by Kaitlin Ward
“Making new friends, I see?” teases Sky when I set my tray down across from her at the table where my friends are sitting.
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, you’ve been replaced. He’s my best friend now.”
“Rude.”
Beside me, Tera laughs. Tera’s the first friend I made freshman year from outside my own town. It’s a weird thing about transitioning to high school. You don’t think your childhood friendships will fade, but really Sky is the only grade-school friend I’m still close with. Tera lives in St. Elm, and she sat next to me in computer science my first day. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about, but I do remember knowing after I’d left the class that I’d just made a friend.
“He asked about you when you were gone, you know.” Tera’s boyfriend, Roman, leans back in his chair to look at me past Tera’s white-blond head. Roman was enveloped into our friendship group when he started dating Tera last spring. He’s been friends with Liam for a long time because they both went to school and played sports in Hen Falls, though they weren’t in the same grade. Roman’s a junior like us. I always figured maybe it was a case of beautiful people sticking together. Roman has gray eyes, brown skin, and dimpled cheeks. His mom’s white and his dad’s Mexican, and they’re both unreasonably attractive.
“He was probably hoping I would stay in the hospital long enough that Hunter would have to quit the soccer team and he could be the lone star,” I say ungenerously.
“Amelia.” Roman’s tone is reproachful. “I think he …” He stops, running a hand over his closely shorn hair. “Let’s just say I think he was genuinely relieved when you were okay, and leave it at that.”
“Whaaaat.” Sky is glowing with glee about this new piece of gossip. “You cannot leave it at that. Is he into her? Amelia, would you be interested?”
“I think we should talk about something else.”
It has not escaped my notice that the fifth member of our table, Grace, has been completely silent. She sits next to Skylar, drawing patterns in her ketchup with a french fry. Grace is a dorm student; she lives in Manhattan with wealthy parents and started going here last year. She has bushy hair, brown eyes, and dark skin. She has taught me everything I know about makeup, because she’s the only one of my friends who was patient enough to keep explaining until it finally clicked. Every time I look at her, I get a fluttering, confused feeling in the pit of my stomach.
And about a week before my accident, I made a complete idiot of myself with her, and we haven’t quite recovered from the awkwardness. Or I haven’t, anyway. So now I’m reading into everything she says or doesn’t say, and it hurts my brain. More than the concussion.
“Liam’s kind of nice, you know,” says Tera, not helping.
“And my brother would definitely murder me. Or him, more likely,” I remind her. Even though I can’t help but glance over to where Liam’s sitting with some of his teammates. Despite how much I’m brushing off all this teasing, it does actually bother me, what he said. That it’s my fault we’re not friends. I’ve always steered clear because of Hunter, but Liam hasn’t exactly come begging for my friendship, either.
“Have you added any new insects to your collection?” Grace asks. Then, in response to what I can only assume is a startled expression on my face, she laughs and says, “You asked for a subject change. You’re welcome.”
“I haven’t,” I answer. “I’ve been a little … I’ve just been busy.”
It’s a weak excuse, but I don’t want to say I’m preoccupied because I don’t want to talk about what’s occupying me. My fears that someone tried to murder me, my broken wrist, my doctor’s appointments, the lingering effects of my concussion. The more I’m fussed over, the worse I feel.
“What am I supposed to do if you don’t find new crawling things to creep me out when I spend the night at your house?” Sky asks.
I laugh. “If you insist, I’ll hunt down a barn spider this weekend.”
Her full-body shudder is the perfect response. This is how we are, usually. Just ourselves. Friends who love each other despite very different interests. It’s what I need to find my way back to, because it’s not how things have been ever since I got home from the hospital. And it isn’t everyone else who’s being weird—not anymore.
It’s me.
Soccer practice was rained out, but the school seems to think that if the boys go one day without exercise, they’ll suddenly all be unable to kick a ball, so their coach has them run laps around the basketball court until the football team is done with the weight room, and then they move in on the weight machines.
Since Hunter drives Sky and me home—unless we want to take the bus, which we do not—we are sitting in the hallway of the athletic building doing homework. Across from the mostly glass wall of the weight room, of course, because we are only human, after all.
“Math is stupid,” says Sky, massaging her temples. “Who even needs it?”
“Everyone,” I say dryly. “And just FYI there’s a spider approaching.”
Sky glances to her left and then practically lunges across me to escape. Laughing, I set down my math homework and scoop up the delicate cellar spider that’s casually traveling along the edge of the wall. I am actually a complete weirdo about bugs. I like to free them outside when I can, just because it feels like it should be nature that kills them, not me. I have no illusions about their short and brutal life cycles; I just like looking at them, watching the way they move. I don’t have whatever it is that makes people recoil from the thought of touching any kind of bug. I used to be teased about it when I was younger, but I’ve improved at choosing my friends as I’ve gotten older, I guess.
It’s still pouring outside, but there are eaves over one of the back entrances to the athletic building, so that’s where I go, spider cupped in a loose fist. I set it down on the side of the walkway and silently wish it good luck.
