by Jen Calonita
Everything was exactly the way I wanted it.
I grabbed my bag and headed downstairs. Mom was waiting. “Let’s go! Laura is already in the car.”
“Okay.” I said, and gave her a kiss. At least we weren’t fighting this time around.
“And please find something to do after school today, okay?” Mom added. “There’s got to be one club on the list you and Laura are willing to try.”
Huh? “I have volleyball tryouts today,” I told her as I opened the door. “And I’m sticking with Future City.”
Mom looked puzzled. “You quit the club last June. And volleyball tryouts started already. You didn’t want to go.”
“No, they start today,” I said, my heart beating fast.
“Coach started them yesterday and you didn’t want to be there. Dumb move,” Taryn said, bouncing down the stairs behind me. “First, you give up Future City, which you always loved, then Laura says no volleyball, and suddenly it’s no volleyball.”
These were my two favorite things to do. If Laura and I were good, why would I give them up? What was I taking now? Tennis? I was terrible at tennis. Lacrosse? “Please don’t tell me I’m playing lacrosse.”
“Why would you play lacrosse?” Taryn asked. “Don’t tell me this is part of your and Laura’s we-will-only-do-things-together pact. Mom, can you tell her to quit it with this?”
“Taryn, don’t start.” Mom looked at me. “I think it’s great you and Laura have each other, but you have to find an activity you both will like and go to a meeting immediately, or you’re doing one on your own. You hear me?” Dianne honked her car horn.
“Yes.” We had no activities? That sounded pretty boring.
“Have a great first day!” Mom said, waving to Dianne before closing the door behind me.
I hesitated slightly before sticking my head in the air-conditioned car. Paige and Petra were in the second row, and Laura was in the front seat.
“Zoe!” Paige sounded excited. The twins were wearing matching tees and shorts, and both had their hair in pigtails. When you’re seven, that sort of thing is acceptable. “When are you coming over again?”
“She’s over every day, Paige,” Petra said. “She lives at the house.”
“She doesn’t live at the house. It just feels like it because Mom says they have no other friends.” I winced.
“Paige.” Dianne’s voice had an edge. “Sorry I had to run back to the house. You guys will still be on time, even though you would have been early if you’d just taken the bus.” Laura rolled her eyes. “I was just telling Laura you two have to find a club to join.”
“Mom.” Laura sighed heavily.
“What? You two aren’t doing Future City, volleyball, or trying out for the play. I don’t understand what’s going on! You loved the sixth-grade play last spring! I can’t believe you don’t want to audition again.”
“Zoe and I don’t want to do the play,” Laura said, sounding like my spokesperson. “And you remember what happened during the Future City presentation for our competition. She broke out in hives.”
“I broke out in hives?” I squeaked. That hadn’t happened last time.
Paige started to giggle. “It was really funny.”
“But it’s seventh grade! This is your chance to try new things.”
“You sound like my mom,” I said as we turned onto the block where school was.
“That’s because our moms talk all the time,” Laura supplied. “Like us.”
“But we still get out there. We’re not sitting home glued to our phones,” Dianne said as she turned in to the parking lot. “We aren’t afraid to take the bus.”
“Mom,” Laura said sharply. “Zoe and I don’t want to hang out with liars.”
I felt my stomach clench.
“And a lot of these sports and clubs…They’ve all got people trying out who are total mean girls. And boys.”
“Mean boys,” Paige repeated. “Mean boys!”
“We don’t want to be around them. We’d rather be alone. We don’t need new friends.” She looked back at me and smiled, but I couldn’t help noticing the smile was sort of sad.
So this is what had happened to us? We were marching behind the no-new-friends banner and we lived in an imaginary bubble I created?
“OUCH!” Paige screamed, and I saw my phone slip from her hands. “Your phone is on fire.”
My phone hit the floor with a loud thud.
“Paige, what did I tell you about taking people’s phones?” Dianne reprimanded as we pulled up to the school drop-off zone.
“But Zoe had it just sitting there in her bag pocket. And she has all my favorite games!” Paige glanced at me accusingly. “Why is your phone so hot?”
“ ‘Hot’?” Dianne repeated. “Oh, Zoe, be careful with that. I just saw this segment on the news about a girl’s phone blowing up in her bag.”
“Mom, phones don’t just blow up in their bags.” Laura looked back at me worriedly. “Do they? Zo-Zo, is your phone broken?”
“No, but…Oh no.” I looked down at the screen and noticed the spiderlike crack now spreading across it. It must have happened when Paige dropped it. “I can hardly read the screen.”
“Paige!” Laura yelled at her, and Paige started to cry. She took my phone. “Ouch! This is hot. But wait!” She started peeling the corner of my screen. “Look! Your phone is fine. It was just the screen protector.”
Whew! I pulled the broken screen protector off. I took the phone back and looked for the bright pink icon. It was still there. “Paige, it’s fine. Don’t cry.” Paige looked over, and I held the phone up. “See? I can get a new screen protector after school.”
