Jackpot: Chapters 8–15

When I step into US History on Monday, Big Money Macklin is sitting in the desk beside mine. Not only do people kick palpable side-eye at me as I head to the back of the room, when I pass Zan’s regular seat, the boy who normally sits next to me shoots glare-daggers at my face like I’m an accomplice to murder.

Am I flattered? Or annoyed at his nonchalance about flushing twenty bucks so frivolously?

Am I flattered? Or annoyed at his nonchalance about flushing twenty bucks so frivolously?

“Geez, IQ. Think you could be any less discreet?” Zan whispers as soon as Tripathi rotates to tap on the SMART board.

My insides curdle at the very idea of the side-eye I would get were people to find out I don’t have something that’s considered such a staple to “this generation.”

It’s just that...well, this is kind of my first time passing notes in class. Ever. A realization that serves to remind me of my dearth of, you know, friends.

In addition to this skin-prickling suspicion about Zan Macklin’s motives, I can now add annoyance at his flagrant lack of consideration that some people have to actually work for their money.

“Danger, this is Finesse Montgomery,” he said as they both stood over me like some kind of adolescent male sentinels.

“While I appreciate the hospitality, Macklin, I’m gonna pass,” I said with a wink. “Kinda dig my ‘island of solitude,’ as you so aptly put it.”

Actually, what’s he even doing in Kroger? Don’t people of his economic ilk shop at like Whole Foods or World Market or whatever? Do they even do their own shopping?

Zan whips out a pair of sunglasses that I’m sure are worth more than my entire wardrobe. Slips them on all suave-like.

Fine, this is just a ride home, but it does feel like an encroachment on the little autonomy I prize probably more than any physical possession.

Fine, this is just a ride home, but it does feel like an encroachment on the little autonomy I prize probably more than any physical possession.

When we get to the Jeep, I climb into the backseat, and Jax sits up front with the toilet-tissue titan. I have qualms about this because Jax is such a shrimp and this monstermobile has passenger-side airbags, but I can’t crush the kid’s dreams.

“[It] was a derisive term for girl who—” He stops and presses his lips together.

“Well, that’s self-deprecating.”

“Yeah...but she didn’t know about his wife and kids until after she’d named me.” And now she refuses to talk about him. Ever. Which is a point of contention between us.

Wonder if he’d feel like I was adulterating the pristine nature of his Tonka upholstery if he knew I’m basically wearing the rags he *doesn’t come from*.

There’s something sickly satisfying about Dolla-Dolla Zan’s smarmy smirk melting off his face like wilting ice cream on a summer day in Georgia.

I want Macklin to feel the weight of this defeat. To sit in its cesspool-like nature and let the stink settle into his bones.

“That car was impounded two weeks ago. Driver’s no longer with the company.”

Mama has occasional bouts of colitis...

The stigma punches at her dignity to the point where she refuses to draw from a system she’s helped feed for as long as tax money’s been taken out of her paychecks.

Which means I get to bear the brunt of the slack.

She glares at me with so much vitriol in her face, if I weren’t so pissed off, I’d probably cower and apologize.

Don’t these humans realize all that friction begins to chafe?

“Who can understand these humans and the myriad emotions we engender within them?” from Bill Forty-One.

“Who can understand these humans and the myriad emotions we engender within them?” from Bill Forty-One.

Barring the two smiles she kicked my way—one on the shared strip of concrete between our apartment doors, and one on that fateful day in the cafeteria that started this whole Macklin Mess—those two-point-five words are the most we’ve ever exchanged.

The anger I could’ve dealt with. Chalked it up to Hyperprivileged Rich White Kid Syndrome—symptoms include abject fury over not getting one’s way.

But then we pass the Walgreens that denotes entry into the cheap pocket of town.

It’s like...confounding. Never in a hundred and six million years would I have expected to exchange a single word with Zan Macklin, let alone be sitting in the passenger seat of his Tonka truck with him *politely* requesting intel on my personal life.

I turn to face him and cross my arms. More as a feeble attempt to protect myself from the You can't talk to me that way, riffraff statement I’m expecting to fly from his mouth than to look tough, but whatever.

No overbearing rich-boy response this time.

And I have to look away because to be honest, I feel like a gaping, festering wound.

I stifle a laugh at the irony.

“Rico, giving forty-seven million dollars to a person with no financial acumen and little impulse control is a horrible i—”

He drops his head and makes a beeline to the door.

There’s something disarming about Jessica Barlow. Which catches me off guard considering she’s the prototypical hyperpopular high school homecoming queen (literally).

“I’m a National Merit Finalist and on track to be the goddamn salutatorian. And that’s on top of being cheer captain, class prez, and holding down a part-time job since I turned sixteen.”