He breathes heavily through his nose.
“Okay, but I’m not going into detail. It’s too hard. For me.”
“Okay,” I say gently, and sort of wish I hadn’t asked.
“Because you stood up to my dad once last year.”
“I did?”
“Yeah, when he found out I was staying back.”
“You stayed back!?”
“Gee, thanks for your sensitivity.”
I squeeze his arm and walk again. It feels better to have uncomfortable conversations when I’m moving.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Ever wonder why I was the one people went to for drugs?” He reads the confusion on my face because he adds quickly, “No. No, you don’t. Look, Berne, I was in rehab from July through August this summer. Did a bunch of drugs. Sold ’em too, when I was feeling generous. It wasn’t pretty.”
“Oh, Panda, I’m so sorry.”
We walk in silence for a moment. I hike my book bag over my shoulder.
I look around for Richard or for May’s white Mini Cooper. Most everyone has gone inside for homeroom and Panda and I are two of the few people left in the parking lot. I see the Mini a few rows down and it occurs to me that maybe Panda and I are alone because Richard didn’t want to ride with us. It’s almost like Panda reads my mind as he hesitates before the double doors.
“They’ll come around eventually. You’re a good egg, Berne,” he says as the bell rings, signaling the end of homeroom.
“I don’t . . .” I say, and he drops his hand from the door handle. “I don’t know why I acted the way I did. But I don’t want to become her ever again. Just remind me. Keep me in check, okay?”
“You know I will,” he says, and it’s enough to break my heart. “Now can we go to school? I’m already on Headmaster Lewis’s shit list.”
ELEVEN
AT THIRD PERIOD, I’M IN THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE the library entrance, waiting for May. I don’t want to be sitting in there alone so I’m practicing my balance and leaning against the wall. I kept expecting to see May in some of my classes, but I guess she’s in AP. Even with Panda’s promise, I know you can’t make anyone do something they don’t want to do. Mom used to say that to me constantly when I was a kid: “You can’t make people love you, Penny.” Funny, because I always felt like if I tried hard enough, I could get anyone to like me. Once I met May I didn’t have to worry about working so hard to make people like me anymore.
I check my watch just as Kylie turns a corner, flipping through a binder from our school radio station. I clutch my books, not sure what to say. Her eyes stab up at me just as Karen walks in from an adjacent classroom. I pull my long sleeves down to make sure my wrists and arms are still covered. Karen stops short just in front of me, unintentionally cutting Kylie off. Kylie’s jaw drops and she hurries past. “Wait!” I say, but she’s already gone. But I want to talk to Karen too.
Karen takes a deep breath through her nose, so much so that I can see her chest rise and fall. “How are you?” she asks.
“Still here,” I say, laughing awkwardly.
“Good. That’s really good.” But her tone, while cordial, is empty. I push off from the wall.
“You look great. No more braces,” I add.
She softens at this. “Yeah, I got them off last summer. I’m sorry to hear about your memory.”
I nod—she nods. We walk into the library, so having something to do with my body helps with the awkwardness. There’s more awkward silence, until she says, “I guess I’ll see you.”
I lower myself into a seat as she leaves. That was nice and uncomfortable. I make a point to make a note about that interaction in my journal. I get my books and papers together, checking the time—May is ten minutes late.
Just as I think she won’t come at all, May sweeps into the library with her long black hair flying behind her. “Sorry I’m late,” she says, and she’s out of breath.
The double doors open again and Kylie and Lila walk through them. I press down harder on the tip of my pen as they walk toward our table.
“Hey,” I say to Kylie as she passes by, careful not to miss this opportunity. She glances at May and throws me a half-assed smile. She heads into the stacks without a word. Eve, who basically mauled me yesterday, doesn’t even acknowledge me.
May unpacks her bag and when she tucks her hair behind her ear I say, “You got the top of your ear pierced. You always wanted to. It looks cool,” I say.
“I got it last January,” May says coolly, and slides a manila folder across the table to me.
“What’s this?”
“No idea. I was told not to open it. Ms. Reley says you’re supposed to check in with her at the end of the day.”
I open the manila envelope and an official red sheet falls onto the table. May tries to hide it, but as she gets out her books and notebooks, she glances at the sheet too.
SAT SCORE: 1510.
“What!” I screech, and a few heads look up from around the library. A 1510 is incredible. Who knew I could standardize test so well?
May cocks her head. “What happened?”
“Oh. It’s just my SAT scores.”
“Not good?”
I shrug. I don’t want to be too cocky. “It’s no big deal.”
“Of course. SAT scores. No big deal,” May says sarcastically. “Anyway . . .” She immediately launches into the expectations that we have in each class by going over the syllabi for English, history, math, and science. Though when I look at my eleventh grade schedule, I note that I took AP Spanish too. I guess all the free time I would have spent in rehearsals was spent studying instead. There’s no way for me to know for sure but it makes sense, though—AP classes and a 1510 on my SATs? They don’t think I can handle the AP level now.
It takes time, Dr. Abrams says in my head.
