14. Chance

The email goes like this:

HEY, JOCELYN. SORRY ABOUT THE WHOLE EXCHANGE AT LUNCH. DID RACHEL TELL YOU ABOUT THE NOTE?

Her reply is short and sweet:

YES. LOOK—I’M THE ONE WHO IS SORRY. I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT. CAN I MAKE IT UP TO YOU? PICK YOU UP IN THE MORNING ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL?

The imaginary email.

Her imaginary reply.

I think of what it’d be like to have email or an Internet connection.

Maybe I should be thinking of something else, like how it’s going to be back at school now that I’m known as a gun-toting gangster. But instead I think back to Jocelyn, about the conversation and misunderstanding at lunch. I think back to what Rachel told me and how I was looking forward to seeing Jocelyn during history class.

I never had a chance.

Life’s all about chances.

Maybe I’m a little too young to fully appreciate this, but that’s what it’s about.

Chances.

And the element therein.

Dad used to tell me—well, tell isn’t actually right, it was more like preach to me—that there was no such thing in this life as chance. That God controlled everything.

I wanted to say, “Yeah, well, if that’s the case, Pops, then why did God put you and Mom together?”

I think it’s easier not believing in God, knowing that Dad does.

It’s easier to pick a side.

Chance.

That’s what I believe in. That’s the team I’m on.

The random fateful chance that some guy comes across a grandfather I’ll never know and puts two slugs into him.

The random fateful chance that one day I’ll be accused of having a gun in my locker.

I’m full of questions. Were there rounds in it? Where did their investigation lead? Why haven’t they called?

Most importantly, what’s going on with Jocelyn?

I’m listening to the second side of an album by Love and Rockets. Strange stuff. I want to use the word psychedelic for it. It’s like rock for creepy people.

I kinda like it.

I don’t have the volume high.

I wish tomorrow would come. I wish I could talk to Jocelyn right now.

I think of ten thousand things to say.

I know that by tomorrow morning, I probably won’t say any of them.