“Oh good! But still, Zoe, tell your mom to take your phone in if it’s running hot,” Dianne said. “And I’ll pay for the screen protector since it was Paige’s fault.”
“It’s all right,” I said as I stepped out of the car behind Laura. No one was touching my phone. I slid it into the interior pocket of my bag for safekeeping.
“Have a good first day, ladies. And go to some club meetings!” Dianne pulled away. People were streaming into the school around us as buses continued to pull up.
“She will not stop about us joining stuff,” Laura said with a groan. “Your mom too?”
“Yeah.” I hesitated. “But they’re not wrong. Why did we quit everything?”
Laura bit her lip. “You know why. We’ve been over the club list. There isn’t one we can both agree on, and sports tryouts already started. We’re out of luck for the fall.”
I couldn’t believe there was nothing we could agree on anymore. “That’s impossible! There has to be something we both like.”
“Stop,” Laura snapped. “We like different things, okay? And even if you did agree to do stage crew for the musical, I’d never want to do it because of what Sarah and Ava said about me.”
I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. The lie was the glue holding our friendship together. It had followed me into the future, and it had cost us both.
Laura glanced at the school warily. “I can’t believe I have so many classes with Sarah. How am I going to even look at her?”
I shifted my bag uncomfortably. “It’s class. You won’t have time to talk.” The first bell rang. “See you at lunch?”
“We’re meeting by the upstairs bathroom. Don’t forget.” Laura attempted a smile, but she still looked lost. I couldn’t help feeling like it was all my fault. “Please tell me you brought your schedule.”
I reached into my bag and found it tucked inside. “I’ve got it this time. I mean, today.”
Laura and I walked to the doors together, flashed our student IDs that were on lanyards around our necks, and parted down separate hallways. I headed upstairs for my first class.
Laura and I both dese
rved to be happy, but in this reality, neither of us was. I wanted us to be best friends, but at what cost? She wasn’t acting. I wasn’t in Future City or volleyball. I’d messed up both of our years before they’d even started.
It was time for me to stop thinking about what I wanted and think about what was best for both of us.
I had to let go.
I blinked back tears.
Oh no. I couldn’t cry on the first day of seventh grade, no matter how many times I’d done this day before. I looked around for the nearest bathroom and spotted the infamous one I’d fought with Laura in during my second retake. I slipped inside to get a tissue.
Clare was already in there. She had on a Captain Marvel tee and ripped jeans. This time her hair tips were bright green, and she had on polka-dot fashion glasses. I noticed her eyes were swollen. “Hey,” she said. “I was just getting a tissue.”
“Me too.” Slowly, I racked my brain—did Clare remember helping me in the bathroom that time I had the fight with Laura? Or hanging out with me at Aquatopia and talking about our favorite book? Or asking me about my disappearing act in the bagel store bathroom? Or helping me navigate classes on the real first day of school? I wasn’t sure how my timeline worked anymore, but I was pretty sure all those memories I had of Clare—including the one where she told me about her friendship with Ava—were only mine now. The rest had disappeared during the retake.
“I don’t mean to get up in your business, but are you okay?” Clare asked with a concerned smile.
And that’s when I remembered the one thing that had remained consistent in every memory I had of her—Clare would make a great friend. We both loved books, our STEM clubs, and trying crazy water rides. We loved to laugh and talk about everything and anything. And we both tried to be there for each other when we needed it most.
Actually…
That wasn’t true. Clare had been there for me, but how had I helped her? Reagan and Jada convinced her to hang out at the water park, but I was too busy chasing Laura to invite her. And when Clare asked me about the app in the bagel store bathroom, I bolted instead of letting her in on my secret. I wasn’t trying to be selfish. Retake wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. How did I know it wouldn’t mess up Clare’s life as badly as it had messed up mine?
Friendship wasn’t a one-way street. What I’d done to Laura by lying was cruel. If she was truly my friend, she would have wanted to keep me in her life. But Clare was different. We kept running into each other, and I wondered if there was a reason why. Maybe we were always meant to be friends, and I’d failed to see it till now. If that was true, I didn’t want to risk making the same mistakes with her that I had with Laura. If I wanted to be Clare’s friend, I couldn’t just take. I needed to give too. Retake might not have helped me, but I might be able to use it to do something for Clare. I looked at the peeling paint in the bathroom and wondered.
“I’m fine, but do you want to sit together at lunch today?” I asked suddenly. “I think we both have lunch fifth period.”
Clare smiled. “Uh, yeah. Sure.”
“Okay,” I repeated, and we stood there smiling. Then the first bell rang.
Clare moved to the door. “Are you coming? I think we have math together.”
“I’ll catch up with you.” Clare nodded and slipped out the door.
I pulled the phone out of my bag and looked at the pink icon again. I’d come close to breaking my phone once already, and it was still running really hot. What if this was my last chance to make things right?
Then I had to use the retake to do something good.
I might not have been able to fix things with Laura, but maybe I could keep Clare from wasting sixth-grade hanging out in this dreary bathroom.