May is all business for the next thirty minutes. When she’s done reviewing math concepts, I understand how to do some of the problems but will definitely need a special tutor for math. I note that May is filling out a sheet of some kind with the EG Private logo at the top. She says that we will have to meet at the end of the week to see if I can keep up with the pace in history, but I do pretty solid on her mini quiz from this week’s class content.
She goes on and on. My journal pokes out of the top of my bag, reminding me what I need to do.
“May.”
She stops midsentence.
“I’m sorry.”
She closes the folder with all our work and the extra-help handouts from my teachers.
“I know,” she says gently.
“All I say to people is I’m sorry.”
She nods but something in her expression is sour.
“It’s not like I think people should forget. It’s just . . .”
She isn’t looking at me.
“They told me you asked for me directly,” she says.
“So I could talk to you.”
“Oh.” When she looks up, her eyes, which I remember as always having a hint of a laugh behind them, are hard. “I can’t say no to the school counselor. You know that.”
I consider what she says. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I wouldn’t want to say no to Ms. Winters either.”
“You guess that makes sense? You put me in a crappy position.”
I really don’t want that to be true. I imagine myself in her shoes and I wouldn’t want to be pressured into this situation either. I groan.
“You’re right,” I say.
She gathers her things, and when she stands up, she leaves a hand on her chair. I don’t want her to leave, so I press up on my left hand, hoping that I have the strength to get up without my arm shaking.
“I have no way of knowing what to be sorry about. But I am. Believe me. The last thing I remember was you and me at Much Ado About Nothing rehearsal.”
“I know that you’re sorry. That Penny, the one you remember? I do think she would be sorry.” She looks me up and down. “But yo
u’re freaking out right now and I don’t know if you’re sorry because you’re desperate or sorry because you miss me.”
“You know I miss you.”
“No,” she says, and she isn’t even whispering anymore. “I don’t. Because you said you were sorry before and it didn’t sound like it when you kept huge secrets from your friends or made me learn Beatrice’s lines in two days. Or the day you sat down at Kylie’s table at lunch and when I came up to you, you didn’t make room for me. Or my personal favorite? When you basically kicked me out of a party at Tank’s house.”
“Stop. It’s horrible,” I say.
“Yeah. It is. Especially when we watched your mom’s story on the news,” May says just as the librarian comes out from behind the reference desk. “You refused to let any of us in. You shut down completely.”
“My mom’s story? What are you talking about?”
“Forget it,” she says.
“The news ran stories on my mom?” But May just turns and leaves the library. I almost call out to her, but I don’t—I let her walk away.
If the local news ran stories on Mom then it doesn’t sound like she “took a leave.”
I feel like a stranger in my own life.
I have to believe that getting my life back is possible. Panda’s words about what I did for him are the only shining light. I’m not the girl in the stories that May just told me. I’m better than that.
I have to be.
I try the outside cafeteria at lunch. There are five or six tables out here that are adjacent to the football fields. I’ve been out here a zillion times. I used to sit closest to the soda and vending machine near the far wall so Panda could get mini chip bags. I sit down at a free table at the edge of the fields. I check for Panda but he told me he has a weekly lunch meeting with Ms. Winters. The double doors open behind me, and Kylie, Lila, Eve, and some of the other girls step out, but they hesitate when they see me. Lila locks eyes on me first and turns to Kylie, tucking her chin close to Kylie’s ear. I guess that’s not a good sign. Eve and Caroline Hester follow behind Kylie, but the sight of their ponytails tightens my stomach. Kylie, the only one without a ponytail, flips her hair over her shoulder, glances at me, and much to my surprise, walks directly over to the table.
Lila sits down beside me, and Eve next to her. Kylie makes a point to sit down across the table from Lila, leaving the space in front of me empty.
“Sorry about today in the hallway. I needed to talk to Karen,” I say.
“Got it,” she says with a disinterested shrug. I can’t read her; she’s always been so far away to me—unattainable. The girl who I would have nothing in common with so I just stayed far away. She unpacks a small salad and just when she opens up her dressing, Kylie jumps in her seat, reanimating, with her eyes locked on Lila and Eve.
“Oh my god. I just remembered. I have to see this show on Friday at the Joint.”
“You say that like it’s unusual,” Eve says with a laugh.
“Anyway,” Kylie stresses the word, “it’s this blues band, but they’ve got a funk sound. I think the lead guitarist is classically trained so their stuff is really complicated.”
Kylie mentions the kind of instruments they use and the specific equipment. She knows so much more about music than I realized.
“What time?” Lila asks.
“Nine, I think,” Kylie replies.
Kylie gestures with her hands, excitedly slapping her palms on the table. “Penny, we absolutely have to—”
Not even the outside cafeteria chatter can make up for the silence between us when Kylie stops herself midsentence.
She drops her chin to her chest and throws her hair over her shoulder again. “Habit,” she says, and her cheeks are red.
“We used to go see live music shows a lot,” Lila explains to me.
“I know.”
Kylie’s eyes snap up to me and hope prickles in her expression.
“I have lots of pictures. In my room and online.”
I focus down at the lunch I brought from home: celery with peanut butter inside like I might be some kind of first grader. It’s just easy to pick up and chew without setting off a spasm.