When I go back inside, Liam is standing there. Of course.
“Did I just see you free a spider?” he asks, looking mildly horrified.
“You most certainly did. But aren’t you supposed to be lifting weights right now?”
“I had to see the physical therapist,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the PT’s office. “Twisted my ankle a few weeks ago, and it’s still not quite right.”
“Oh.”
We’re both going the same direction, but walking down the hallway beside him is awkward. I feel like I need to say something else, but I don’t want to ask about his twisted ankle and open the door for him to ask about my injuries. Especially because I can see him eyeing my cast.
“So why, exactly, did you not just kill it?” he asks, breaking a tense silence.
I shrug. “Feels less gross to let the thing go outside than to smear its guts on the wall.”
“Fair enough.” His eyes dart to my spider-carrying hand.
“Are you afraid of spider germs?” I ask. I flex my fingers in his general direction, and he shies away. “Oh my God, you know spiders don’t really have germs, right?”
“I know,” he says coolly. “I just don’t like dirt that much.”
“Okay, well, can I explain something to you about a soccer field?”
He laughs at that, which is of course the exact moment we round the corner. Halfway down the hall, Sky looks up from her homework and then quickly and unsubtly back down at it.
“You know, this is a much better conversation than the one we had earlier,” he says.
“Is it? All I’ve done is threaten to smear spider guts on you.” Talking to Liam is giving me that fluttery feeling in my gut, and I wish I could request the fluttery feeling to just once choose a target with less disaster potential.
“Yeah, but you didn’t smear spider guts on me, so that’s something.”
“Wow. I set the bar so low.”
“I get it,” he says, his tone suddenly serious. “But I do want you to know that I meant it, earlier, when I said it was good to see you back.”
And then he pushes open the door to the weight room, and he’s gone.
I feel weird and flushed and confused, but I sit down next to Sky like everything is the same as it was when I left her five minutes ago. She doesn’t say a thing, and she doesn’t even glance my way, but she’s got a big smirk on her face.
“Something amusing on your math homework?” I ask.
“Yeah, it’s just this one problem about how big of an area will be hit by the nuclear meltdown when you inevitably start dating him and your brother finds out.”
“Hilarious.”
“Oh, come on.” She squeezes my arm. “You know I’m just teasing. But he is hot, and you’ve run into him twice in one day. It almost feels like fate.”
“Twice in one day at the school we both go to,” I say dryly. “It’s like a rom-com.”
Still, I can’t deny that our interactions today were unusual. It’s not like I never spoke to him before. He doesn’t socialize with the other soccer guys all that much outside of school and sports, but he’s always … around. There have been times when we were forced to make small talk, but it’s only ever been that—small.
There is a part of me, though, that’s always felt bad for Liam. His mom left when he was a little kid, and there were a lot of rumors surrounding her departure. Before she left, the police were at their house all the time. People still talk about it. His parents were people who tried to act like everything was normal in public but had such big fights at home that the neighbors a quarter mile away got worried. His dad is grouchy and mean, which made it easy for people to believe all sorts of things—the most popular theory being that it’s all a big lie and she’s dead and buried somewhere on his vast property. Liam’s dad has done nothing to quell the rumors, either. He continues to be creepy, and he comes to fewer and fewer of Liam’s school and sports activities as time goes on. I’d like to believe if something awful was going on at home, Liam would have been taken away long ago, but I know sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. The rumors are rough, regardless, and I think his life has been pretty hard.
I glance into the weight room, where Liam is wiping sweat off his face with the bottom of his shirt. I sigh. “How big do you think the nuclear blast radius would be?”
Doctor’s appointments are getting really old. Hunter drops me off at the St. Elm hospital, so in addition to yet another checkup I will also experience the joy of riding a bus from here to school afterward. The bus is always filled mostly with elderly people, and it always smells terrible and never seems quite clean.
This isn’t the hospital I went to after my accident, but it’s where I’ve been visiting specialists, since it’s more convenient to the academy. Even walking through its doors ties my shoulder muscles to my spine with tension. I hate the feel of the hospital, where you know terrible, stressful things are happening constantly, even though the halls you’re walking through are mostly abandoned. The waiting room for my neurologist is dead silent, and when I accidentally drop my phone pulling it out of my pocket, I feel like I’m about to be scolded.
I told Grace yesterday that I’d be missing the first-period class we share, but she’s sent me a text anyway: I can’t believe you are abandoning me!!!
It makes me smile. I text back: You know I’d rather be there than having my brain examined …
Glad you’re making sure it’s still in one piece, tho.
