Mom wasn’t out of her room by breakfast. No big deal, I thought, opening the curtains, letting in the sunlight cutting through the mountains. It didn’t necessarily mean anything. She could’ve been catching up on sleep after the nightmare. She could be on the phone with Jan in there.
I slowly packed my backpack from last year, which I’d pulled out of the coat closet.
I checked the clock. I peeled a banana. I slammed cabinet doors.
My shoulders finally relaxed as I heard the creak of her bedroom door, and I kept my back to her as her footsteps approached, so she wouldn’t see the relief on my face. “Hey,” I said, holding up a banana. “Last one, want to split?”
“No, no, all yours,” she said, starting the coffee. I glanced over my shoulder, saw her robe and unwashed hair, the tremor in her hand as she reached for a mug. She must’ve seen me looking, because she said, “I think I’m just coming down with something.”
I nodded, letting the lie slide. At least she was up, and the coffee was running, and she’d moved on to scrubbing the casserole dish, which was still soaking in the sink from last night. She was okay. Not a step back. No reason to call Jan.
“So,” I said. “I’ll call you after school, once I know when Cole and Emma plan on driving me home.” I didn’t know whether they had after-school activities, or whether Jan had discussed this already with them. I’d figure it out later.
“What?” she said, pulling her focus from the dishwasher. “Oh, yes. Okay.”
“Okay. Well.” I hugged her goodbye, felt the ridges of her spine pressing through her robe. She stared out the back window as I pulled away, her focus a thousand miles away.
I slid my phone into my bag. “It was a guy named Ryan,” I said, and Mom turned to look at me. “Yesterday. On the phone.”
“Ryan, huh?” she asked, smiling.
“Bye, Mom,” I said, smiling in return.
—
I heard their car pull up the driveway, then stop, the engine still on. I could see them through the front window, through the gate. It looked like they were arguing. Possibly about who would ring the bell on the gate. And it looked like Emma was losing, as she was suddenly throwing open the passenger door.
“Gotta go!” I yelled, entering the code to momentarily disarm the alarm system. It beeped once, and I hit the button for the gate on the way out the door, locking it behind me (as was the protocol). The gate would close automatically after I left, thirty seconds later, if someone didn’t either enter the code or a thumbprint at the fence to keep it open, or press the button inside the house, forcing it closed even sooner.
I jogged through the metal opening, tipping my head to Emma in greeting.
“I see nothing’s changed,” Emma said, frowning at the iron bars mechanically shutting behind me.
But all I could think, from the unfamiliar black car with the music pounding to her unflinching gaze, was Everything’s changed. Emma kept changing, kept getting older and different and further from the girl I used to know—the one who used to play tag in the backyard and make jewelry out of gum wrappers.
“We’re going to be late,” Cole said, still staring straight ahead.
“We’re not going to be late,” I said. This was the time I left every day, and we lived maybe fifteen minutes away.
But Sterling Cross had a way of seeming farther away than it actually was. Despite the name, the neighborhood was not in the shape of a cross, nor did it cross through the mountains. It jutted into them, as far as the terrain would allow—man pushing against nature, carving out a space, and mostly losing. These were not houses with views of trees and mountains. This was mountains and trees with specks of houses lost inside. It must’ve felt like another world to them.
Emma turned down the music. “So, Kelsey,” she began, like she was trying on my name. Remembering what it sounded like. “What did your mom think of the story?” she asked as we pulled out of the neighborhood.
“What story?” I asked.
I caught Emma’s eyes in the rearview mirror the second before she tossed the paper through the gap in the seats. It was the Sunday paper.
Local Student to Be Honored for Bravery
The article had both of our pictures, side by side, both of us with fake school-picture smiles. And the article detailed the circumstances of the accident. Ryan Baker, eighteen-year-old volunteer firefighter, pulled classmate Kelsey Thomas from a car suspended in a tree branch, at the drop-off known as Benjamin’s Cliff. The mayor’s ceremony was Monday night (public, please come out to show your support!), and Ryan was going to be awarded the Mayor’s Medal of Bravery. Ryan was quoted in the paper: “Just doing what we were trained to do.” And then there was my incredibly embarrassing non-quote beside his. “I’m just happy to be alive,” says Kelsey Thomas.
Oh. God.
The article concluded with the few public facts of our existence: Son of a retired firefighter, Ryan lives with his parents, Jeremy and Cathy Baker, in the Pine View subdivision, along with his younger brother. Kelsey lives with her mother, Amanda Silviano, in Sterling Cross.
I groaned, covering my face with the open paper, wishing I could teleport myself away inside of it. The reporter must’ve pulled Mom’s former name from my original birth certificate—it was the last place it ever existed. She’d changed it, years earlier, to escape reporters.
“I didn’t realize the accident was that bad,” Emma said. “Honestly. That picture. Wow.” Her voice was softer, like I’d remembered from years ago, and when I pulled the paper from my face, I imagined, for a moment, the little-girl version of her—all bouncy excitement and infectious giggle.
I scanned the article again, wondering what she was talking about. And there, at the bottom of the article, was an aerial view of my car, crushed and mangled at the bottom of the cliff.
The car is gone.
I carefully folded the paper and placed it face-down on the seat beside me, and I folded my hands in my lap, gripping them together, listening to the whistle of air hissing through a broken window seal.
—
First period. Math class. I slammed my locker door and took a deep breath, trying to shake some subtle, unplaceable fear. Almost that the walls were closing in, but not that. I flattened my palms against the metal locker door, trying to focus through the haze of voices and laughter. Back when I first started high school, this hallway was a mental hurdle to clear every morning—all the noise, all the people, bodies pressing as they passed, the sounds all blurring together. I couldn’t hear myself think. Mom told me to just keep moving—one foot in front of the other—and before I knew it, I’d be back home again. And eventually, I’d gotten used to it.
But this. This was something different. Something impending and unavoidable—butterflies in the stomach, bordering on nausea. I ducked into the girls’ bathroom and ran a wet paper towel over the back of my neck. And then I stared at the red line running across my fingers—still visible.
I jumped at the sound of the two-minute-warning bell, my stomach flipping once more, and then I realized: math class. I was scared of going to math class. Of seeing Ryan Baker in person after our phone conversation.
Was that normal? That couldn’t be normal.
It had been so much easier talking to him on the phone. In person, we were awkward and stumbled over each other and never seemed to communicate what we were thinking. On the phone, he couldn’t see me blush or smile so wide it was embarrassing. I could tell him things, and he could tell me things, buried under the caption of a picture.
Now I was going to see him—no screen to hide behind. And on top of that, there was that article. My ridiculous quote. Ugh. That was the only thing I could say to thank him?