And of course he’d get one. UVA had already offered him a full ride, and a few other schools were also showing interest. UCLA would probably jump at the chance to have someone as good as Spence on their team. So, could it be that easy? I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him over and over. “You’re the best boyfriend ever!”
He laughed, but then he sobered and cupped my cheek. “We’re in this together,” he said again. “Don’t forget that, okay?”
“Never,” I told him. “I’ll never forget that, Spence.”
I FORGOT MY COMBINATION. Standing at my locker, I spun the dial around and around but couldn’t remember the first digits. Putting my forehead against the cool metal door, I closed my eyes and took a deep calming breath.
“Come on, Lily,” I whispered to myself. “Think.”
“Not enough coffee this morning?” I heard someone say.
My eyes popped open, and I glanced over my shoulder. Cole stood there looking a little shy, but beautiful all the same.
“Hey,” I said, surprised to see him. “I…uh…the locker…the combo…it…something.” My shoulders sagged. I was almost too tired to talk.
He cocked his head as if trying to figure out my secret language. “Wow,” he said. “You picked the wrong day to give up caffeine.”
“I can’t remember the locker combination,” I said, pointing to the stupid knob.
“All three numbers or just the first one?”
“Uh…just the first one,” I told him, wondering how he knew.
“Maybe I can help,” he said. “Answer these questions as fast as you can, ready?”
I stared at him for a beat. “Okay.”
“Close your eyes; it works better that way.”
I felt a little stupid, but I did as he suggested.
“What’s your birthday?”
“October fifteenth.”
“What’s your phone number?”
“Eight-zero-four-five-five-five-seven-one-three-four.”
“How old is your mom?”
“Forty”—I had to think—“three.”
“How many cousins do you have?”
“Seven.”
“What’s eight plus fifteen?”
“Twenty-three.”
“What’s the first number of your locker combo?”
“Seventeen.” My eyes flew open in surprise. “Ohmigod, seventeen! Thank you!”
Cole beamed at me. “I had a feeling that’d work out,” he said.
I turned and quickly opened my locker, realizing that at some point I was going to have to face the music and explain to him about the panic attack.
“So, about yesterday,” I said.
He leaned against the locker next to me and played with his phone. “You okay?” he asked me.
His question caught me off guard. “Yeah,” I said. “Totally.”
“I would’ve sent you a text,” he said. “But I didn’t have your number.”
“Oh, sorry. I…it’s…” And then my phone pinged with an incoming text. Momentarily distracted, I took it out and saw that it was from a number I didn’t recognize. The text read:
Hi Lily. It’s Cole. Checking on you. You okay?
It dawned on me that Cole had gotten me to say my phone number out loud. “Pretty clever,” I said with a grin.
“Works every time,” he said. Then he got serious. “So…what happened, exactly?”
I hesitated, still more than a little embarrassed about having a panic attack right in front of him. “My parents’ split and the move and all the other stuff has been really hard. I started to have panic attacks about a week ago.”
“Whoa,” he said. “That sucks.”
“Sorry I freaked out on you,” I told him as my gaze shifted to the floor.
“Hey,” he said to get my attention. When I looked up he smiled sweetly at me, as if he totally understood. “Don’t sweat it, okay? It’s cool.”
Relief washed over me. “Thanks,” I said. “For everything.”
“Sure,” he said easily. And then he seemed to want to say something else, but hesitated. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, but I hoped that maybe he’d let it go.
He didn’t. “There’s just one thing that I don’t get, Lily. How did you know where my grandmother lives? And, how did you know that my middle name was Spencer?”
Of course everything that’d happened in Dr. White’s office had given me an explanation, but it just seemed so out there, so crazy, so unbelievable to think that Amber Greeley and I were connected through reincarnation. And yet…
“I swear I’m not some weird stalker,” I said quickly. Just then the warning bell for first period sounded. “Listen, can we talk later? After school? I promise I’ll explain everything.”
Cole studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable. “That’s cool,” he said, but something had shifted. “Meet you here at quarter after one?”
The school district had given us a half day of school at the end of our first week, so we’d get to go home early.
“Yeah, that’ll work,” I told him.