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Bex just seneral direction of the parking lot “I can drive you”

“Oh” I shakethe scratchy blue sleeves of my uniform sweater down over my hands “No, that’s okay, you don’t have to do that”

Bex shrugs “I wouldn’t offer if I d

idn’tto be just you and Mr Lyle rattling around this place”

Mr Lyle is the janitor, who’s seven feet tall and almost as wide in the shoulders Everybody calls him Hodor behind his back

“Grab your stuff”

I glance out the , at the dusk falling purple-blue behind the pine trees Back at Bex “Okay,” I say finally, sing down a thrill and reaching for my backpack “Sure Thanks”

I text ot a ride and follow Bex down the e where I live as alk He drives a beat-up Jeep with a peeling Bernie Sanders sticker on the bu slouched on the back seat As he starts the engine the car fills with sad, guitar-heavy indie folk—Bon Iver, I think, although possibly that’s just the only artist like that I could name

“I’ at the stereo as we pull out of the parking lot “All I’ is the mountain-man beard”

“No, it’s fine,” I say with a s rain as irl”

Bex lets out a loud laugh “That’s what irlfriend always used to say,” he ad music”

I laugh too, even as the word ex-girlfriend sends a tiny electric shock through me I wonder what she was like, if she was pretty Most of all I wonder why they broke up

Bex has always been strangely easy to talk to for a teacher, and he keeps up a pretty steady conversation as we head for hborhood—about DioGuardi and the dress code, yeah, but also about a concert he just went to in Boston and a series of author readings at Harvard Book Store that he thinks I should check out

“So you and Jacob Rei the VFW Parkway, passing the Stop & Shop and the PetSood dude”

“Oh!” I don’t knoho told him that, and it erated, shocked expression back at me, wide eyes and his mouth a perfect O