Quickly, I started scrolling through the app. I wasn’t sure if there was a picture that would work for what I needed to do. Clare had said she and Ava got to sixth grade and things were already bad between them, so I needed a picture from school that got me as close to the start of sixth grade as possible. After endless scrolling, I landed on one of me and Laura in the middle school hallway. We were wearing royal blue, and our hair was sprayed the same color. We had our arms wrapped around each other and matching blue tattoos on our left cheeks. I had written #wevegotspirit #fairviewms. Spirit week was the second week of school!
I went to click on the Retake arrow and stopped. Before I skipped to that moment, I needed to find a way to get back to this one later. I opened my camera and smiled, then I clicked a selfie of myself and posted it. Quickly, I wrote #firstday, hoping the picture uploaded. When it did, I scrolled back to the spirit week photo and clicked on the back arrow.
“Here goes nothing. Please let me go back to spirit week and make things right.” The phone was almost too hot to hold at this point, but I kept staring into it and waited for the flash.
The next moment I was standing with my arms wrapped around Laura.
People all around us were screaming and cheering.
“We won!” Laura shouted. “Isn’t it amazing? Fairview never wins the homecoming game!” People were throwing pom-poms and paper airplanes and high-fiving.
I looked around to see where we were. Second floor. Good. The bathroom was just down the hall. My heart started to beat faster.
“Selfie!” Laura said, pulling me in tighter. “Say ‘Fairview’!”
“Fairview!” I pulled away and really looked at my best friend for a moment. This was us in our prime, back when we were still each other’s whole friendship world. I could be sad, and I was, but I also needed to remember what Mom said—I’d always have the memories. “I’ll meet you back here!” I shouted over Dougie’s chant of “Fairview!” in the background. “I forgot something at my locker.”
“Okay!” Laura shouted back, and joined the Fairview chant.
I hurried down the hall, went straight to my locker, and found what I was looking for—a pink Post-it notepad. Then I grabbed a pen and ran all the way to the bathroom. I burst through the door, half expecting to see Clare. Instead, the room was empty. Perfect.
I went to the peeling wall, and scribbled my note on the Post-it.
C—It gets better. I promise.—Z
Then I thought about Clare and how she’d changed my life since she came into it, and I wrote a second note.
You never know where you’ll meet a new friend—maybe it’s in this very bathroom!
I thought about Mom’s advice too and wrote a third note.
If we want to grow, then we have to continue to change.
Satisfied, I left the pad and the pen on the windowsill and stared up at the notes on the wall. It was a start. I only hoped Clare saw them and they multiplied.
Then I pulled out my phone again. “Ouch!” I said aloud. The phone wasn’t going to last much longer before it overheated. I found the pink icon, opened it, located my latest selfie, and, heart pounding, clicked the retake button again. “Let’s go back to the present, please.” There was a bright flash, and I held my breath, afraid to see when I’d wind up. Then I was gone.
I opened my eyes.
I was back in the bathroom. That was a good sign.
I felt for my hot phone and checked the date: It was the first day of school of seventh grade. Another good sign. Then I turned around and gasped.
Where there had been three pink Post-it notes, there were now hundreds covering the wall. Blue ones, green ones, teal, yellow, and glittery ones too. Some had nothing but a single word, like “hope,” while others were written in such small print, I couldn’t even read them. I noticed one that said “You R Awesome! (I know this for a fact!)” In the middle of the wall was a large white note:
Due to the popularity of the positivity wall, we will be painting the adjacent wall with chalkboard paint so you can continue sharing and caring!
It was signed “Principal Higgins.” I t
ouched the note, proud to have had a hand in this. A Post-it underneath fell off and fluttered to the ground. I picked it up. It was written in purple Sharpie in tiny, neat letters. “I put this note here for sixth-grade girls especially,” it read. “Maybe you and your friends feel sad sometimes or are in pain. Don’t worry. It will be okay. Smile! And branch out!”
Clare.
Could she have written this?
I could only hope she had. Or she had least seen this, and it had made a difference between her spending most of her year in a bathroom and branching out.
Now all that was left to do was to help Laura. I didn’t really need the app to do that. I’d start by being honest with her, as much as it might hurt.
I had to make it to fifth period, when we had lunch. Then I could take Laura aside and convince her to join the play. I’d ask Ms. Pepper if I could rejoin Future City. And I’d find a way to make up the volleyball tryout I’d missed.
I saw Clare in class, but there was no time to talk to her to see if the positivity wall had helped her. All I knew was that her hair had changed again—this time the tips were teal.
By lunchtime I had my speech planned. I stood outside the east cafeteria and waited for Laura to show up. Dougie came running by, and I noticed the drama queens head to a table, but there was no sign of Laura. I felt bad not sitting with Clare, but I had to take care of things. Ten minutes into the period, I risked the wrath of Principal Higgins and pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if Laura had texted. It was so warm, I had to hold it with the edges of my T-shirt.