That takes the smile away. It’s not her fault, but I want them all to stop saying things like this. I’m already too aware of my brain. Questioning it constantly. I left the hospital the first time with a big list of things to watch out for, and so far, it’s done nothing except make me paranoid. I’m clutching a copy of that list now, in fact, the one Mom marked up last night after grilling me extensively to determine which symptoms I’m experiencing and which ones I’m not and which ones are new and which ones are old and what’s bothering me the most and—
I realize I’m clenching the paper too tight in my hand, wrinkling it. I don’t want to worry about this. Don’t like thinking about my brain slamming against my skull and hiding secret wounds. All I want to think about is getting better, letting my wrist bones heal and my brain and ribs and bruised limbs rest. I don’t want to be afraid. Of my brain, or of something happening to me again.
I’m still stewing when my neurologist calls me in. She’s a nice lady with a warm smile and a soft voice.
My appointment’s pretty quick; it’s the third time I’ve seen her, and she seems to feel pretty good about how I’m doing. I wish that her confidence could inspire more of my own, but that’s life I guess. She sends me off with a quickly scrawled note for my mom and a squeeze of my arm, and then it’s time for my dreaded bus ride. I wait outside the hospital, shivering in my not-quite-warm-enough jacket.
“Amelia!”
I turn at the sound of my name. It’s the guy who owns the house next to ours in Maple Hill, waving to me as he crosses the parking lot toward the building. He’s in his early forties, same as my parents, and he moved in across the road from us a couple of years ago.
“Hi, Mr. Omerton,” I say, clutching the straps of my backpack.
“Don’t I always tell you to call me Calvin?” He smiles at me. “Mr. Omerton makes me sound so old, and I’m not old, am I?”
I don’t know how to answer that, so I just laugh lightly. He does the same.
“Are you waiting for someone?” he asks.
I don’t know why his question makes me uncomfortable, but it does. “I’m waiting for the bus. Heading back to school.”
“You want a ride? Let me take you.”
“No.” I say it too fast. I smile brightly and try again: “It’s nice of you to offer, but I wouldn’t want you to be late for work. I’m happy to ride the bus.”
“Don’t be silly. No one’s happy to ride the bus.”
“Well, I am.”
There’s no reason for me to reject his offer. He’s nice. Friendly. Comes over to chat sometimes when Dad’s working in his shop. I haven’t heard anyone in town say a single bad thing about him.
But lately, he creeps me out. My room faces the road, and a few times recently I’ve glanced out my window to the sight of his silhouette in one of his own windows. Looking directly back at me. I don’t like it, and I don’t want to be in a car alone with him.
“All right, all right.” He chuckles. “I get it, having someone your parents’ age drop you off at school isn’t cool. Enjoy the bus, Amelia.”
He lingers for a moment longer, and I think I’m supposed to change my mind, tell him no, it’s not uncool, but I feel like he’s trying to manipulate me, so I smile and say, “Thanks, I will. See you around.”
The bus arrives a couple of minutes later. There are only a few other people on it right now, and one of them has a wet cough.
Still, I don’t regret my decision at all.
* * *
It’s just my luck that when I make it back to school and stop in the bathroom, Clarissa Everly walks in with one of her friends. I’d recognize her obnoxious laugh anywhere. Clarissa’s a sophomore, and she dated my brother for a couple of months last year. They broke up right before summer vacation, and I know the real reason is that Hunter wasn’t interested anymore, but whatever he said to let her down easy has given her the impression that she still has a chance to win him back. The thing is, though, she hates me. And the feeling’s mutual.
The bathroom’s big, and I’m all the way at the far end, so they don’t notice my feet from where they stopped to touch up their makeup in the mirrors over the sinks. I’m planning to emerge and just ignore them, but the first thing Clarissa says is, “My mom thinks Maria Lugen didn’t die by accident.”
Everything inside me freezes.
“Really?” says the friend. “What else could have happened?”
“Suicide.”
I unfreeze, and my stomach plummets to my feet. I’ve been so wrapped up in the similarities between what happened to me and to h
er, I hadn’t even considered other possible ways in which her accident might not have been an accident. I don’t know a thing about Maria Lugen. I’d never even heard of her until she went missing, a couple of weeks before my accident.
“What did she even have to be unhappy about?” asks the friend, who clearly doesn’t understand how depression works.
“I don’t know,” says Clarissa. I can’t see them, but I can hear the shrug in her voice. “But what did Amelia Stern have to be unhappy about, either, and she tried to kill herself. Who knows why people do these things.”
Now my stomach has removed itself from my body altogether. This topic did, of course, come up when I was in the hospital, along with the six million other questions I was asked, but—maybe foolishly—I haven’t thought about it since. Is that what people think? Hearing Clarissa say it is one thing, but now I can’t help wondering who else believes this. My parents? Friends? Brother? It makes me furious that she thinks it’s okay to casually speculate about my mental health, like someone trying to commit suicide is all a big joke. Maybe she never got close enough to Hunter to know that it isn’t me in our family who lives with depression. Maybe she wouldn’t think it’s so funny if she knew Hunter takes a pill every morning to help him keep those kinds of thoughts at bay.
I burst out of my stall, scowling, and they both stare, shocked. The friend looks ashamed, but Clarissa doesn’t.