“Yesterday was the best day ever!” Claudia’s voice enters the school before her, louder than everyone else in the general vicinity. As usual. I love my best friend, but sometimes I feel like I should invest in a lifetime supply of earplugs. If her intended career goal of becoming a marine biologist doesn’t end up working out, she should definitely consider becoming one of those announcers at huge sporting events. She won’t even need a microphone.
“Seriously!” Tabitha Young trails behind Claudia, her beaded earrings jingling around her face. “That place was amazing. Laser tag, indoor mini golf, batting cages, and go-carts? I never wanted to leave.”
Lauren Gregory giggles, hiking her backpack up on her right shoulder. “I think the trampolines were the best. I can’t believe I finally managed a backflip.”
“I’m just psyched you didn’t break your ankle doing one,” Claudia adds. “That happened to my neighbor at a trampoline park once. He had to wear a cast for months.”
Lauren shudders. “That would totally ruin my softball season. Maybe I’ll stick with go-carts from now on. Even if Tabitha did kick our butts.”
“Every time.” Tabitha raises her hands in victory, and my friends all break into giggles, then high-five each other as I stand staring at them. It’s been at least three minutes and none of them have noticed me yet. I look down at my outfit. I’m wearing a bright pink shirt with bright yellow flowers. And bright yellow leggings. I’m not exactly blending into the walls.
I cough and Claudia finally looks up.
“Veronica! Hey! Where were you on Saturday?”
A lightning bolt of panic strikes my stomach, sending every inch of the rest of me scuttling for cover. Does Claudia know we checked Mom in to Pine Knolls this weekend? Does she have some sort of best friend radar? Or maybe she planted a bug in our car?
Luckily, Claudia speaks up again before my mind has a chance to brew any more totally unlikely conspiracy theories. “I called you like a billion times to see if you wanted to come with us. I texted you a billion and one times. Where were you?”
Putting my mom behind bars.
Sitting by helplessly as my life changed forever.
Listening to music while drowning in my own tears.
Obviously I don’t say any of that, though. I just pull my phone out of my pocket and look at it. The screen is black, so I press the power button.
Oh.
“My phone’s dead.”
“It’s been dead for two days?” Tabitha pushes forward. “And you haven’t charged it yet? What’s wrong with you?”
Even in the midst of my angst, I still stifle a giggle. Of course it wouldn’t occur to Tabitha that someone could forget about their phone for a single minute. Tabitha is basically attached to her phone. Sometimes I imagine an invisible cord tethering her thumbs to her phone screen. Even when it’s in her pocket, or in her locker, where we’re required to keep our phones during the school day, there’s a still a connection. A bond, like the one I feel for my softball glove. When I put it on, it feels like home.
“I, um, was busy yesterday.”
Technically, it’s the truth.
“I went out with my family Saturday morning and left my phone at home. I must have forgotten to charge it yesterday.”
That’s also the truth. It just leaves out the part about how I left my phone at home because I didn’t want to be reminded that there was a happy world out there going on without me. And how I forgot to charge it because I spent most of yesterday crying and trying to lose myself in a book.
“Whoops.” I shrug my shoulders in a “what are you gonna do?” motion and hope that everyone accepts my answer. Which they should. Because I’m a very truthful person.
Usually.
“Weird.” Tabitha pulls her own phone out of her pocket and clutches it tighter, like it’s about to spring legs and skitter away. “You missed out on an awesome trip. We spent the whole day at that new entertainment complex. It was epic.”
“Bummer.” I think I’m making an innocent face, but Claudia still looks at me curiously. Did she hear something in my voice? She is my best friend, after all. And best friends have powers, almost as strong as that power parents have when they raise an eyebrow and basically know what the other one is thinking. Claudia and I aren’t that good, but we’re close. I can always tell when she’s in a bad mood.
Maybe she can always tell when I’m lying.
I give her a reassuring smile and try to mentally send her the message that I’ll tell her the truth later. Because I will. Absolutely. Best friends don’t keep secrets this big from each other. She deserves to know the truth.
