New Girl - By Paige Harbison Page 0,74

lot of looks. More than ever. At the end of a break it makes sense for there to be an excited, catching-up buzz about the school.

This wasn’t that.

It got weirder when I walked through the doors and saw a line that ended in Dana, Madison and Julia sitting at a table. Madison had a cash box, Julia was taking money, and Dana was handing out T-shirts. They were pink with black writing and had a picture on them I couldn’t make out from where I was standing.

I dropped my phone off at the office and walked over to the line. All of them watched me as I approached.

“I’m not butting or anything,” I explained, a bit uselessly, to some of the waiting students as I walked past.

I looked at one of the shirts Dana handed to a girl. The picture was of Becca, I could see now, and I read the words.

FIND BECCA

Dana had boxes of the shirts behind her. “Do you want one?”

It took me a moment to realize she was talking to me.

“You can even have one for free,” she offered, not sounding generous at all.

I shook my head and looked around to see that I was being swallowed by a sea of pink. Everyone around me was either wearing or holding a pink shirt. I walked quickly from the table and toward the stairs. I stopped when I saw Max. He was holding a shirt and looking a little dazed.

“Max.”

He tried to smile, but barely pulled it off. His jaw was clenched tightly again. “Come here.”

He pulled me in for a hug. I didn’t stop him, even in light of how uncertain everything was with him. He put his cheek to my hair and didn’t let go for a few seconds.

“What’s going on?” I asked. I never wanted to let go of him, but something had clearly happened.

“You didn’t hear, then?”

I shook my head. My heart was beating fast. “No, hear what? What’s happening?”

He hesitated. “They think…Becca’s alive.” He looked hopeful and regretful all at once.

“Why? Who thinks so?”

“Her Facebook…she had a status update, and it said she was alive. And…it was right after there was a sighting of someone who looked like her.”

“What?” I was breathless suddenly. Everything was going to change. Would they kick me out? Would she come back? “Where? What did it say?”

“They saw her here in town somewhere. The status just confirmed that it was her…I don’t know.”

Blake and Cam approached us a moment later, neither of them holding pink shirts.

“Can you believe this?” Blake asked, looking only at Max.

“No.”

“I don’t even know what to think. I guess we’ll hear more at the assembly. They’re holding it tonight instead of tomorrow.” She looked at me. “How are you?”

“I’m fine.” My voice was much higher than usual. “What time’s the assembly?”

“Eight-thirty. Come in uniform.” Cam winked at me, apparently remembering my first assembly.

I smiled weakly. “I should go get situated. That’s only an hour from now.”

I needed to breathe, and to stop feeling that a seventeen-year-old missing girl being alive and well was a bad thing.

“Okay,” Max said, “meet me outside of the auditorium at eight twenty-five.”

I hated myself for getting excited by his willingness to meet me in public and that he wasn’t ignoring me. Maybe I was being Dumb Girl. But I couldn’t care.

Max paused and looked at me, like we’d never see each other again.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just… Never mind, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

As soon as I walked away, I heard Blake start talking quickly and quietly to the other two.

I arrived at my room only to find that the few pictures I’d pinned to my bulletin board last semester had been taken down and put on my bed. So had the thumbtacks. All but the four tacks that held up an eleven-by-seventeen poster pinned in their place. It was a poster printed with the same picture and bold words as were on the T-shirt I still clutched absentmindedly. I threw it on the floor and took down the poster.

I gathered the thumbtacks Dana had intentionally scattered evenly all over my comforter and put them back up with the pictures. Including some of the new ones from the break. My mom had pulled into the driveway just before I left with my dad and Jasper, yelling for us to wait, and then handed me an envelope of pictures she’d just gotten printed for me.

I pinned up some of those, mostly the ones from New Year’s Eve—before it