Fitting in

It happened fast, the way it always does. A ninth-grader was carrying his tray through the cafeteria, tripped over a backpack, and his lunch ended up on his sweater. At the basketball table one guy laughed, then everyone. Someone already had a phone out. Leo laughed too. His laugh was loud, like always, and it was out before he'd thought about it.

Then he saw Mila. She was sitting two tables over with Liv, and she wasn't looking at the kid. She was looking at him. Not angry. More like she'd just learned something about him she'd rather not have known. Leo stopped laughing. It felt like a shot that's already in the air and you can't take back.

The kid got up and left without turning around. At the table someone was passing the video around. "Send it," somebody said. Leo had known these guys since the under-10s. They'd been through every loss together. He knew exactly what it feels like to belong, and exactly what it costs when you don't anymore.

"Delete it," he said. It came out quieter than he meant it to. Someone laughed. "Since when are you like this?" John looked at Leo, then at the phone, then back at Leo. "He's right," John said. "Delete it." It got deleted. Not happily, but deleted.

After lunch Leo waited outside the ninth-grade classroom. When the kid came out, with a stain on his sweater, Leo said, "I laughed earlier. That was messed up. I'm sorry." The kid nodded, nothing more. On the way to the bus, Mila walked past Leo and stopped for a second. "I saw," she said. Leo didn't know if she meant the laughing or what came after. Maybe both.