying to say is that Holden is the quarterback of the football team. He dates the cheerleaders and popular girls, not the band geeks.”
And there it was. The label I hated so much. I wanted to be mad at Jasmine for even saying it. Only she was in the band too, so I knew she wasn’t making fun of me. No doubt she’d been called a band geek for years just like I had. In fact, she and Gianna seemed to wear the label proudly, like a badge of honor. All of their friends were in the band, and they didn’t seem to mind at all. And the truth was that the band kids were fun. I should know. I was a senior and had been in band since sixth grade. But as much as I loved music and loved my friends, I hated being defined by it. I was more than just a girl in the band. There was so much more to me than that one thing. And for a few minutes in the spa the other night it seemed that Holden had seen that. He appeared to be truly interested in me. Would it really make a difference if he knew I was in marching band? Glancing back at his table, my chest tightened. This time I saw what I’d missed before. I saw Holden’s football jacket, the tanned, blond girls hovering around his table. It was clear that all the guys with him had the same build, the same athleticism, the same charm. They were all jocks. Not one band kid in sight. As sad as it was to admit, I knew my answer. Of course it would make a difference. This was high school.
Labels and social statuses were everything here.
The bell rang out, causing chaos to ensue around me. There was a flurry of motion as students stood, gathered belongings, threw away their trash from lunch, said good-bye to friends and headed for the doors. After Gianna and Jasmine got up, I spun around and slid off the bench. After tossing my empty lunch bag in the trash, I snatched my backpack off the ground and flung it over my shoulder.
“All right. See you girls tonight.” Jasmine threw Gianna and I a wave before getting swallowed up by a sea of students.
“I’m off to math.” Gianna curled up her nose in a look of disgust. “See ya at practice.”
I nodded as she joined the crowd. Sighing, I geared up for the long afternoon of classes and homework, just to return for marching band practice tonight. Don’t get me wrong, I loved music. There was nothing more soothing to me than pulling out my shiny saxophone and getting lost in a song. But marching band wasn’t like that. We were still learning our show, so tonight would be three hours of marching and receiving our drill.