“I heard you broke your neck.”
Their voices blur into a swirl of rumors and well-wishes, the kind of recognition you earn when you’re affiliated with Jason Riddick. Small towns have their stars, and as the soccer captain, Sterlingwood’s answer to a quarterback, Jason is one.
Before Jay and I started dating, I was popular but in a nerdy, friends-with-everybody sort of way. Dating Jason means that the whole school knows exactly who I am. Sometimes I think they know more about me than I do.
Being Jason’s girlfriend made running for VP such a breeze that I occasionally wish I’d thought to challenge Tyler for president instead of running for a smaller role so I could focus on college applications. Lord knows student council would be going more smoothly.
“Okay, everyone, back up,” Mo says with her trademark intensity, pushing people out of the way like she is my bodyguard. She’s been super protective since the accident. Mo might have just moved to Sterlingwood in freshman year, but sometimes it feels like she’s always been here.
Right then, Cristin Lee says something that catches my attention. “God, that sucks about the ring. We went out looking for it last night.”
“You did?” I croak, stopping before Mo can herd me away. Amber truly opened up a can of worms.
“A bunch of us went out to where the accident happened,” Cristin says, all animated, her blond curls bobbing in agreement with everything she says.
“We didn’t find anything?” Jazz King is Cristin’s best friend, and she has the unique talent of making every sentence sound like a question. “We were so sad? Like, it was super disappointing?”
On the one hand, it feels nice that so many people are willing to sacrifice this kind of time and energy for me and Jason. On the other hand, I feel like the worst person in the world for lying.
“We’re doing our own search party tonight. There’s a sign-up online,” someone else chimes in.
“Guys, seriously, you don’t have to do all this—” I’m saying, half hoping the ground opens and swallows me, when Mr.Tan claps his hands to get our attention.
“Okay, friends, time to talk some Wordsworth.”
My heart is weighed down by guilt as I slink into my usual chair next to Mo.
“Mo, people are like hardcore looking for the ring.” I grip her arm. “This is insane.”
She shrugs at me like,hey, to each their own. She’s too focused on her laptop screen, working on her app. Mo is convinced that making a health app, combined with her killer GPA, is her ticket into any premed program she chooses.
“Yo, Mr.Tan,” Holden says, falling into a seat in the back of the classroom, where he’ll proceed to sleep for the next period. “Tell us again why you became an English teacher. I’m really struggling to pick between majors on my college apps.”
A bunch of kids snicker, but Mr.Tan’s entire face lights up. Soon our English teacher is three-metaphors-deep into his biweeklyspeech about how he started college as a—you won’t believe it—math major but slowly felt the call of the written word. It’s a surefire way to derail any lesson with Mr.Tan and today—maybe because it’s Monday, maybe because Jason’s in the hospital, unconscious, instead of across the hall in Ms.Gardner’s class where he should be—it’s exactly what we need.
The embarrassing truth is that I really am struggling to pick a path. Last night I Googled “best college major,” because I’m that desperate. It was thirteen-year-old me who decided on New Jersey. I’ve told exactly one person the full story, which is that I researched the overall best Ivy League college using three different methods, and it was just Princeton that came out on top. Since then, it’s been my “dream school,” and one of the key things everybody knows about Zadie Cartwright is that she knows where she’s going. What they don’t know is that I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there.
So I should definitely be taking in some of Mr.Tan’s wisdom right now, but my mind won’t let go of Jason. I miss being able to text him random thoughts, miss the cute little GIFs he’d send to let me know he was thinking of me. It occurs to me that whatever the reason a person is gone—whether it’s a shocking, out-of-the-blue breakup, a random crazy coma, or even death—missing someone you love will always feel achy and empty and sad. It’s just that sometimes the feeling is temporary, and sometimes it’s forever.
For the rest of the day, my brain is so fuzzy I can hardly think. Time moves like a toddler having the hiccups, jerky and inconsistent, and I’m having trouble staying present.
During my second-to-last period, I’m discreetly scrolling through the string ofI love yous andgood night beautifuls andhey I’m heresbetween me and Jason when my head starts to really hurt. It’s kept doing that on and off since the accident.
My eyes are suddenly stinging at the bright fluorescent classroom lights, so I ask Ms.Gonzalez for a hall pass and head to the infirmary. When I get there, I hear laughter coming from the room. I push open the door and turn to my left as Nurse Diamond’s still-smiling face goes from relaxed to alarmed. She’s sitting at her desk, the two bunk beds for sick kids behind me.
“Oh, Zadie! How are you, honey?”
“Good,” I say on impulse. “I mean, I’m having a kind of headache?”
“In what way?”
I tell her about it, the way sound is starting to distort and everything is too bright.
“Hmm,” she says. “Sounds like the start of a migraine. All our beds are taken, but…”
“I was just leaving,” a familiar male voice says, before the owner emerges from behind me where the beds are.
Marcus Riddick. He is wearing a collared gray button-down over a black cotton shirt and black jeans. In last year’s yearbook, Marcus put “Heath Ledger circa 1999” as his “style inspo.” It was too specific a reference to not look up, and while I can confirm that, with his dirty blond hair that hangs down to his shoulders, Marcusdoeslook exactly like that, his inspiration is too ancient to be as cool as Marcus thinks it is.
