“Are you sure? It really seemed like something happened—”
“I’m totally fine. I don’t have any more pain in my jaw, either.” She’d forgotten all about that, until now. “Turns out I got a shot there. Maybe it went too deep.”
“Ouch.” He made a face. “Hey, we got lucky. This Sunday, Ball of Fire is coming to You Must Remember This.”
For a second she forgot that Ball of Fire was a screwball comedy; it sounded like a plummeting meteor. “Sunday . . . I can’t, I can’t.”
He looked really disappointed. “It’s only playing that one day.”
“I have to sleep—I don’t know for how long.”
“Really? Can’t think of a better excuse?”
“I’m handling it the best I can,” she said, “under the circumstances.”
“What circumstances?”
“Here.” She shoved the money toward him.
“Jeez, Louise, are we having our first fight?”
It sounded exactly like something her dad would’ve said. “It’s not Louise. It was never Louise.”
“I’m kidding. I’m just kidding.” The glint in his eyes grew dimmer.
The girl sat by herself at her old corner table with its view of a brick wall, which darkened within minutes, soaked by a sudden driving rain. The air in the cafeteria changed, too, and got heavy and damp with a smell of leaves and dust. Rain spattered the window. Nobody looked up, but didn’t they understand that something outside had seeped into the inside? She took out her phone, bypassing the ID pic, and went straight to the calculator. It was Monday, noon, so there were now five full twenty-four-hour days until Saturday noon, plus two more hours.
“Good for you—you’re not out with Thing One and Thing Two,” the girl heard over her shoulder, and looked up to see Kim in a football referee shirt. Kim pulled up a chair, opened the girl’s pack of cookies, and helped herself to one. “I ate already but I’m still hungry.” She snapped off a piece of a juice stick and popped it into her mouth. She peered over at the girl’s phone. “New puzzle?”
“I’m counting down,” she said, too quickly.
“To what?”
The girl hesitated. Kim was her friend, her old friend, her new friend, the friend who’d put makeup on her, and why, exactly, had Clara agreed to do that? It had led only to trouble. “Nothing.”
“Counting down to nothing? You realize you’re not making sense.”
“I just have to get through the next few days. Okay? Why is everybody on me about it?”
“Rose, you could tell me, you know. When we were kids, we called each other cross-my-heart friends.”
The girl took a breath. Kim wasn’t making this easy. “Just . . . give me until next week. We’ll do a puzzle. We’ll have lots of fun.”
“Next week?” Kim sounded hurt. “You don’t want to hang out in the meantime?”
“Please. It’s better that way.”
Kim had taken another cookie out of the pack, but she put it back.
CHAPTER 27
In bio lab the girl saw Nick Winter, diagonally in front of her, two tables over. Clara had barely noticed him; Rose had thought he was the most gorgeous thing ever. Now she gave him a steady, intense look that he must’ve felt, because he turned to glance at her. His expression was a complete blank.
He didn’t remember anything at all, she realized—dancing with her, kissing her. Did he even remember the party, or much about his life? If you had no memory, you couldn’t get it enhanced; there’d be nothing to work on. He was still really good-looking, though, even without a memory.
During class Mr. Slocum announced, “Miss Hartel, please report to Ms. Pratt.”
What was that all about? She hadn’t done anything.
“You’d better not be in trouble,” Selena whispered fiercely. “Your mother might punish you and cancel the party. I’ve already invited everybody.”
When the girl got to Ms. Pratt’s office, the door was open. Ms. Pratt, in a beige pantsuit and with her hair in a bun on top of her head, was facing the other way.
“I don’t understand,” the girl said.
Ms. Pratt turned around. She held a baby in her arms. “My wife had to drop him off, and I remembered you wanted to see him.”
Out of nowhere, another impossible decision. She wanted to hold him; she wanted to get away as fast as she could.
“Want a better look?”
“I can see him from here.”
“Come on! Do I need to pull you along?” Ms. Pratt laughed as the girl took a few steps forward. “Now, put your hand under his head and hold his body with your other arm. Good!”
The baby was much heavier than he looked. He had a lot of eyelashes that were thick and distinct; she could see each separate one. He smelled soft and powdery. He was like a warm bundle of possibility.
“Ethan likes you,” Ms. Pratt said.
“Babies like everybody.”