“Penny Berne! Love of my life!” Alex James says, busting out of the double doors of the school. He sits down next to Kylie so he’s directly across from me. “Remember that day we shared on the tennis courts?”
“You don’t want to, Penny, seriously,” Lila says with a laugh and Eve laughs too; she even makes eye contact.
“You dick, you know she doesn’t,” Kylie snaps at Alex, and for a second I’m grateful that I could like sitting here at this table with them.
But then I have a strange thought. They didn’t sit with me because we’re friends. It hits me that I’ve sat down at Kylie’s table without knowing it. Did I know, on some level, that this used to be our table? But Kylie thought I was purposefully sitting here with her. I don’t know which role to play or which costume to wear when the script of my life has been revised without my consent.
There’s another bang of the doors when Tank Anderson and a slew of football players head outside and toward the table.
“Hey! Penny Berne! You’re back!” Tank says. He sits down. “You coming to my party this Friday?”
A party at Tank’s? I’d feel so out of place. Even though I guess they’re all my friends, it doesn’t feel that way to me.
“I think I’m busy,” I say. “Next time, though.”
“Don’t let me down, Berne!” he says, and claps a hand on my shoulder, and before I know what’s happened I’m doubled over in pain. With a sharp tug, my hand freezes—the fingers draw together immediately and I howl. I try to get up but fall to my knees, cradling my elbow to my body.
The pain is a needle stuck in the center of my palm.
Reley is on her knees by my side, seemingly out of nowhere. I register that other people are nearby. Tank keeps apologizing. I press down on my fingers but my left hand isn’t strong enough to pry them apart. Tank comes down to his knees on the other side of me. I can’t look at him, not with the pain shooting through my hand. The pinching spasm isn’t lessening up yet.
“Tank!” Kylie cries. “What the hell did you do?”
“I didn’t know,” Tank says, and my stomach tugs at the apology in his tone.
“What can I do?” Reley asks me.
“Nothing,” I groan, and push at my fingers to relieve the raging stabs of pain in the center of my hand. I hunch over to keep my back to the caf. I exhale a few times as my heartbeat pulses in the center of my palm. My back is tight from clenching so hard.
The muscles ease just enough that I can speak without gritting my teeth. “I get these spasms when I move too quickly,” I groan. Eventually, within a few moments . . . my palm releases and my fingers do too. My hairline is wet and when I lift my right arm to wipe my forehead, my bicep shakes and my fingers finally loosen fully. Ms. Reley deflates with a big sigh. I sit back on my butt with my hand resting, limp, in my lap.
“What just happened?” Eve whispers.
I push up with my left hand to stand. As I do, May walks outside holding a bagged lunch.
“Someone should walk you to the nurse,” Reley says.
May and I lock eyes.
Reley must notice me looking at May because she twists to follow my gaze. “May Harper!” Reley calls to her. “May will take you.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. “Thanks.” After her outburst in the library, I’m not quite as enthusiastic about being alone with my former best friend.
I struggle to stay upright. I make sure to put as much weight as possible on my good leg. Once I get to May, she holds open the door. My eyes burn with tears but I bite them back by clenching my jaw. I can’t look back at Kylie when I have so clearly chosen May to help me, who I know would rather not.
“I’m okay,” I say once I get inside.
“What happened?”
“A spasm,” I say, and I can’t walk fast enough,
especially with the weakness in my right foot. I use my heel to limp a bit more quickly.
“What was that on her skin?” I hear Eve say as the doors close.
Rattled and vibrating, my abs shake as I keep on down the hall.
May slows at my side, falling a few steps behind. I can’t look her in the face either.
“Penny . . .” she says finally, falling behind. “Should I walk you?”
I’m so tired of pity.
“I’m fine,” I say, knowing I’m not going to the nurse’s office. Nope. I’m going the only place where my life still makes a shred of sense.
TWELVE
THE DOOR TO THE AUDITORIUM CLOSES SLOWLY behind me. I must have looked so stupid hobbling out of the outside cafeteria. What kind of person attempts to run when they have a limp that actually prevents them from moving with any kind of speed? I collapse down in a chair at the end of the last row. I throw my books to the floor so they slam and the sound echoes in the vacant and dark auditorium. There is a ghost light in the center of the stage. Taft does this whenever there is a show about to go up. It’s a single light bulb on a stand to prevent anyone from falling in the dark. I pull my planner from last year out of my backpack. I flip it open even though my hand still throbs.
Wow.
Every event and date from May through August is color-coded. Blue for school commitments, green for extracurricular, and red for Kylie. I gave Kylie her own color? I flip back to the month of May. In nearly every box, I scheduled my day, and it’s all the same: gym, track, and Kylie’s house. If it’s the summer it’s gym, beach, and Kylie’s house. The words “beach,” “pool,” and “party” are written everywhere in my unmistakable red print. When the hell did I become this anal? Nowhere, not even when I flip back to January, does it mention anything about Wes, May, or any play.
What. The. Hell. Happened?
I flip through the green and red sections, which seem to be the most common colors of the whole planner. I look through the pockets of the planner, check the notes, but the only thing I seemed to care about from May until now was going out with Kylie, parties, and occasional mentions of homecoming.