We pull up to the school parking lot and Chad checks his phone for any new texts.
“So thanks again,” I say.
“Oh, sure,” he says, reading his phone.
“And thanks for the ride. I’m so sorry about my car. That was stupid—”
He still doesn’t look up. I’m not sure if I should get out of the car without at least making eye contact, but just as I pull the handle on the door, there’s a knock on the window.
“HI, YOU TWO!” It’s Lucas, smiling like he thinks it’s hilarious that he’s caught me in Chad’s car, skipping class. “School’s not out yet, Em.”
I open the door and quickly get out. “I know that, Lucas. He’s dropping me off.”
When I’m out of the car, Chad pulls away quickly.
“So, wow. That wasn’t weird at all,” Lucas says after Chad’s gone. He’s still smiling.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I’ve got study hall. The proctor let me come out here to get a book I forgot. Remember? I’m a stupid football player so I have a cushy schedule where tutors hold my hand and nothing much is asked of me. Some days I hardly go to class at all.” I assume he’s talking about the conversation we had in my car. I feel terrible all over again about what I said. We start walking in together. “Kind of like you, Em, by the looks of it.”
“I’m sorry for what I said before. I should never have said that.”
He stares at me. It’s hard to tell if he’s kidding anymore.
“I was just trying to say that college isn’t the right thing for everyone. I hate when all these teachers assume your life is over if you don’t go to college. They don’t even acknowledge that a lot of successful people don’t go to college. That’s all I meant.”
“I guess I hate it when everyone assumes that football players are too stupid to understand that college could be about something more than playing football.”
“I didn’t mean that, but I know it might have sounded that way.”
As we walk inside, he holds open the door for me. “So what were you doing out there with Mr. College anyway? Cutting class is kind of an unusual choice for you, right?”
I don’t feel quite so embarrassed anymore. It’s funny—in some ways, Lucas is starting to feel like an old friend. The way old friends can get prickly sometimes. And also know you a little too well. “I actually cut two classes just now,” I whisper. “I’ve never done that before.”
“Then you probably haven’t heard,” he whispers back, in my ear. “If you write a fake note, you won’t get in trouble.” The bell rings, meaning we’ve got three minutes to get to class.
“See, I never would have thought of that! Thank you so much, Lucas!”
He smiles in a way that I hardly ever see. “Here to help.”
We’re staring at each other now and I’m not even sure why. I really need to get to class. I made Chad drive me back because I didn’t want to miss calculus, but here I am not moving. “So will you need a ride to class next week?” I say. One of us needs to say something to end this staring/smiling contest.
“Yeah, actually. The doctor says I still can’t drive.”
“Okay. I’ll call you,” I say, taking a few steps backward. And then it turns out we’re heading up the same hallway. We both laugh a little because now we’ve got a few more minutes to talk.
“So, what—are you dating Mr. College now?”
“No,” I say, though I like the idea of Lucas thinking I might be. “We’re just friends.”
“Okay, so has he told you why he’s still wearing flip-flops even though it’s fall and pretty cold out?”
This surprises me. These are the jokes I would expect Richard to make. “Not yet. We haven’t gotten to the part where we talk about our shoe choices yet.”
“Better hurry up,” he says. “Winter’s coming.”
I don’t understand why I’m still blushing two minutes later, after I’ve walked into calculus and am sitting in front of Richard, who slides a note under my elbow within seconds. What’s up? it says. Where were you at lunch?
Sorry, I write back. I went out with Chad.
I’ll tell him the truth sooner or later—that getting to know the flesh-and-blood Chad has definitely ended my crush on the idealized version—but for now I don’t say anything. It’s enough for him to know he isn’t the only person who has lunch dates now.
Then he surprises me. The paper reappears under my elbow. Okay, it says. So what were you doing with Lucas Kessler just now?
What was I doing with Lucas Kessler just now? That little exchange—him getting mad and sticking up for himself, then walking me to class and teasing me about Chad—has stuck in my brain. I can’t stop replaying it in my head. I remember once, when I was a freshman, overhearing Charlotte, the prettiest of the senior cheerleaders, complain that anytime she started a dating a boy, others suddenly cropped up and asked her out. “It’s like they only notice me after they think I’m taken.” It was an absurd thing for a gorgeous girl to complain about, but maybe she had a point. As embarrassing as it was to have Lucas knock on the car window, I wonder if it means he’s looking at me in a new way. So what if I don’t actually like Chad—it looked like we were sort of on a date. Maybe this explains why Lucas and I stood in the hall staring at each other for so long.
Of course my friends won’t see it this way. They see Lucas as someone who not only failed to help Belinda but stopped me from helping her and still felt fine giving me half the blame. I know I have to tell Richard the truth at some point—I have to tell all my friends—but now isn’t the time, especially when we walk out of class and I see something up the hall that makes my stomach jump.
It’s Belinda Montgomery, standing by herself outside of the nurse’s office.
