Pity wasn’t strength, and Grace had had a hard enough time holding it together. She didn’t want both her parents and her to crumble, not at the same time.
Grace carefully got out of the car, heaved her empty backpack to her shoulder, and headed toward English, her first class of the day. It felt a bit like she was heading toward a firing squad, except worse, because she knew that instead of dying, she was going to have to stay alive through the whole day. And then the next one after that.
And she couldn’t help but think as she saw the first set of staring eyes fix upon her that a firing squad might have been preferable.
Grace had already been excused from all her homework—she just had to make it up before the end of the year, which okay, fine—but as she walked past students, she could see highlighters, flash cards, all of the things that she normally used during crazy study sessions. Her best friend, Janie, used to even make fun of her for all of her mnemonic devices.
“Now,” Janie would say, imitating Grace studying for their European History final. “Napoleon was short, which reminds me of an octopus. An octopus is purple, which is the color of my family’s couch, and we got that couch from a store that was next to a pretzel store. And pretzels are German, which . . .” Grace would laugh and laugh, clutching her then-flat stomach.
“Grace.”
She stopped short, her reverie broken. “Janie,” she said. “Hi.”
She hadn’t seen Janie since she’d come over to visit two days after Milly was born. Grace didn’t remember much of that visit, other than that they had watched Friends on Netflix. But Grace had been pretty whacked out and the all-encompassing grief of loss. Details were fuzzy, to be honest.
“Hi,” Janie said now, her head cocked to one side. Grace had the distinct feeling she had done something wrong, something that violated friend code, but she didn’t know what it was. Or, probably more accurately, how many violations there were.
“You didn’t tell me you were coming back to school.”
Ah. There it was.
“Um, yeah,” Grace said. She tried to smile, but it felt more like she was baring her teeth at her friend, a warning signal to stay away. “I just decided last night. I got tired of staying home, you know?” Grace shrugged, like it was a totally casual thing to have a baby and forget to tell your best friend that you were returning to school.
“Oh,” Janie said. “Well, it’s good to see you! You look good.”
Janie never used the word good, and definitely not twice in a row. This was, well, not good.
“Thanks,” Grace said, then looked at the girl standing next to Janie. They both had purses slung over their shoulders, holding their books and binders on their left hips, while Grace’s backpack hung limp from her shoulder. When had Janie gotten rid of her backpack?
The girl next to her was Rachel. “Hi,” Grace said to her. “I’m Grace.”
“I know.” She replied in a way that made Grace feel like she had introduced herself as Rasputin or Voldemort, a name that must not be said.
“It’s really good to see you, Grace,” Janie said again.
The third good. Grace couldn’t help thinking, Three strikes and you’re out. “If you’re around at lunch, eat with us, okay?” She smiled at Grace; then she and Rachel walked away.
Grace hadn’t thought as far as lunch. Now she was wishing she had. She had been friends with Janie since the third grade, so she had never worried about who to eat with, or where she would sit. But now that she was thinking about it, the school campus suddenly felt bigger, way too big, like it had no end. She had had dreams like that before, wandering around in a strange place and not being able to find her way out.
Janie and Rachel walked away, and Grace hitched her thumbs under her backpack straps, which suddenly felt like they had betrayed her. She unhooked them, then continued walking up the hill to English class. For some reason, it was even harder now that she wasn’t pregnant. She had spent her last month at school huffing and puffing everywhere (and also making approximately 982,304,239 trips to the bathroom, since Peach had enjoyed using her bladder as a cozy pillow), but now her legs felt heavy, like they didn’t want to go into English class and were trying to warn her brain to stay away.
Grace realized, too late, that she should have listened.
Everyone stared at her when she walked into the room right before the bell rang, but Grace was prepared for that. As much as anyone could be prepared for thirty sets of eyeballs suddenly locked on them. She smiled at the wall behind Zach Anderson’s head, just so they would think she was smiling at someone, and then Mrs. Mendoza came over and put her hand on Grace’s shoulder and said, “It’s so nice to see you, Grace,” and Grace silently told herself, Do not cry, do not cry until it worked and the tears slipped from the edge of her throat and back down into the pit of her stomach.
“Thanks” was all Grace said out loud, though, then went and took her seat. Someone had carved SLUT into the fake wood desk, but she wasn’t sure if that was for her, some other girl, or just the product of some bored junior who had a limited vocabulary and too much time on his hands. I mean, Grace thought, it’s English class. You think he’d have a stronger grasp on synonyms. Harlot, maybe, or floozy or strumpet?
“Grace?”
She looked up. Mrs. Mendoza was smiling down at her, the way priests do when they’re visiting sick people at the hospital. Benevolent, but also silently wishing for hand sanitizer.
“I was just saying that if you’d like to spend the next few days in the library doing makeup work just so you can catch up a little, that’s fine.”
“Oh,” she said. “No, that’s okay.”
There were snickers behind her. It sounded like Zach. And Miriam Whose-Last-Name-Grace-Could-Never-Remember. You know people have been laughing behind your back for a while when you can identify each giggle’s source. “Too bad I couldn’t have a baby,” the voice said. Grace was right—it was Zach. “Get out of homework. Score, man.”
“Ugh, you are the worst.” That was Miriam. At first Grace thought she was defending her. She was about to turn around and smile when she really heard what Miriam said. She said “You’re the worst” in the way girls say things when they want boys to think that they’re teasing, like, “You’re the worst, but I still like you enough to hook up with you, even though you’re the emotional equivalent of dirt.”
Then again, who was Grace to judge? The last boy she’d liked got her pregnant, left her alone, and took another girl to homecoming on the same night she gave birth.
She couldn’t exactly blame Miriam for poor life choices.
She couldn’t help but wonder what Maya would say to Zach if she were in this situation. Grace hadn’t known Maya that long, but she was pretty sure that Maya would have thrown herself back into school the way lions ran into the Colosseum during Roman times: teeth sharp and claws out.