“Have a good day, Caitlin,” my uncle called as I slid on my jacket. I waved halfheartedly at him without looking back.
It wasn’t Joe and Rachel’s fault my mom was dead, I had to give them that. I was mad at them for other reasons, but not for that. I just didn’t understand why they hadn’t shown up once the entire time she was sick. They’d sent a few e-mails to ask for updates and to try and cheer me up with these stupid, animated eCards, but they never called, they never asked to speak to my mom, they didn’t even show up for the funeral. I had to live with them because the lawyers said I did, but once I was eighteen, I was out of there.
Amid the scramble for seat belts in the truck, I managed to slip my earbuds in and spent the twenty-minute drive listening to angry pop music that simultaneously made me want to dance and punch someone in the face—both of which felt better than being depressed. Ever since the storm, my protective shell of anger had mostly given way to a listless sadness, and it pissed me off. Sadness wasn’t useful. I guess anger wasn’t really useful either, but it at least made me feel less pathetic.
Through the fogged-up window the rain-slick trees waved in the wind, beautiful and ghostly. Too soon, we arrived at the center of town and pulled into the parking lot of Warren County School. It was a squat brick building with ivy growing up the side of one wall, an arched roof, a covered picnic area with an adjacent covered playground, and an American and New York flag. I opened the door to the truck, Norah scrambling behind me to get out.
“Caitlin,” Rachel called from the driver’s side. I turned back to look at her. “Have a great day, okay, honey?”
I stared at her until her smile faltered and she looked away.
“Come on,” Norah said, tugging on my arm. I shut the door and my aunt drove back into the rain and fog. Maybe I was a brat after all. Maybe I didn’t give a shit. Maybe I really, really missed my mom and didn’t want to be here.
Norah and I dashed under the cover of the sheltered walkway surrounding the building. “Mom told me to look after you,” she announced after an awkward moment of silence. Her face was flat, probably trying to hide a scowl.
I decided to let her off the hook. “Just tell me where to check in; I can figure the rest out.”
“First door on the right,” she said, pointing I nodded and left her on the sidewalk.
Through the old, warped door, painted over many times and slightly too large for the frame, a cramped waiting room guarded a damp-smelling hallway. To the right, a tiny, feather-haired old lady sat behind her desk, hand shaking as she stamped a stack of papers. She hadn’t noticed me so I dinged the old orange bell on the counter.
“I’m a new student,” I said, as she finally looked up. “Should I sign in, or anything?”
She reached a trembling hand out to push a clipboard two inches in my direction and murmured, “Sign here.”
I scrawled Caitlin Holte on the sign-in sheet and then waited.
Mrs. Goode, as her plastic, clip-on name tag stated, seemed to have fallen asleep.
“Mrs. Goode? Ma’am?”
She jolted awake, blinked a few times as if remembering where she was, then handed me a schedule and a hand-drawn map of the campus.
“Mr. Warren is in room three; he’ll be your first period teacher.” She smiled up at me from behind her enormous glasses. “Welcome to Warren County.”
I glanced at the schedule. My homeroom teacher’s name was Warren, and the school was named Warren—that couldn’t be a coincidence. Maybe his grandfather was a town founder. Maybe people never left, like a horror-movie amusement park. I felt myself cringing—a year and a half in this place. A year and a half in the middle of podunk godforsaken nowhere completely against my will—and my mom’s. I mean that literally. Mom’s will stated that I should go live with my grandma, two blocks down from where I’d grown up. Then the state, in all their wisdom, declared Grandma wasn’t a fit guardian. As if losing my mom wasn’t bad enough, finding out two days after her funeral that I’d have to move in with an aunt, uncle, and cousin I’d never met before was so far beyond devastating that I pretty much existed in a state of perpetual rage. I wasn’t upset, I wasn’t sad—I was pissed.