I’m laughing as I sign off.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting in the living room, watching the Shirtless Chef make stuffed shells on my phone, which is surprisingly hypnotic. So hypnotic, I drop my water glass. It doesn’t shatter, thankfully, but it makes a big-ass mess and prompts Cookie to start barking. I’m cleaning it up when I notice something on Cormac’s built-in bookshelf. Several heavy volumes are tucked together in the corner of the very bottom shelf.
Well, fuck me, I guess he doesn’t just have one yearbook. He hasmany.
Cookie gives me a sharp look and another throaty bark that promises to turn into a cavalcade of them.
I bribe her with a treat, and once she’s calm—ahem,calmer—I finish cleaning up the spilled water. Finally, I’m free to check out Cormac’s collection.
I run my finger over the books first. Then I slide one of the pleather-bound volumes from the shelf. I open the front cover and pause, smiling when I see one of the first people to have signed it was Mr. Mathiesson, his physics teacher. Then there’s a very long note from Kenji. I decline to read either, which would feel like even more of an invasion of privacy, and flip forward to the senior portraits. Mine is alphabetically first. I shake my head, mouth scrunched to the side, as I take in my bad hair and grimace.
My senior quote, of course, is:Nora takes things too far.
I find Cormac’s photo and smile as I slide a finger over it. He’s looking away from the camera, his expression serious. His glasses are way too big for hisface, but I have to admit he looks handsome and long-suffering, as if he were already exhausted by me.
His quote:N/A.
I’m not surprised he didn’t provide one. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t appreciate useless tasks.
I flip through a few more pages and a piece of old, yellowed lined paper tumbles into my lap.
Frowning, I open it, and then gawk at my own handwriting.
Dear Cormac,
The principal said I should write this note saying I am SO sorry about ruining your science experiment. It was a mistake, but I should have been more careful. Please forgive me.
Nora
I cringe, because yeah, that was a pretty shitty, principal-mandated apology note. Ihadbeen sorry—at first, but that was before Cormac yelled at me. And I meanyelled. It had felt like further proof that my existence was nothing but an inconvenience to him.
Still, it’s a one hundred percent shitty apology note, especially now that I know how much effort he’d probably poured into his project.
So why did he keep it?
I tuck it back into the yearbook and return the volume to its shelf, studying the others arranged there. Why keep any of them? I wasn’t a big fan of high school, and I know Cormac mustn’t have been either.
I’m still thinking about it when I tuck into bed, surrounded by the clean, simple, comforting scent of him.
It’sthe middle of the night, and Cookie is barking at me from approximately five inches from my face.
“No more cookies,” I mutter, slapping my arm over my ear. She nudges my elbow with her paw and then barks again.
Yet another bark has me moaning and sitting up. My hoodie is out in the living room, but I reach for the small pile of treats I stowed in the drawer of Cormac’s nightstand, where he keeps an old paperback copy of Isaac Asimov’s short stories, along with a penlight. When I first opened the drawer, I flipped through the book and smiled when I saw his bookmark—a receipt for a stupidly expensive dog chew.
I offer one of the treats to Cookie. She gobbles it eagerly and then shoves my arm again with another bark, this one with a small whine chasing the end of it.
I sigh resignedly.
“You need to do your business, don’t you?”
A happy yip follows this pronouncement, and I sigh again and climb out of Cormac’s very comfortable bed. It’s king-size, a vast upgrade from my full bed, and the sheets must be ten thousand thread count. I don’t know if that’s actually a thing, but it feels like a thing, and I am very reluctant to get up. It doesn’t hurt that whatever detergent he uses smells incredible.
Cookie unleashes another yip and leaps to the floor, her little body flying surprisingly fast. She follows it up with a doggy dance as she keeps barking.
“Shhh,” I say with a groan. “I know what it’s like when you eat too much fast food. That’s definitely my bad, but you’regoing to have to pipe down, or everyone in this neighborhood is going to turn on us.”
I start walking toward the door, and she launches ahead with enough exuberance to make me smile. She’s got a personality and a half, this dog, possibly five. Someone should do a field study on her.
