On the trail between the condos comes the sound of wheels on gravel, and then Taylor Riley is next to me on his skateboard, looking so much taller than before. He doesn’t say anything. I watch my shoes kick up dirt. He rolls past me, then waits for me to catch up. He does this over and over, saying nothing, not even looking at me.
His hair is sun-bleached and his skin is tanned and freckled. He could play a version himself on a sitcom—the most popular boy in school, oblivious to his own perfection. His TV self would trade his skateboard for a football jacket. Instead of sitting around looking bored, he would win trophies. He’d be driving to school in some expensive car with a smiling homecoming queen in the passenger seat, not following a narrow dirt path alongside a quiet, sullen girl.
The path ends and spills us out onto the sidewalk. A block away, everyone is pulling into the high school parking lot. I want to turn and run back home.
“Hey, sorry about Ingrid,” Taylor says.
Automatically, I say, “Thanks.”
Car after car passes us and turns into the parking lot. All the girls are squealing and hugging as if it’s been years since they’ve laid eyes on one another. The guys are slamming their hands down on one another’s backs, which I guess is supposed to mean something nice. I try not to look at them. Taylor and I face each other, each of us looking at his skateboard standing still on the ground. A car door slams. Footsteps. Alicia McIntosh collides into me with her arms open.
“Caitlin,” she whispers.
Her perfume is strong and flowery. I try not to choke.
She takes a step back, holds me by the elbows. She’s wearing tight jeans and a yellow tank top with queen written in blue sequins across her chest. Her red hair skims the tops of her shoulders.
“You are so strong,” she says, “to come back to school. If I were you I would be . . . I don’t know. I’d still be hiding in bed, I guess, with the blankets pulled up over my head.”
She stares at me with a look that’s supposed to be meaningful. Her big green eyes stretch even bigger. In my one semester of drama, the teacher taught us that if a person keeps her eyes open long enough, she’ll start to cry. I wonder if Alicia has forgotten that we were in the same class. She keeps squeezing my elbows and finally a small tear trickles over her freckles.
Alicia, I want to say. Someday you will win an Oscar.
Instead I say, “Thanks.”
She nods, wrinkling her forehead and squeezing out one last tear.
Her focus snaps away from me to something in the distance. Her crew is walking toward us. They’re all wearing different versions of the same tank top. They say, PRINCESS, ANGEL, and SPOILED. I guess Alicia is the leader this year. I should feel lucky that her hands are cutting off my circulation.
“I’m going to make you late to class. But please remember. If you ever need anything, you can call me. I know we haven’t hung out in a while, but we used to be really good friends. I’m here for you. Day or night.”
I can’t imagine ever being Alicia’s friend. Not because we’re so different now, but because it’s impossible to think of a time before high school. Before photography and finals and the pressure of college. Before Ingrid. I remember Alicia as a little kid, hands on her h*ps in the sandbox, informing all the other kids that she was the only unicorn. And I remember a girl with brown braided hair and pastel corduroys galloping on the blacktop imagining she was a horse, and I know that girl was me, but it feels distant, like someone else’s memory.
Now she gives my elbows one last squeeze and sets me free.
“Taylor,” she says. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah, just a minute.”
“We’re going to be late.”
“Go ahead.”
She rolls her eyes. Her friends arrive and she leads them toward the English hall.
Taylor clears his throat. He glances at me, then back to his skateboard. “So I hope you don’t think this is a rude question or anything, but how did she do it?”
My knees buckle. I think, If a brown-eyed man and a brown-eyed woman have a child, the child will probably have brown eyes. The main entrance is ahead of us, the soccer field to the left. I stick my hand in my pocket and touch my schedule. Like the last two years, I have photography first period. I will my legs to work again and, miraculously, they do. I step onto the grass, away from Taylor, and mumble, “I have to go.” I picture Ms. Delani waiting for me, rising from her chair when I walk into the classroom, pushing past the other students until she gets to me. When I imagine her touching my arm, I am flooded with relief.
3
I haven’t talked to Ms. Delani since everything happened. Maybe she’ll excuse herself from the rest of the class and lead me to her back office, where we’ll sit together and talk about how f**ked life is. She won’t ask if I’m okay because she’ll already know that for us Are you okay? is an impossible question. She’ll spend the period talking to the class about how sad this year is going to be. In honor of Ingrid, the first project will be about loss and everyone will know, even before I turn in my photograph, that mine will be the most heartbreaking.
I filter through the door with the rest of the kids. The classroom is brighter than I remember, and colder. Ms. Delani stands at her desk, looking as perfect and beautiful as she must every day, in crisply ironed slacks and a black sleeveless sweater. Ingrid and I used to try to picture her doing real-people stuff, like taking the garbage out and shaving her armpits. We called her by her first name whenever we were alone. Imagine Veena, Ingrid would say, in sweatpants and a ratty T-shirt, getting up at one o’clock in the afternoon with a hangover. I would try to picture it, but it was useless; instead I saw her in silk pajamas, drinking espresso in a sunny kitchen.