She looks so different it’s possible it’s not even her. She’s thinner, and her hair is longer, but I can tell it’s her by the way she holds her chin up. I remember this quirk: she always holds her chin up because if she looks down, her glasses fall off. I put my hand on Richard’s arm. “Do you see who’s up ahead?”
He squints in the direction I point. “No.”
“Look again.”
Richard has terrible eyesight, but he refuses to wear his glasses outside of the classroom. “I’m having a hard time figuring out what you’re pointing at.”
“It’s Belinda Montgomery,” I say. “Only she looks different. She’s thinner. And she’s wearing a funny dress. It’s old-fashioned, like a costume or something.” Her dress makes her look like someone’s mother. “What should I do?”
We get a little closer and I can see that she looks terrible. She’s lost so much weight that her face looks completely different. Even her glasses are too big now. I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment for more than a month, planning what I’ll say: I’m sorry, Belinda. I don’t know if anyone can make it up to you but I want to try. I’d like to be your friend.
“What are you doing?” Richard says when I start toward her.
“I’m going to talk to her.”
“I’m not so sure about that—”
I cut him off. “I have to talk to her.”
I leave him behind and walk straight up to her, surprisingly unafraid, as if these weeks of being in Boundaries and Relationships, of improvising as a bolder person, has made me one. “Hi, Belinda,” I say. “I’m so glad you’re back. We all are.”
She turns and studies me, as if it takes her eyes a while to adjust and register who I am. I wonder if I should remind her of my name and the plays we did in Children’s Story Theater. Then I think of how she memorized everyone’s lines in every play we ever did and I suspect she needs no reminders.
She stares at me for a long time without saying anything. In that terrible moment, I flash on a different memory from my first week of high school back in ninth grade. A memory so awful I’ve managed to forget it until now. But Belinda hasn’t, I know. Her development may be delayed, but her memory is fine.
/> Here’s the awful truth: she remembers exactly who I am because she shakes her head slowly, turns around, and walks away.
BELINDA
I REMEMBER THIS GIRL. SHE played Princess Number Four in Princess for a Day and Hunter’s Henchman Number Two in Little Red Riding Hood. She also played a fox in Bremen Town Musicians, but that’s not the main thing I remember about her. The main thing I remember happened three years ago was when I was a different person. I used to be a person who liked hugging and could sometimes be too friendly when I saw people from Children’s Story Theater. Usually I was so happy to see them I hugged them and jumped up and down. Then I saw Emily and hugged her and she got mad. She said, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT! YOU CAN’T JUST HUG PEOPLE LIKE THAT!” That’s the first time I learned there are rules around hugging and people should not go around expecting hugs all the time.
Now I don’t do that anymore.
In fact, I don’t like hugs at all, and if someone in my old classroom like Anthony or Douglas asks for a hug, I say, “No, thank you, you can’t do that, you can’t just hug people like that.” I remember what she said because it sounded like a rule, so I made it one.
I also remember her from the football game which makes my heart speed up. I feel like there’s something in my throat because I can’t say anything. I don’t want to cry in front of her or fall down. I feel like those things could happen. Like I won’t be able to breathe unless she walks away which she doesn’t.
So I do something smart. I walk away myself.
Once she’s not in front of me anymore, I feel better.
Maybe this is a good reason I’m not going back to my old classroom and for now I’ll spend my school days sitting in the nurse’s office. This way, if I see people who make me have no-breathing panic attacks, I won’t have to go to the nurse’s office, I’ll already be there.
EMILY
IT WAS MY FIRST day of high school and my first realization that friend groups are important and I had none. No one to compare my class schedule with. No one to meet at lunch. No one to help me open my locker, which I’d tried twice with no success. It was almost disorienting, like walking outside your own body, to feel so alone while standing in a crowded hallway. Now I remember it all too well. That whole morning, the only person who’d said hello to me was Belinda Montgomery.
I was terrified. I thought, Everyone is watching us. They’ll remember this forever.
I was wrong, of course. A month after it took place, even I didn’t remember that terrible exchange, when I snapped at her and told her to never do that again.
By the time this horrible exchange is over, Richard has disappeared. Strangely, the first person I see when I walk outside is Lucas again, standing alone beside the parking lot, as if he’s waiting for someone to pick him up. Because no one’s with him, it feels okay to talk to him. “Belinda’s back. Have you seen her?” My voice sounds shaky.
He closes his eyes. It’s the first time either one of us has said her name out loud. I don’t know if this will feel like a big deal to him. In light of his other problems, maybe it won’t. Then he surprises me: “Does she look okay?”
“No, she looks terrible,” I say. “Like she’s lost a lot of weight.”
“Did you talk to her?”
“I tried to but she walked away.”
He blows out, like he needs a minute to process all this. “Ms. Sadiq said we can arrange to have a counseling session with Belinda if we want to.”
“She did? When?”
“I went to talk to her about it. I figured Belinda was going to come back sooner or later, and I wanted to know what to do.”
I’m genuinely surprised. This whole time I’ve assumed Lucas is putting in his time in our Boundaries and Relationships class because the disciplinary committee decreed it. “What else did she say?”
