two weeks. Payment is due within five days.” She waves a hand, gesturing that we should bring Hope over to join the chaos.
The 6 Weeks–1 Year section is actually the calmest. The kids aren’t old enough to be fighting or playing with each other much, so there’s just a lot of crying and sitting around and stuff. But there’re a lot of kids here—at least twenty—and there’re only two teachers or whatever you call them.
I feel Mom tense beside me, but she keeps a smile on her face and introduces us to one of the teachers. In a matter of seconds, she’s handing over Hope and we’re waving good-bye, and then we’re out in the hallway.
Mom and I look at each other as the door swings closed and the noise from the day care is somewhat dimmed.
What just happened?
And why does it feel weird?
Mom’s eyes get watery, and she swallows a couple of times to keep her emotions in check.
“You okay?” I ask.
She sniffles and shrugs. “That was harder than I thought it would be.”
Sort of, yeah, for me too. But that’s stupid. I’ve left Hope with my mom and Alan a zillion times. This isn’t any different, except now I have to pay for it. I get to go back to school and go back to normal, and Hope gets to be around other babies and do, I don’t know, baby stuff. So what’s the fucking problem?
“You okay?” she asks, and I realize I’m staring off into nowhere.
I’m fine. It’s all fine. But I can’t seem to find the words, so I nod.
Mom puts her arm around my shoulder as we walk back to the car.
• • •
School.
Friends. Lunch. Homeroom. Report cards.
It’s all back.
The first clue that the normal world is still spinning—and that it now actually expects me to get back on board—is how everyone comes up to me like I’m their long-lost brother or something.
“Ryden, omigod, hi!”
“What’s up, Brooks?”
“State champions fifth year in a row, man! Eastbay is going down!”
“How was your summer?! I went to France—it was amaaaazing.”
I guess, unlike that day at the lake, because I don’t have Hope with me, they’ve forgotten about her. Or maybe they’re avoiding the subject on purpose. I smile and laugh and hug and fist-bump everyone, like life’s totally great.
No one mentions Meg. I guess it makes sense. She stopped school in November of last year, so everyone’s used to seeing me without her. I wish I were used to seeing me without her.
My locker is the second sign that nothing has changed in the Bizarro World that is Downey High School. I don’t even know which one is mine until we’re given our assignments in homeroom, but clearly someone got the memo before I did, because my locker is decorated. It’s covered in Puma blue and white, with a paper soccer ball with a giant #1 painted on it and lots and lots of streamers and silver glitter. I look down the hall—there are a few other lockers that look like mine, all belonging to my fellow varsity soccer team members. Clearly whoever went to the trouble to find out my locker assignment and get here early to decorate it hasn’t heard that I’m benched for Friday’s game.
I don’t have any books yet, and though it’s almost fall, it’s not really cold enough outside for a coat, so I don’t have anything to put in the locker. So I just close it and go to AP English.
And there she is. Meg Reynolds, dark hair all wild and flowing around her shoulders and down her back, pale face resting on her pale arm sprawled across the desk, vigorously scribbling in a notebook. She looks up and gives me the brightest, most beautiful smile in the whole world. I stop dead in my tracks. The memory is so real, so vivid, I have to fight to get air. And then I blink.
She’s gone. All that’s left is an empty desk with the class syllabus sitting on it. There are plenty of other seats, but I sit there.
Shoshanna walks into class just as the bell rings, so I’m saved from having to talk to her, but she keeps throwing me grins throughout the period.
As soon as the class ends, I hear, “Ryden!” Shoshanna throws her arms around me and keeps the hug going way too long. I try to pull back twice, but she just holds on tighter.
Finally she lets me go, and we exit the classroom together to find Dave