Between You & Me - By Marisa Calin Page 0,15

moved here especially for him. She’ll probably leave now. I know I would. Can you imagine …

She keeps going. She has an active imagination but this sounds plausible. Even so, I want to throw something at her head to make her stop speaking. Mia’s only been here a few weeks but already I can’t imagine rooms and hallways without her. She’s single?—

There’s a flash. I blink and look left to see Ginny taking a photo. I put my hand in front of my face.

ME

Stop it!

GINNY

Relax! It’s for the yearbook. Natural pictures are the best and how often are we all together?

ME

Every day.

I’m not excited to see how that one comes out. She does this all year. Find an awkward moment and trust Ginny to be there, snapping pictures to make it worse. Some people love getting in the yearbook. They dive into shots, wrapping their arms around people they barely know just to smirk at the camera.

Voices become murmurs, my thoughts spiraling. The study hall supervisor’s chair is still empty. Maybe I could run for it before it’s too late. The door opens and … Mia, of all people, comes in hugging a stack of files. She’s everywhere! Grace sees her and starts whispering to Elle, prompting me for the second time to imagine throwing something at her head. I carefully examine the page of my book instead but the symbols have lost all meaning. I stare at my fingers flicking my pen lid open and closed. Despite my best efforts, she glows in my peripheral vision, like when you look directly at a lightbulb and then everywhere you look you see a spot.

SCHOOL GATE. THE NEXT MORNING.

I’m standing at the gate, hands in my pockets, coat buttoned up. You’re already inside but I’m hoping to catch a moment with Mia to console her about her breakup. I think I’ve missed her. How is that possible? I wait a few more seconds, kicking at the sea of red fallen leaves from the maples on either side of the gate. There’s no satisfying crunch underfoot, they’re damp and soggy. It’s stupid to stay and wait but I can’t leave just yet … My mind keeps changing the shapes and colors of approaching figures into Mia so that my heart jumps with expectation but when they get closer they’re not even similar. I check the time. Great, now I’m late again! This is pointless. I turn, trying not to slip on the leaves—that would be the kicker—and glance over my shoulder one last time as I start toward the front steps.

COURTYARD. SOON AFTER.

It’s quiet and still. Class has started. School is so different without faces and voices at every turn: deserted, like you’re in a dream and you know it’s supposed to be school but it doesn’t look the same. I think I see you at the English room window. The face disappears and I slip through the door into the hallway. I catch sight of the clock and pick up my pace, still imagining what I might have said: that she’ll be okay, that she should stay? There are footsteps around the corner and somehow I know before I see her that it’s Mia. In seconds, she stands before me—here in my head and then in these sudden unexpected places. I smile. She takes a second to register me and then glances up at the hall clock.

MIA

You’re running late. Again? Better get to class.

I stand there, my mouth suspended between words and a strange sensation of wanting to cry. Pull yourself together, Phyre. She’s a teacher, not your friend. Squashing the conspiratorial feeling from when she covered for me last week, I swallow, my cheek twitching with the effort of not crying, and start walking briskly toward class. I hear her footsteps walk the empty hall in the other direction, the silence embarrassing. My face burning, I flinch at letting myself imagine that waiting for her this morning could have been so different. The reminder of her authority follows me into class, late. Everyone stares.

READING ROOM. LUNCH.

You’ve tried to catch up with me a couple of times today. You’ve asked what happened this morning but I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll probably never want to talk about it as long as I live. I didn’t feel like eating lunch today so I came straight to the reading room, which is always quiet and empty, to curl up and die. It seems you know me too well. I can see