Her voice fades away as they walk out. I’d forgotten that Aaron runs.
I wait another minute just to be sure the bathroom is empty before going to wash my hands.
My timing isn’t great, because just as I’m drying them, the door flings open and almost into me.
It’s Eliza Thompson. She gives me a quick nod of acknowledgment. I nod back, unsure what else to do. She passes me and is about to go into a stall, when she stops.
“Hey…” she says, and her voice is softer than I expected. I realize for all the times I’ve seen her run, we’ve never spoken. “I’m real sorry about what happened with Marcus.”
No one has said they’re sorry. Not one of my teachers, not a single person on the football team. I feel my eyes prickling and I blink rapidly so Eliza can’t tell how much it means to me.
“How are you?” she says, tilting her head to the side like some sort of exotic bird.
I shrug. “I’ve been better,” I say.
She presses her lips together and shrugs. “Yeah, I bet. Sucks.”
I nod. I want to ask her if when she runs she feels like she’s flying and like it’s the only thing that matters and if it makes all her problems float away like wispy clouds, but now she’s looking at me with a slightly different expression, less pity and sympathy and more an “I’ve got to pee … are you just going to stand here staring at me?” look. It’s a subtle difference, but I get it.
“Thanks,” I mumble, and go out the door. I can run! I want to yell. You wouldn’t believe it but you should see me!
As I’m walking down the hall, I wonder if anyone has asked Monica how she’s doing. Is she waiting for me to reach out to her, the way I’ve been waiting for her? She did say I was her best friend. I wonder if that still stands. And how do her and Marcus stand? It isn’t like she can break up with him … but it isn’t like he’s … around either. Maybe it’s kind of like being in a long-distance relationship, one where you can’t call or even write letters. And you don’t know how long the other person will be gone. So pretty much like being in a long-distance relationship with an astronaut. Except that you didn’t know they were an astronaut.
But if Eliza Thompson, someone who barely knows me, can ask how I’m doing … I can ask how Monica is doing.
It’s the end of the day, so she should be in the back parking lot. I know where she parks. Or I could wait until tomorrow. But the thought of going up to Monica in the cafeteria is even more daunting than going into the back parking lot.
Where all the seniors park.
Where Heather Parker parks, even though she is only a sophomore and shouldn’t even have a school parking permit but somehow wangled one from someone.
It isn’t like I’m not familiar with the parking lot. After all, until last month, this is where Marcus parked and I got out of his car every morning.
I pull up my hood, as if that can protect me from anything, but it makes me feel better.
Monica’s car is in the same spot. Next to Marcus’s spot. His empty parking spot.
I never saw the damage to his car. It was totaled and hauled straight to the junkyard.
Marcus saved for that car himself, by working two summers in a pizzeria downtown. He didn’t want to work in the Chinese restaurant my mom works at, because he didn’t want my mom to be his boss, and he didn’t want my mom to see him flirting with the customers to get a bigger tip. I wonder what Monica thought of all that flirting over orders of pepperoni pizza and pitchers of Coke.
His car was ugly, ten years old already and a rusty orange. He loved it, though. Even started teaching me to drive in it. I got my permit a couple weeks after I turned fifteen.
I’ll never drive that car again.
I always thought my brother was such a good driver. He got a perfect score on his driving test, and never got pulled over. Not even once.
I see Monica hurrying across the parking lot, head down, hair hiding her face, so she doesn’t see me standing next to her car.
“Hi,” I say when she reaches me, and I swear she jumps a foot in the air.
“Shit! Wing! You gave me a heart attack,” she says, her hand on her chest, and her face is so pale it’s easy to believe that I have. She stares at me, eyes harder than I’ve ever seen them. I force myself to remember that this is the same Monica who threw herself against me in the hospital waiting room, who has brushed my hair, baked cookies with me, taken me shopping.
“Um,” I say. “I was wondering … um…”
“What?” she says, and then panic flits across her face, distorting her features. “Oh my God. Is it Marcus? Has something happened?”
“No, no, no,” I say quickly. “That isn’t it.”
She exhales loudly. “Oh, thank God.” Then she squints at me. “So what is it?”