I heard was about me, and without a doubt the hard poke someone gave me from behind was no accident. I couldn’t take it anymore. I thought I was going to pass out if I stayed a minute longer. My watery eyes made it look like everyone was swimming, but I was the only one drowning.
I got up while Simon was in mid-sentence. I couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. I couldn’t hear anything over the ocean-like roar in my head. Maneuvering as gracefully as one could in a stupid protective boot, I worked my way down rows of bleachers, not bothering with apologies to the people I pushed and shoved on my way to the gym floor. Everyone, Principal Fowler included, watched my escape.
I didn’t ask permission to leave the assembly, I simply left, dashing through the metal exit doors as fast as my hobbled leg could carry me.
I took refuge in the girls’ bathroom, locked inside a stall, blubbering like I was eight again. Eventually I ran out of tears, but I was still shaking. What were people saying about me? How would I face them again? Okay, don’t panic, I told myself. But I was panicking, my mind going a million miles an hour. Should I run away? Could I make it to Nebraska with what I have in my savings account? I don’t know how long I was in that stall, but it was long enough for the assembly to end. The quiet erupted into chaos as kids filled the halls and more than a few ended up in the bathroom with me.
“OMG, did you see Maggie? Could she have gotten out of there any faster?”
I knew the voice—Pam Epstein. Band kid. Not one of the meanies. But now even Sweet Pam was gossiping about me, thanks to Simon. I checked my phone to see what kids were saying on social media.
Sure enough, there were a few Snapchats about me, and even an Instagram post capturing my speedy departure (yes, they’d tagged me so I’d see it), but it was all pretty tame. I doubted that would last long. Kids would talk, and the story would grow from there. That’s how legends were born.
I opened Talkie, the new social media thing. Talkie was a good place for me to go online, a safe space where I could track the happenings of celebrities and athletes who got tired of Twitter. Today I wanted to see what, if anything, was being said about me.
When I logged in, I saw that I had a new Talkie to Me, which is what Talkie called friend requests. It came from a person named Tracy Nuts. My heart stopped. I couldn’t think straight. Everything was spinning super fast, and it felt like I was both falling and floating. I couldn’t breathe. The bathroom began to spin. I was sure I was going to get sick. My whole body started to tingle.
I know only one person named Tracy Nuts, and she is me. It’s my nickname, a little play on words about my deadly peanut allergy: Trace of Nuts. Get it? Tracy Nuts. The only person who ever called me that was the same person who’d given me the nickname in the first place.
My father.
It was kind of a jokey nickname for such a deadly serious condition, but my dad came up with it one day when I got sad because I couldn’t eat any of my friend’s birthday cake. He thought a little humor might make it sting a bit less, and well—he was right. There was a message accompanying the Talkie to Me request that I read a hundred times in the stall.
Sweetie, it’s me. It’s Dad. Accept this request and I’ll be in touch soon. But promise me, promise, promise you won’t tell a soul I’ve contacted you. Not your brother, not even your mother. There are reasons, important reasons I can’t get into right now. I’ll try to explain later. But please, please, please, keep that promise for me, OK? If anybody finds out I’ve contacted you it will be very bad for me and I won’t be able to reach out to you again. Try to understand. I love you to the moon and back and there and back again to infinity. xoxo—Dad
Maybe somebody, somehow, had learned about my Tracy Nuts nickname. Connor could have told somebody, so I considered it a possibility. It was also possible that somebody was being extra mean and cruel, piling on