Page 4

Chapter 4

Everett

Did I respond when Mr.Goldberg called my name in homeroom? Only because declaring my presence during attendance was Pavlovian at this point. My history teacher’s gloomy voice somehow cut through the white noise that had enshrouded me since walking into school today. “Adler?”

Here, but I very much wished I wasn’t.

Before I’d even finished toasting three of Abigail’s Eggos for breakfast this morning, Mom had suggested I take a mental health day. It was just the two of us in the kitchen; my sisters were still asleep, perhaps the ultimate perk of being in elementary and middle school. They weren’t forced to wake up to watch the sun rise every morning. Abigail was going to hate me for stealing her waffles, but Margot had finished off my Golden Grahams, and Mom’s strawberry-banana Chobani didn’t really do it for me. If I hadn’t snoozed my alarm twice, I’d be making pancakes.

“You look worn-out, Everett,” Mom commented as I waited for the toaster to pop. She was wearing one of my dad’s old rugby shirts and sitting at the table with a bowl-sized mug of coffee and her sketch pad. Mara Adler, acclaimed children’s book illustrator. “Why not go back to bed? I’ll call school.”

I shook my head. If I went back to bed, I would have nothing to do but think. Yes, I would also most definitely fall asleep, but in between sleeping and not sleeping, I would dwell.

I would dwell on the fact that anniversaries were the absolute worst. Hallmark and the marketing industry painted them as height-of-happiness occasions that needed to be celebrated, but I had yet to feel the urge to buy a metaphorical confetti cannon.

“No thanks, Mom.” I shook my head. “I’ve gotta go to school.”

Because at least if I was at school, I’d have no choice but to focus on classes. We might’ve already put down my deposit at Vanderbilt, but final exams still mattered. My own personal shit would have no choice but to move to my brain’s back burner.

“Take the Bronco,” Mom told me after I shrugged on my backpack, grabbed my keys and left the house, and then promptly returned to the house. My car’s battery was dead, and the jumper cables were in Mom’s Suburban, which was of course being inspected. “I don’t need—”

“Yes, you do,” I cut her off, a little too abruptly. “You do need a car today.” I gestured to the family calendar on the fridge, covered in blue ink. “Abigail’s science fair is this afternoon, and you promised Margot you’d go dress shopping together after school. It’s Nolan Greenberg’s bar mitzvah next weekend.”

And on a selfish note, I thought, I do not want to drive Dad’s car.

I was fine with it sitting dormant in the garage, but my hand always started trembling whenever I climbed in and tried to stick the keys in the ignition. The car somehow still smelled like his Old Spice and earthy tobacco. An ancient tin of chew sat in the glove compartment, and a couple of Margot’s colorful handmade friendship bracelets hung from the rearview mirror. I had no idea how my mother had the strength to drive it.

“You need a car, Mom,” I said, trying to ignore the lump in my throat. “I’ll text Grace.”

She smiled softly; neither of us had mentioned it, but we both knew what day it was. “Thank you, hon….” She trailed off, and I saw her eyes wander over to the kitchen cabinet that she kept stocked with Airborne, Tylenol, Zyrtec, multivitamins, and Abigail’s ADHD medication. There was also an orange bottle with my name on it—and still full.

Don’t ask. I gritted my teeth. Please don’t ask.

My prescription had been filled three months ago, and no, today was not the day I’d decide to pop open that bottle. I didn’t want to go down that road again. I didn’t want to feel worse than I already felt.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay home?” Mom tried instead, one last time. She wasn’t going to make me take those pills. That was my call. “Or go in a little late?”

“Nope, I’m good,” I told her, but regretted it the second Grace’s Subaru pulled up and I discovered James behind the wheel. It turned out Grace was sick.

James had been more of a dick than usual, so maybe he was concerned, but I doubted it was about his sister. Here and now in homeroom, I glanced over my shoulder to catch him texting from the back row. I was a terrible texter-on-the-sly, so I just kept my phone in my locker. Grace? I wondered. Maybe Isa?

Isa was also bizarrely absent today, and she and James were pretty close—close enough to be a long-standing musical duo. Last weekend’s family game night had wrapped up with one of our traditional talent shows and they’d gotten a standing ovation for their rendition of the Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

I’d tried not to stare at Grace while James played the piano and harmonized with Isa’s hypnotizing vocals. Ride? I’d texted her later that night, and she wrote back: Or die!

We’d been saying that to each other ever since our friendship had publicly ended freshman year. Three years to the day, actually. Because three years to the day, I’d horrifically broken up with the third point of our triangle, Isa Cruz. “It’s girl code,” I remembered Grace telling me. “I don’t want to lose you, Ev, but I do want to egg your house and call you a complete moron.” Tears slipped down her cheeks, and I resisted the urge to wipe them away. “How could you do that to Isa?”

I shifted in my seat, knees accidentally banging the bottom of my desk. I’d tried over the years to make up with Isa—I didn’t want to be her boyfriend again, but I did miss her as my best friend—but even if we were cornhole partners at a family cookout, she made sure I knew we weren’t partners in any other way, shape, or form.

I really wanted to try, though. Hopefully sometime she would let me back in.

Say the word, Isabel Cruz, I thought, and we’ll start a new Snapchat streak.

But as of now: Happy third anniversary to the day my life took a double-downward spiral!

With only ten minutes left in homeroom, I asked Mr.Goldberg for a hall pass under the guise of a bathroom break. I’d decided to retract my earlier “I’m good” statement and ask Mom if she’d mind telling a white lie to get me out of school. Did that make me a wimp? Maybe, but I didn’t care. I already knew I’d need to steel myself from shuddering in the Bronco. Dad, I’d think. Dad, Dad, Dad.

If I slept for several hours, I could pull it together in time to go see Abigail’s science fair presentation later. It was all about the wonders of beekeeping, and she’d worked so hard on it.

My locker was on my way to the restrooms, so I made a pit stop and input my combination before popping open the latch. I grabbed my phone and it lit up to show a few notifications, but the one I zeroed in on was a text from Grace. What’s the demon count? I imagined typing back to what I assumed would be her I’M HAVING AN EXORCISM!!! message.

But no, fifteen minutes ago, she’d written: Just go with it.

I rubbed my forehead, not really in the mood to play “Friendly or Flirty?” Messaging with Grace could be agonizing sometimes, because it required so much analysis on my end. If she was joking around, I was cool with joking around. But if she was flirting with me, I wanted to flirt with her for as long as I could. Was I delusional in thinking that she might like me the way I liked her? That, per one of Margot’s young adult romance books, we could be a friends-to-lovers scenario?

Text threads provided little to no context, so it was tough.

My valiant response was a question mark.

A gray bubble appeared: You’ll see.

You’ll see? I inwardly groaned. What does that mean?

I started tapping something back, but then heard a pair of heels in the hall. With Isa absent, it could only be a teacher. “Crap,” I muttered, shoving my phone into my pocket and slamming my locker shut. I needed to hurry back to homeroom. There was no time to set up and put a plan in motion with Mom, but now I thought that was for the best. I needed to stay busy, stay distracted, stay out of my head.

Because, god, I really didn’t want to think about my dad.