16

"Okay, that isn’t hopping or running or skipping, but it could be frolicking. Are you frolicking?” Grant asks as he stands to greet me in the courtyard with his sandwich in hand and his soda on the picnic table.

The sky is perfectly blue, and I’m still imagining a big dance number featuring all of the nearby squirrels and ladybugs. I glance at the mural as I walk by and do a quick sweep, top to bottom. I pick a two-foot wide section and scan it all the way down to the grass. I set down my tray and continue to circle the table until I’m on his side.

Grant reaches over and wraps his sandwich hand around my shoulders, hugging me into his chest.

I speak, muffled, into his shirt. “First, yes. I would call that frolicking. Second, hi. Third, yesterday was a really, really bad day. Really bad. And I’m sorry I took it out on you.”

He leans his head down, and I feel his cheek resting against mine. He closes his arm around tighter. The smell of his grape jelly makes me grin.

His speech sounds soft as it whispers through my hair. “I know. I shouldn’t have huffed off like a brat.” His sandwich has the cutest little nibbles taken out of it.

“But you are a brat.” I push against his shoulders, and he fakes a giant groan of pain and staggers back as if I’ve given him a roundhouse kick to the neck.

He brushes his T-shirt smooth (it uses Barium, Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen to spell BaCON) and then comes back to the table to sit. I do the same. We’re positioned on one side of the table, facing the south wall mural because we always look when we’re here. He knows the drill.

“I really am sorry,” I say. “I know. Me too.” He leans over to bump my shoulder and takes a huge bite of his sandwich. Mouth full of sticky peanut butter, he says, “So congratulations on a Carmella-free English class. How did that happen?”

“Well…” I pull apart my white dinner roll and smear my white mashed potatoes across the sections in my white Styrofoam tray. “They changed her schedule, I don’t know why, but she’s gone.”

“I thought you asked Evelyn to call and change

your schedule.”

“I did, but Reed said that Evelyn called to change Carmella’s instead. I just got lucky, I guess. Maybe Carmella had to find some way to replace her class on Post-Modern Industrialism in the Western World or something.”

“What?” Grant lets his sandwich-filled mouth hang open with confusion.

Even when he’s gross, he’s not gross.

“Nothing. Whatever. Anyway, I am basically the happiest girl in the world. I probably won’t ever have to see her again.”

I’m distracted by some freshmen boys that charge out of the cafeteria and chase each other through the courtyard, jumping through a circle of girls who are sitting and eating in a big, bubbly ring on the grass.

“Okay, you do remember that you live in the same house. In adjacent rooms.”

“Yes, Grant, I remember. But we’ve got rehearsals almost every night, and she’s got dance team practice, plus you and I get here early, and—I don’t know—I’m just feeling optimistic!”

“Oh my God.” Grant stares at me and sets down the last bit of his sandwich.

“What?” I ask, looking over my shoulder.

“Oh my God!”

“What?”

Grant stands up and shouts across the courtyard, “Ladies and gentlemen! Imogen is feeling optimistic! Cake for everyone!”

“Oh shut your mouth, Thornton!” I throw a bit of bread at him and look around to make sure that he didn’t actually get anyone’s attention. He didn’t.

“See anything new?” Grant asks as I turn my face to the wall again. Top to bottom, starting with that big red “C.” Just outside my field of vision, I sense him turn his head to the wall. When my eyes get all the way to the grass, I let out a little sigh and let my gaze wander back to the top.

“See that blue dog up there?” I point above our heads at this pathetic-looking blue dog with a striped tail. “I thought that might be hers. Then I realized the stripes spelled ‘Tommy Rules’ so…”

“Not hers.” He continues to stare at the wall beside me. The breeze blows, and I smell his hair goop, strong and boy-scented, like the smell of soap and cheap grocery store cologne and a little bit of something else.

“Definitely not,” I agree.

I scan another large stripe.

“Have you ever considered that maybe she didn’t paint anything? I mean, how do you know she even put something up there?” Grant continues to scan the wall.

“I just know. Her whole class did it before their graduation. It’s not really her style to sit out and be a bystander when it comes to a public display of anything.”

Or it wasn’t really her style.

I drop my chin.

“It’s been a tough few days, Gen, I know that.”

“Yeah.” I nod my head and mumble toward my chest, “You have no idea.”

“Yes. I do.” He turns on the bench and grabs my knees, forcing me to spin on my seat and face him. “I know that you’re scared of change. We all are. And I know you don’t know how you and Carmella are gonna share a family. But I know you’re strong.”

I brush my hands through my hair—avoiding his statement with conviction.

Grant reaches up and puts his hands on the sides of my face very gently. His more-green-than-brown eyes are full of fire. “You are stronger than you give yourself credit for. She does not have the power to hurt you unless you let her. And you are doing what you need to do to stay well. Seeing George. Journaling. Whatever. Do you know how hard that is? How many people never do that?”

“I guess so. And I guess if Dad’s happy to pay for extra sessions, why not go? If one session is good, three is better, right?”

“Yep. It’s multiplication. Math is never wrong.”

He smiles. His hands are so soft on my cheeks. I notice the way his chest moves with each breath, and my eyelids close and open slowly as I look into his face.

My voice comes out softer than I mean for it to. “Very good point.”

Also very good face.

Grant snaps his hands back into his lap so fast it almost makes me jump. The absence of his palms on my cheeks leaves them feeling cold. He glances at his watch. “Uh, so, no tech rehearsal tonight.” He shifts his weight back and forth twice before I answer his non-question.

“Right. Do you wanna study for your science thing later? Your preliminaries for regional are tomorrow.”

He hoists his bag over his shoulder. “Yep. We’re the home school so our ‘field trip’ is to our own gym. How stupid is that?” He rolls his eyes, and I just almost die. He looks at me for a second, and then shifts his backpack to the other side and blurts, “Okay. I’ll, uh, see you later.” He takes off toward the building, and I sit there. My stomach lurches after him, like my whole body wants to be tugged along with him when he goes. A tug like gravity.

“Bye.” I sort of toss out the word as the abrupt end to our meeting makes my head go crazy with all of the worst kinds of doubts.

Maybe he stopped holding my face because I have food in my teeth.

Or horrible school-lunch breath.

Or maybe he saw my eyes go all starry and worried that I was getting the wrong idea about his strictly platonic face-holding.

I close my eyes for a second to listen to my breathing and keep it slow. When I open them again, my eyes instinctively scan the wall one more time while I gather my bag. I notice a cluster of color near the base of the wall: tiny leaves are painted in the midst of their fall. Red, gold, and green, their concrete tree in a perpetual state of losing. The largest leaf, forever caught on the wind, is more green than brown, but definitely both.

For the first time, I smile as I leave the wall behind me.