“That,” I said sarcastically, “is awesome advice.”
“Tone,” she cautioned, pouring us each a glass of unsweetened juice. “How’s school?”
“I won homecoming king.” I said it in the way Toby’s friends used to when they made serious announcements—a hint of a smirk, like maybe it wasn’t true, but wouldn’t it be hilarious if it were?
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Really.”
“Well, that’s wonderful,” Mom said, all false cheer. “I bet that girl’s kicking herself for throwing you over now.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her otherwise.
26
CASSIDY STILL WASN’T back in school on Tuesday. Mrs. Martin, who clearly thought she was being very astute, singled me out during roll to ask if I knew where Senorita Thorpe had gone. The class laughed in this uncomfortable, knowing way while I muttered, “No se, Se?ora,” and wished I could disappear.
I had PT that afternoon, so I conjured some flimsy excuse to get out of hanging around the tennis courts that I doubt anyone believed, and I drove over to the UC Eastwood Medical Complex with my windows down.
The weather was gorgeous, and as the warmth streamed through my car, I replayed a conversation from lunch that day, when Jimmy had announced that outie bellybuttons looked like nipples. Evan had laughed so hard that he’d snorted Sprite, and the whole thing had been hilarious if you didn’t think about it for too long, in which case it became incredibly depressing. The truth was, I didn’t understand how it had suddenly turned so painful to be around Evan and Jimmy when we’d been teammates since the ninth grade.
The three of us had been the only freshmen to make varsity tennis. But sitting there at the lunch table we’d inherited, thinking back to the first upperclassmen party we’d attended, the three of us nervously wearing our letter jackets like they proved we were cool, it made me wonder whether we’d ever had anything in common besides taking crap from the seniors a year longer than the rest of our teammates.
It frustrated me, listening to conversations that consisted mostly of gossip and unfunny jokes told at someone’s expense, holding back my clever remarks and pretending to enjoy myself. It was as though I’d gone off on epic adventures, chased down fireworks and buried treasure, danced to music that only I could hear, and had returned to find that nothing had changed except for me. But maybe it was better this way, remembering those few months at the beginning of the year as this wonderful thing that was over now, rather than living in Cassidy’s world without her.
Dr. Levine had me go through the usual exercises and do a couple of sets on the elliptical. We chatted about how I was doing, and if I’d been to see Dr. Cohen lately, and I don’t know what made me say it, but I asked if it was possible to ditch the cane.
Dr. Levine regarded me thoughtfully for a moment, and then looked down at my chart.
“I think we could try that for a week or so to see how you get on,” he said, “so long as you understand that you’ll be working with your current range of motion, which really is on the borderline.”
I said that I understood, and he went on to depress me with a list of cautions and don’ts and definite don’ts that came along with a stack of pamphlets.
I zipped the pamphlets into my backpack and stepped into the hallway, thinking it was lucky I’d kept that stupid elevator key after all. The bathroom where I usually changed out of my sweaty exercise clothes was out of order, so I used the one at the other end of the hall, near the north elevator.
I had to pass by Dr. Cohen’s office, and I hesitated outside for a moment. I hadn’t been there since the summer, when I’d quickly figured out what to say to get out of the weekly trauma of trauma counseling. It was strange, passing a door and knowing exactly where it led, and how lousy my life had been when I’d last used it, a sort of anti-nostalgia.
The door to the waiting room opened and a girl stepped out. She was wearing a red and yellow Rancho cheer uniform, and she caught my eye with an embarrassed smile before heading toward the stairs.
I didn’t feel like going home, so I wound up crossing the pedestrian bridge and wandering around UCE’s campus. The campus was smaller than I remembered, and with my backpack and leather jacket, I disappeared instantly into the crowd of students. It was a welcome relief, feeling as though I was invisible after the last few days, when staring at me had become an extracurricular activity the whole school had apparently signed up for.
Being there reminded me of the day Cassidy and I had pretended to be students here, but then, I’d known it would. I thought about how she’d made that crown of flowers by the creek, laughing at me when I told her I’d probably wind up at some nearby state school, that I didn’t really have any plans to leave Orange County. She was right, though. I didn’t belong here, in a dorm room ten miles from home, falling asleep every night to the only slightly more distant thud of the Disneyland fireworks.
I guess I half hoped to see Cassidy exiting a building, wearing jeans and sneakers, her disguise. I pictured her looking up, secretly glad that I’d found her. We’d sit down on one of those wooden benches and she’d tell me how she was sorry, and it had all been a mistake. But things like that never happen, except in really awful movies.
I wandered into the library, where the girl at the desk waved me through without looking up from the book she was reading. I hadn’t really expected her to let me in, or thought about what I would do once I was inside. But I had a backpack full of textbooks, and there was this comfortable-looking lounge area, so I sat down and took out my homework and put on my headphones. But I’d chosen a sofa with a view of the entrance, stupidly hoping Cassidy would walk in.
Of course she never did, and after a while, I stopped looking up every time the door opened. It was incredibly peaceful sitting there, listening to an old Frank Turner album and puzzling through my physics worksheets over a surprisingly good cup of campus coffee. By the time I packed up, I wondered if I’d really been looking for Cassidy after all, or if I’d been hoping to find myself.
I DON’T KNOW what I expected when I slunk into Speech and Debate on Wednesday. Certainly not for Cassidy to glance up from some thick book she was reading, this terrible sadness in her eyes.
“You’re back,” I said, a statement that only served to multiply the awkwardness between us.
“What happened to your cane?”
“I’m fine without it.” I slid clumsily into my chair, unfortunately proving the exact opposite. The coffee I was holding splattered across our shared desk.
“Sorry,” I said, fishing some tissues out of my backpack to mop up the table. “Overfilled it.”
Cassidy closed her eyes and took a deep breath, like she was holding herself back from saying and doing a million things at once.
She picked up her book, angling it like a shield. The desk dried slowly between us, smelling faintly of French roast.
Ms. Weng didn’t even notice that I’d been absent. She’d come down with a cold and was determined not to waste her sick days, so she put on some documentary about the history of public speaking and dimmed the lights.