“It’s okay,” I said, and then I lifted Thomas’s chin so that his eyes were more level with mine. “Thomas?”
“Yeah.” He still wouldn’t let his eyes meet mine. They were darting from the ceiling to the floor to the walls around me.
“Will you look at me?” He did, but he looked extremely uncomfortable when he did it. “Everything is going to be okay. Sophia and I are going to make it to school on time.” I smiled.
A brief look of serenity flashed in his eyes. He smiled back and then looked at the floor and muttered, “Okay, but now you only have two minutes. You better go.”
We all laughed except for Thomas, who went back to picking at his toast.
At the one-minute mark, Sophia and I were walking out to the Sprinter van in the driveway. “Have a good day at school, girls,” Mrs. Keller called from the doorway.
Mr. Keller was already in the driver’s seat. He didn’t say anything until we were pulling into the driveway at New Clayton High. “You’ll go to the office up that path for your schedule, Emerson. Your guidance counselor will walk you through it.”
“Okay, great.”
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “After school you’ll walk straight to the library in the center of town to meet Sophia. She gets out after you, so wait on the steps until she gets there. Mrs. Keller will pick you girls up at four p.m. Make sure your homework is done by then.”
“Got it, Mr. Keller. Thanks for everything. ’Bye, Sophie.”
“’Bye.” She leaned over and whispered, “I want to hear about the kissing later. Don’t forget.”
“I’m sure you’ll remind me.”
We laughed. I jumped out of the van, and right before I closed the door, Mr. Keller looked back at me and said, “Remember the rules, Emerson.”
“I will.”
I WAS THROWN into life with the Kellers, a version of foster home Stepford robots, with Daniel and Brandon, the precious, neglected, doe-eyed twins, and autistic Thomas and his pieces of toast, and Sophia—sweet, sweet Sophia. Then there was me, Emerson, the new girl at New Clayton with her new backpack, her new purplish sweater, and her new bruised eye, and a stitched lip to match.
I wasn’t even going to try to make friends on my first day at New Clayton High. I didn’t know how long I’d be living with the Kellers; on the drive over, Paula had told me they would look for family members who might be able to take me in. I thought that was hysterical, considering my own mother had abandoned me.
As other high schoolers rushed past me, I stood at the top of the walkway on campus and wondered, Who am I? Will I ever know? Will this shitty-ass life and my shitty-ass parents define who I am? Will I ever feel normal?
Thankfully, I had been way ahead in my classes at Neeble, so most of what I heard on my first day at New Clayton was review. The day went by in a blur.
After school, I did as I was told and walked to the library to wait for Sophia. As soon as she saw me, she ran from the corner, her heavy backpack swooshing back and forth behind her. When she was about twenty feet away, she called out, “The kissing! You’re going to tell me about the kissing!”
“Shhh, Sophia, not so loud.”
“What? You can’t get into trouble here; we have until four to do whatever we want.”
“That’s only about an hour.”
“Well, I got my homework done at lunch, so we can talk and look for books and you can tell me about kissing Jackson.”
I huffed. “Well, if you want to know the truth, Jackson and I only really kissed a couple of times.”
This did not deter her. “What was it like? Tell me, tell me!”
I closed my eyes and thought about our kiss. Tingles ran through my body. “Well, it’s like this. He closes his eyes and tilts his head, and I do the same, and our lips touch, and, well . . . that’s all you need to know at your age.”
She looked up to the sky, enchanted. “Wow. I totally want to kiss a boy.”
“When I was your age, I thought boys were gross. I even thought Jackson was gross.”
“You knew him when you were eight?”
“Yeah, I’ve known him my whole life.”
“So he’s like your brother?”
“No! That’s disgusting. He was the boy next door, then he became my friend, and then we became more when we got older.”
It occurred to me then that I might be able to use the hour after school to call Jackson or meet with him. I brightened at the thought. “So does Mrs. Keller pick us up at four every day?”
“Yep, like clockwork. It’s so we have a quiet place to study. The boys get antsy and loud in the afternoon.”
Sophia and I went into the library and checked out some books. I finished up a few geometry problems, and then we waited on the steps until the Sprinter van pulled up with Mrs. Keller at the helm and the three boys in their booster seats across the first backseat bench.
“Mrs. Keller, can I sit in front?” Sophia asked.