Just not now, when anyone could overhear.
Luckily, my friends don’t seem to suspect that anything is wrong. Because a second later they all start gushing about their “best day ever” again.
“I wish you’d gotten my messages!” Claudia practically bounces on the toes of her sneakers. “We beat a group of super snobby girls at laser tag and then totally rocked the batting cages.” She makes a swinging motion and practically knocks Ryan Halpert off his feet. I stifle a giggle as he gives her a dirty look.
“We wanted to get more practice before tryouts,” Tabitha adds.
“Cool.” I picture the three of them traipsing around the entertainment complex, faces flushed with joy and excitement. I hear the ting of the bat as it connects with the ball, and the whir and whoosh of the batting cage machine as it prepares to pop another ball toward the hitter. I can practically imagine being there myself.
Except I wasn’t. Because I was with Mom.
“Sounds like fun,” I add weakly. I turn toward my locker and slowly spin the combination code. 12 … 36 … 18. It clicks open and I bury my head inside, preparing myself to tune out the rest of their gushing.
“It was!” Claudia says. Then her face falls. “Except I kept hitting foul tips. When I crank the speed up in the cage, I can never fully connect with the ball.”
“You did fine!” Lauren nudges her in the side. “You had an off day.”
“No.” Claudia shakes her head stubbornly. “I need more practice.” She looks at me again. “Veronica, is your mom still planning on helping us in the next few weeks?”
I twist around so fast that I whack my forehead on my locker door. “Aah!” My eyes water with pain as I clutch at my face.
Claudia leans closer. “Ouch! That looks like it hurts.” She gently pries my fingers off. “Just a red mark, though. At least you’re not bleeding.”
So that’s one thing I have going for me.
I’m not concerned about my forehead, though. Right now, I could be gushing blood all over the floor and I’d still be more worried about what Claudia just asked me.
A few months ago, Mom had promised to help the four of us get ready for the All-Star team tryouts. She said that since she couldn’t coach our team this spring, it was the least she could do to work with us for some special skills training.
“We’ll do some hitting and catching, and even a bunch of running drills.” Mom had clapped her hands together, her eyes mischievous. “I’ll work you girls so hard that you’ll collapse on the ground. You’ll be a bunch of exhausted All-Stars!”
Mom had promised us that in one of her sober moments, though, on a day when she hadn’t had “one too many glasses of wine.”
Mom had promised us that before she knew she was going to rehab.
I take a deep breath before answering and shoot Claudia an apologetic look out of the corner of my eye. I’ll tell you the truth later, I mentally tell her. Really.
“Oh no!” I smack my forehead dramatically, then wince when I accidentally hit the spot I just injured. “That’s the other reason I was busy yesterday. Mom left on a business trip. A long one. Like, for a few months.” I make sure that I’m making eye contact with my friends. Apparently that’s very important when you’re lying. At least that’s what I heard on a movie I watched once about secret agents.
“A few months?” Lauren’s shoulders slump. “She can’t help us at all?”
“She won’t be here for tryouts,” I say darkly. I think about dealing with the pressures of tryouts without Mom cheering me on. What if she’s not here for all the games this spring and summer, too? I force a note of pep into my voice. “But that’s okay. We can do it ourselves. We’re awesome, right?”
I hold my breath as I wait to see how my friends will react. They seem to buy it. “What a bummer,” Claudia says. “We’ll have to send her a video of tryouts.”
“I’d miss my mom tons if she went away for that long,” Tabitha says. “You’ll have to FaceTime her.” Then she changes the subject, pulling out her phone (of course) to show us this “amazing” YouTube video before the bell rings and her phone has to disappear into the dungeon of her locker for the rest of the day.
And just like that, my mom—and this weekend—is forgotten.
By my friends, of course.
Me, though? I know for a fact that what’s going on with Mom will hover around me for the rest of the day, haunting me like a ghost with unfinished business. I’ll never forget.
I may never forgive, either.