do feel pretty queasy when Sadie Haskins confirms that the bird is dead. Tristan looks to me, almost like he expects me to start crying again, but I hold it together.
See, I’m improving already.
Reining in the drama.
11:20 a.m.
In history, Mr. Weylan actually hands out the exact same quiz as yesterday. When is this poor old man going to retire already? It’s kind of embarrassing.
Although I guess what’s really embarrassing is the fact that I still don’t get all the questions right. I remember some of the correct answers from yesterday’s quiz, but I’m ashamed to say I don’t get a hundred percent today. And neither does Daphne Gray, whose test I have to grade again. I try to share a conspiratorial eye roll with her when we trade back papers. Something that says, “Can you believe this guy is allowed to keep teaching?” but I must not convey the sentiment properly, because she just stares blankly back at me. Like she can’t understand why I even exist.
She hands me my test with a big 76 percent marked on the front. Well, it’s an improvement, at least. Let’s hope old man Weylan also managed to forget yesterday’s results and uses these instead. Or better yet, let’s hope he forgets again tomorrow. I’ll surely be able to ace it by then.
“Homework for tonight,” Mr. Weylan announces in his wobbly voice as the class comes to an end. He turns and writes something on the whiteboard. His handwriting is so shaky it’s barely legible.
For Tuesday: Read chapters 3 & 4.
I let out a snort and Daphne turns her dark cat eyes on me. “What?”
“He assigned us the same thing yesterday. And he got the day wrong.”
Not that I did the assignment anyway. I was too busy getting ambiguously broken up with.
“Um, are you on drugs?” she asks in response.
First I’m a drunk. Now I’ve apparently upgraded to drug addict.
No, I want to reply, equally snotty, but then I look around the room and notice that everyone is furiously writing down the assignment. Like the mistake doesn’t even faze them.
It’s right then that a tingle starts in the pit of my stomach. Like a quiet murmuring of some foreboding truth.
I turn back to Daphne and whisper, “Isn’t today Tuesday?”
She shakes her head at me, clearly believing I really am on drugs. “No, it’s Monday.”
“But,” I argue, my voice lacking confidence. “It was Monday yesterday.”
Daphne sighs, like she really doesn’t have time for this. She digs her phone out of her bag, swipes it on, and shoves it in my face. She points to the time and date stamped at the top.
Monday, September 26.
The tingling in my stomach turns to full-grown schizo butterflies.
How is that possible?
Did the update mess up her phone, too?
I grab the device from her and turn it around in my hand, studying the construction from all angles. It’s a completely different model than mine. Then I stare intently at the screen, blinking several times.
The date does not change.
What on earth is going on?
“Excuse me,” Daphne says hotly, snatching the phone back. The bell rings, ending fifth period, and even though the entire class leaps out of their seats, I can’t bring myself to move.
The screen of Daphne’s phone is ingrained in my mind.
Monday.
It’s still Monday.
But it can’t be Monday.
I dive for my bag and rifle around until I find my own phone. I turn it on and stare at the calendar app.
Monday, September 26.
I go to CNN, Yahoo, even Time.gov, which is run by the United States government. Every single one of them confirms what my brain does not want confirmed.
Today is Monday, September 26.
But things happened yesterday. A lot of things. Awful things. The banana bread and the election speeches and the softball tryouts and Tristan’s messages.
My fingers fly across the screen until I find the texts from this morning.
Tristan: I can’t stop thinking about last night.
Tristan: Let’s talk today.
It was the exact same thing he texted me yesterday.
Yesterday.
Also Monday.
I hastily scroll up, searching for the identical messages, but there’s nothing. All I find is the text from Sunday afternoon, when he invited me to his house to hang out. Before we had the big fight and I threw a garden gnome at his head.
Ellie, we had a fight.
Those were Tristan’s words to me today. Monday. He swore he never broke up with me. He acted like yesterday never happened.
And now that I think about it, everyone has been acting like yesterday never happened.
My dad asked me about softball tryouts.
Owen