“We should give Belinda the opportunity to accept our apology, but if she doesn’t want to talk, we shouldn’t push the issue. She wasn’t sure, though. She wanted to talk to her mother and grandmother first.”
Now I’m really stunned. He’s given this possibility way more consideration than I have. He pulls out his phone and checks his messages. “Yep,” he says. “Here’s a message from her. She says we can stop by her office anytime after sixth period if we want to.”
Because neither one of us has anywhere else to be, we walk back into the building and the main office. There’s none of that joking around that we were doing two hours ago. In her office, Ms. Sadiq thanks us for coming in and thanks Lucas especially for asking for her help. “I’m very impressed that you came in of your own volition and asked me how to approach this issue. It’s a much better idea than going up to Belinda on your own and starting a conversation.”
I don’t look at Lucas or at her. I wonder if she knows that I did go up to Belinda and try to start a conversation.
“So I’ve talked to her mother and her grandmother. They feel Belinda is still suffering from post-traumatic stress. She’s been extremely withdrawn and very fearful and has, until now, refused to go to school. She also hasn’t been able to be left alone. Her grandmother brought her to the grocery store once, where she had a panic attack when she saw a boy from school. She’s on some medication now that’s helping with anxiety, but for the time being, they want to take this as slowly as possible. She’s not returning to her old classroom. She’ll spend the bulk of her day in the nurse’s office, where someone can keep an eye on her.”
Wait a minute. In the nurse’s office?
I think about Belinda when I knew her from Children’s Story Theater. She is three years older than me, which was a lot back then. I was in second grade when I started and didn’t even realize she had special needs. Why would I? She played Red Riding Hood and I was one of twelve hunters who ran onstage at the end to cut open the wolf’s stomach. She took charge of the prop table and before our big entrance, she stood backstage in her red cape, passing out knives. The next year she played a wizard who cast spells by clapping her hands, loudly, next to someone’s face. This was her own invented bit of comedy. She had only two scenes, but everyone agreed, she stole the show.
My last year with the group, our big play was Charlotte’s Web, and when Belinda got cast as Fern, we wondered if she could handle the pressure. By then we’d figured out that she was different from the rest of us. She might have been able to memorize lines but she had a hard time reading them. She also talked too loudly on our rehearsal breaks, often to herself. When the other girls complained, the director was firm—Belinda was the hardest worker and the most qualified for the role. She’d earned it and it was hers. Then, in the first scene on opening night, we all got confused. The curtain went up and before she said any lines, she started crying. We assumed she was having some terrible meltdown. I imagined an adult going onstage to help her off. And then, in a moment I still remember perfectly, she wiped both sides of her face with the back of her hand and began reciting her lines. That’s when we realized: she’d been acting the whole time and was more than good. She was the Meryl Streep of our group.
It’s sad to remember all of this now and think about her rushing up and hugging me to welcome me to high school. The Belinda I remember was a social, happy person. She shouldn’t be sitting in a nurse’s office all day long. “What if someone helps her a little? Maybe if we go with her to class or something like that?”
“Her grandmother thinks it’s best if she isn’t pushed too hard.”
“But—” I want to suggest something else, and then I remember the way she looked at me just now and walked away. How can I suggest anything when I’m so clearly part of the problem?
“Belinda’s mother and grandmother want to ease her back into this as gently as possible. She’ll just come to school for a few hours a day at first. They feel it’s best not to push her into any social situations. For instance, they don’t want me to set up a meeting where you two might apologize to Belinda. They appreciate the offer, but for now they feel Belinda is not read
y for any discussion about the incident at the football game.”
I can’t get over this. “They don’t want us to say anything at all? Even if we see her in the hallway?”
“Yes. That’s what they say.”
“We should ignore her? And not even say we’re sorry?”
“Not yet. They appreciate the offer but . . . not yet.”
I wonder if I should be honest and say, it’s too late, I already have talked to her.
“Unfortunately, I have another meeting now, but we should keep in touch over the next couple weeks. We’ll check in with each other and I’ll let you know how she’s doing.”
Outside her office, I walk with Lucas back out toward the parking lot.
I flash on another memory of Belinda, one Lucas might share. “Do you remember middle school chorus concerts?” I say. Chorus was a hugely popular class back then. Though we weren’t all in class at the same time, about a hundred and fifty kids performed in the concerts. Lucas was probably there—all the popular kids took chorus so they could go on the field trip to Boston at the end of the year.
Lucas looks at me uncertainly. “Yeah?”
“Do you remember Belinda after those concerts?” It’s a memory I can’t get out of my head—how ecstatic she was; the way she hugged people and said, “I was great!” It made us all laugh and, for a few minutes at least, think about how much we liked her. Then we’d get caught up in who was going out for ice cream with whom. I wonder if it occurred to any of us—even once—to invite Belinda along. I’m guessing no.
“Yeah, I remember,” Lucas says. He’s not looking at me, he’s squinting at something in the distance, but I can tell by his face: he does remember.
CHAPTER EIGHT