Then I kept on flipping until I got to the sophomore class photos. My finger scanned the list of alphabetical names until I found mine:Candy Judd. I sighed. They hadn’t even used my full name in the high school yearbook.
The black-and-white image smiled back at me. That was the year I’d tried swoopy bangs and long layers. My over-plucked eyebrows were regrettable, but I still looked bright-eyed. Youthful in a way you couldn’t manufacture, no matter how many retinol-based serums you had on your nightstand.
My gaze scrutinized the sea of familiar faces. I saw Laramie Burke, who’d always been a firecracker. I wondered absently if she was still helping her family across the highway at Grandpappy’s. Then my eyes drifted and found Lauren Walker as the very last photo in the bottom row.Lo. My former best friend.
Nostalgia and sadness fought for the top spot as my finger traced the features of her sassy, smiling face. I remembered she’d specifically worn a crop top on school picture day to show off her new belly-button piercing, risking an in-school suspension if the assistant principal caught her violating the dress code. She’d made it until the last period of the day, when Mr. Pritchard had finally spotted her and written her up. And then the pictures came back a month later, and they’d been cropped too high to even see her midriff.
I could feel the faint smile on my lips as I recalled the memory. Apparently, nostalgia won out.
I continued scanning the youthful faces, most I’d known all my life. Then I sat up straight, my attention snagging on the nameMark Mercer. My gaze flew past his likeness three times before I made myself double-check the listing to the right, indicating his position on the correct row and column.
My heart was beating hard when it finally settled on the face of fifteen-year-old Mark. Mercer was his last name, not his first.
I sighed and covered my face with both hands.
Thatwas Mercer.
I peeked out from between my fingers at the waiting image. He was small even in the frame of the photo. Thick-rimmed glasses framed long-lashed eyes. Acne spread liberally across his forehead and chin as the sullen boy stared straight at the camera. Mark wasn’t smiling, but he wasn’t frowning either.
I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten.
I guessed he went by Mercer now. But I’d known him as Mark, the quiet kid who hardly ever spoke up and never drew attention to himself. He’d been close to Hannah Price, the reverend’s daughter. I found her photo on the row below, two columns over. She’d been prim and reserved. Short brown hair that came to just below her chin and the ghost of a smile as she posed in her collared shirt beneath a sweater vest.
Hannah and Mark had kept to themselves throughout middle and high school. They partnered on projects and ate together in the cafeteria. Hannah had rarely been included in social events or invited to parties. It was well-known that Reverend Price was a strict man. No one wanted to subject themselves to beingtattled on by his daughter or risk his wrath when they were sitting in one of his pews on Sunday morning at Kirby Falls Baptist Church.
I tried to remember if we’d had any classes together—Mark and I—but the memory wouldn’t come. I thought there might have been a technology course where he’d sat at the computer desk behind me, but I couldn’t really remember.
He’d been a nebulous presence in my middle and high school career. Not in my circle of friends and not on any sports teams or in any groups or clubs. He wasn’t a member of the school newspaper with me or on any of the various committees I’d served on. We’d coexisted in the same universe, our orbits coming close on occasion but, typically, with light-years in between.
However, there had been one instance involving Mark that I definitely should have recalled when I was shaking his hand and introducing myself like an idiot two days ago.
Groaning, I covered my face again and remembered every awkward moment of the past.
It had been the week of graduation. I’d been rushing through the hallway, nearly late for class. I couldn’t recall which one or even where I’d come from, but I’d heard a voice trailing after me, calling my name.
I remembered feeling shocked to turn around and find Mark Mercer standing there, four inches shorter than me and looking like he might throw up at any moment.
Mark had asked to speak to me privately. I’d probably frowned, confused and slightly annoyed to be sidetracked like this. The bratty part of teenage Candy that lived pretty close to the surface had likely cringed, thinking Mark might have been working up the nerve to ask her out.
But then he’d informed me quietly that I had a stain on my pants. With cheeks burning, he’d all but shoved the hoodie he always wore into my arms and told me I could wrap it around my waist.
Teenage Mark had bolted before I could even so much as mumble a startled thank-you. I’d looked up and down the busy hallway full of my peers before positioning the black sweatshirt around my waist and tying the arms in front.
Then I’d raced to class and explained the situation to my teacher, who’d excused me to the PE locker rooms to change into my workout clothes and grab an emergency tampon I had stored there.
I’d carried Mark’s oversized hoodie in my backpack for the next two days, hoping to run into him and return it. But I didn’t see him again before graduation. The black sweatshirt, with a logo of a band I’d never even heard of, got packed with my things and accompanied me across the country in the back of Lo’s Toyota Camry. I’d forgotten its origin over the years as I’d pulled it out and worn it around my cold apartment in the wintertime.
I stared at the photo of young Mark Mercer and thought about how kind and brave he’d been to approach me that day. He’d crawled out of his little introverted shell and saved me from embarrassment.
Squinting down at the page, I tried to see the man this boy would become. My eyes attempted to find Mercer’s square jaw, the strong, compact lines of his body, and the faint smile lines that lingered at his temple. But clearly, the kid I’d been vaguely aware of—the one who’d done me such a kindness—had years of growing to do still.
I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized Mercer as my former classmate when I’d been reintroduced to him two days ago. Well, I mean, Icouldbelieve it because Mark had changed so much over the years. He no longer resembled the boy I remembered.
I still felt like a jackass for not realizing it though. And I wasn’t sure if bringing it up the next time I saw Mercer would be the right thing to do. I didn’t want to draw attention to my blunder, but I still kind of wanted to thank him for what he’d done that day. I’d never gotten the chance. I decided I’d play it by ear when I ran into him again. To hear my parents tell it, Mercer was on the farm all the time and often joined them for dinner.
“What’s going on in here?”
My sister’s sharp voice had me jolting in the squeaky chair. I slammed the yearbook closed like I’d been caught with porn, and a poof of dust erupted in front of my face.
