Page 8 of Little Pieces of Light

Xander

Day one of “regular” high school had been uneventful, if mind-numbingly unchallenging. But I’d come home to my father scribbling away at his desk, safe and content, and that was all that mattered.

And Emery…

There had been a moment in the cafeteria when I thought maybe…

but no. If she had a good reason for ignoring my letters, she felt no urgency to tell me.

The humiliation brought a fresh rush of blood to my face as I thought of how I’d poured my heart out to her.

She probably showed my letters to her friends and laughed and laughed…

I was better off focusing on my goals for the year:

keep myself mentally stimulated

make the rowing crew

earn money

The last was imperative. The more I saved from Dad’s pension and from selling the Gaithersburg house, the better the facility I could place him in, should it come to that. I needed a job, one that was close to Dad in case he needed me.

I printed up some ads for tutoring services in math and science and put my cell phone number at the bottom. On the following morning, I pinned my flyers to bulletin boards in the Academy hallways.

The halls were relatively empty due to the student-led club fair happening upstairs.

I wandered up to the sun-soaked patio on the second level, with views of the Narragansett to the north and the Atlantic to the south.

Booths adorned with streamers, lights, and music lined the patio, enticing students to investigate.

But one booth had only a simple hand-painted banner:

Do you want the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything? Join the Math she’s the one who owed me an explanation—she made a huffing sound. “Fine, whatever. I need the help. What’s your rate?”

“Thirty dollars an hour,” I said. It was too high. She was going to tell me to get lost—

“Done,” Emery said. “Tomorrow and Saturday at four o’clock? There are study lounges on the third floor, just off the library.”

Her imperious tone got my hackles up. Clearly, Emery Wallace was used to the world bending to fit her schedule. “Tomorrow works, but I have row tryouts on Saturday.”

“Oh yeah?” she said. “My boyfriend is captain of the crew.”

Her boyfriend, Tucker, the bully…

I made my voice stony. “That information has no bearing on my life.”

A pause, and I could practically hear the moment when Emery decided not to hang up on me.

She scoffed. “Whatever. Tomorrow and Monday, then?”

“I can do that.”

“ Great ,” she said with sarcasm. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Four o’clock.”

Tomorrow. After seven years, we’d be face to face. Part of me wanted to step back in time to make it happen yesterday. Part of me feared it’d be like tearing open an old wound and making it bleed again.

“See you tomorrow, Emery,” I said quietly.

She gave a tight, “Yep,” and the line went dead.

I set my phone down and stared at it for a moment before my gaze wandered to the items on my desk.

There weren’t many; only the things I used or cared about the most: a photo of Dad and me at the fifth grade science fair, where I won first place for my homemade particle accelerator; my laptop; a can full of pens; a notebook; and the book Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

I opened the book to the middle, to the flower that lay pressed between the pages, where it had been for seven years.

The daffodil had dried to a papery consistency and had lost much of its bright hue, but in my mind’s eye it was still a vibrant yellow.

I could still remember the exact moment Emery put it in my hands.

I could still feel her soft kiss on my cheek…

“Don’t be stupid,” I murmured. “Do not. Be. Stupid.”

Like every night for the past seven years, I contemplated throwing it away, and just like every night for the past seven years, I put the flower safely back in the book and returned it to its place.