Page 26 of Wherever You Are

I waver between a bursting smile and apprehension. I want to be on the bursting smile side of things, and I trust Garrison more and more every day. “Yes.”

Garrison’s arm curves around my waist—

“Hey! You two!”

I instantly jolt and become a stiff board, my head swinging towards the exclamation, but I’d recognize that voice anywhere.

Lo, my brother Lo. The one dressed like a Slytherin. The one sitting on a cluster of haybales across the pool. The Lo that everyone thinks is my cousin. That Loren Hale—yeah, he sends aseethingglare at Garrison, one that could set the universe on fire.

I hear the warning:don’t touch my little sister.

We both immediately tear apart, an invisible wedge shoved between us until about ten-feet separates his body from mine. Garrison rakes a hand through the side of his hair before he lifts his hoodie back up.

Lily and Ryke are next to my brother, but I can only see their lips move. My hearing hasn’t reached Superman levels. Nor my lip-reading skills because I have zero clue what they’re saying.

Garrison rotates, his back turned to me, and his cellphone out. I (poorly) sewed a pocket in my Vega costume, and my phone vibrates once.

“Ca-Caw!” I look up as I take out my phone. Daisy Calloway sits on the rooftop with an antler headband. She calls down to her boyfriend who’s currently dressed in plaid. “Ca-Caw!”

When Ryke sees her up on the roof, she smiles and says, “Hunt me.”

I don’t watch them for long.

I check my Twitter message notification.

From@garrisonwither

Going to the bathroom. I’ll be back soon. If you’re back on our haybale, save me a seat?

I reply with awill do. As I look up, he’s already disappeared. So Ihead towards the haybale—but I stop dead in my tracks.It’s occupied.I swing my head to the left and right, my eyes swerving like a frantic driver behind the wheel. Where do I sit? Most haybales are taken.

I’m not good at parties.

I just don’t know what to do or how to fill the time. There’s a hidden memo that says:stay off your cell.My phone actually takes away the nerves, but then I worry about being rude. And the anxiety returns. It’s not a fun cycle.

“Sorry,” I apologize to a family of pirates. They try to squeeze around me. I’m in the way. I apologize to two preteen girls dressed as angels. I knocked into one of their wings—or maybe I just barely brushed it? She didn’t seem that upset. I don’t even know if she noticed.

Willow Moore isn’t a total failure at life.

I have something going for me.

I could go talk to Lily or Lo, but they look like they’re having a sweet moment on their haybale, both squeezed close together, and their tiny son, dressed like a Gryffindor-to-be, is with them.

Likewise, Rose and Connor have their daughter in arm, and they stand so near one another, their lips moving too fast to keep up. Not that I’d approach them together. I think I could grow the courage to approach RosewithoutConnor.

I push up my glasses and mutter, “Carpe Diem.” I’m not a boy like any of the students at Welton Academy inDead Poets Society, but I can Carpe Diem just like them.

I just need to…figure out where to go. I spin around, standing so close to the pool’s edge that I back up and back up. Just what I need, to fall right in the—

I whack a torch.

Oh God.

I whacked aflamingtorch staked into the grass. I go to grab the iron pole, and I fall with it onto a haybale. Where that awful neighborhood lady, Mrs. Nash, and her son sit. They spring from the hazardous area I just created, and I clumsily collapse onto the hay that begins to singe and burn and flame.

“Willow!” Lo yells.

I cough at the gust of smoke and try to stand, my cheek hot. I smack a flame off my skirt and just fall to the grass. So I can crawl away from the fire.