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“Good morning, arch-amigo,” I say back, because this is always Mark’s response.
Sam smiles at this and pulls away from the curb.
I’m still not entirely awake. But if I’m not jumping into the day, I can at least let myself settle into it.
Speaking of rituals: All high schools are pretty much the same. The predictability makes it much easier for me.
I don’t think I’ve ever been in this school before, but it’s hard to tell. The hallways all look the same. The morning bells all sound the same. The announcements are all read in the same monotone.
Sam doesn’t leave my side, and soon enough, some of our other friends join us. We’re all on the basketball team, so we’re a tall crowd—Sam being the shortest, and Sam being the talker. Mark, I sense, is one of the quieter ones. People don’t really look to him for conversation.
The books in Mark’s locker are meticulously stacked. I am not surprised to open one of his notebooks and find tight, precise handwriting, always in the same color ink.
“Come on,” Sam says. “We don’t want to be late. Hartshorn will tear us a new one.”
I am grateful that he wants to lead. It saves me the trouble of having to figure out where I need to be. Even when we get to math class, I know exactly where to sit, because there are two empty chairs next to each other, and the way Sam heads straight for one makes me know I should head straight for the other.
I assume that Mark and Sam have been friends forever. But during class, I access some memories and find out that Sam only moved to town last year and met Mark through the team. They’ve been pretty inseparable since. I don’t know how Mark feels about this—one of the rules of inhabiting a body is that you can access the facts, but not interpretations.
Throughout math, Sam passes me notes. Most of them are cartoons—funny caricatures of Mr. Hartshorn and other people in the class. I’m probably supposed to reciprocate, pass something back. But instead I let him see me smile, let him see me laugh. This seems to be enough. I’m afraid to draw caricatures myself—it’s one thing if you know the people, but capturing them purely by sight, without any knowledge of who they are, can be dangerous. The wrong things can come out when you view a body as just a body, a face as just a face.
I study the people in the class, in a somewhat dreamy math-soundtracked daze. When my eye returns to Sam, I can see that he’s noticed, that he’s curious.
The next note he passes me asks, See anything you like?
I write back, Just lost in the clouds.
I have no idea what Mark will remember from this day. Mr. Hartshorn is talking about something I already know, but that doesn’t mean Mark will automatically learn it. So I remind myself to focus. I try to leave notes behind. Not about the fact that I’ve been here—I don’t want Mark to know that. But I don’t want the day to be missing, either. I want him to retain the knowledge he otherwise would have gained.
The classes I have with Sam are simple—I just follow him in a
nd sit in the seats that have been left for us. For the classes when we’re apart, I have to access Mark’s mind and figure out where to go, where to sit, what the assignment is. Information-related exhaustion sets in again.
I can breathe easier at lunch, though. Sam meets me at my locker and teases me when the book I put back inside is out of order.
“That’s not like you, Mark, to be so messy.”
The book is, at most, an inch out of line.
“I guess I’m just in a rebellious mood,” I say.
“You better be careful. One minute it’s your locker, and the next thing you know, your socks won’t match.”
I feign horror. Sam puts his arm around my shoulder to comfort me.
“Sorry,” he says. “I know how upsetting that image must have been to you. Like genocide, only on your toes.”
“It’ll never happen,” I reply. “Promise me it’ll never happen.”
He squeezes my shoulder. “Not even if I have to pick out your socks myself.” With that, we head into the cafeteria and find our World of Boys. Even though I’m used to it by now, I’m still fascinated by how often guys split off into their own World of Boys at lunch, and girls head into their World of Girls. It’s such a steady pattern, they don’t even recognize it. If I could ask Mark about it, I’m sure he’d say that he was just hanging out with his team, with his friends. The fact that they’re all boys is secondary. But it defines everything.
They talk about teams I don’t know, and girls I don’t know. They talk about video games I know, and TV shows that sound familiar. I don’t say much, and I’m lucky, because Mark isn’t really expected to. Only Sam pays close attention to me, to what I’m saying and what I’m not saying. He thinks I’m oblivious, shoveling down my fries. But I’ve learned to know when someone wants me to say something, or just wants reassurance that I’m there.
I wait in fear for the comment that might rise from the scrutiny—an “are you okay?” followed up by a “you don’t seem quite yourself.” Sam, I sense, knows Mark well. But even when you know someone well—or especially when you know someone well—you are still looking for clues about who they are today.
“Alicia, really?” Sam is saying now. “What do you think, Mark? Is Alicia your type?”
I look at him. I can’t access fast enough to figure out who Alicia is.
