He looked pensive for a moment. “I see. I’m sorry to hear that Solace. Do you think you could call your grandparents for us? We need to let them know, and have them pick up Milo. I think it’s best if he goes home. What about you? Would you like to go home?”
I watched Jude and Milo through the glass where they were talking. Actually talking—hands and mouth moving. He’d hardly spoken all week to any of us.
“Solace?”
“Oh—um, yeah. I’d like to go home.” Mr. Schumacher handed me a phone, and I dialed my grandmother.
Afterward, I knelt beside my brother, wrapping my arms around him even though he hated being hugged.
Milo pressed his face into my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” I held him tighter. “I’m going to go gather your things and then grab my backpack. Grandpa’s on his way to get us..”
“Am I in trouble?”
My lips thinned into a line. “No, I don’t think so. Let’s go home.”
Milo nodded, tucking his chin back into his knees. “I’ll wait.”
“Be right back.”
Jude hovered nearby, awkward in his concern, but he’d at least waited until we’d made it further down the hall and out of earshot to say, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrugged, words about the dance, and about my strange feelings caught in my chest. “I don’t know.” Why didn’t I tell him? I told him everything. Even the time I peed my pants in first grade, or the time Mrs. Laken made me help her shave her cat. All things that had ranked on myWorst Days of My Life Listand were far more embarrassing than my family crashout.
We walked back to class together where I gathered my things and Milo’s while Jude lingered.
Steps away from the office, he stopped me with a hand to my shoulder. “Solace, you should have told me.” Wrapping his arm around me, he tugged me into his chest. “I can cancel on Heather tonight, skip the dance, and come over after school.”
My heart died a little. He would do that? For me? “No, it’s fine. Go, you’ll have fun.”
“Say something next time. I won’t let you do this alone.”
And so that was the beginning—near-misses never stopping. For a moment, I let him close enough to brush the edges of collision, even as everything else spun hopelessly out of control because some near-misses don’t miss at all.
2
Spilled Coffee
Jude
The barista hid her laughter as she handed me my coffee through the window, followed by Solace’s abomination of a drink. I don’t know how she managed to drink stuff like this. Caramel spilled over the edges, where it had been drizzled indecently atop the whipped cream.
I was late.
I’d been spending that extra bit of time between third and fourth period skipping lunch, and sitting in the band room with Solace as she prepared the warm-ups for the day. She wouldn’t admit it, but she was awesome. A quiet pride filled me watching her map notes across the board, or take Mr. Halloway’s baton and lead us through a piece for the next concert. She didn’t like to brag, or talk about herself at all for that matter. In fact, Solace tended to have this sort of self-deprecating dark humor about everything in life… even her achievements.
So I decided to celebrate for her. She’d been named student director, and as a sophomore, it was a big fucking deal.
Hence, the caramel now seeping its sticky residue into the cupholders of my Jeep.
When I walked in, Solace was wiping yesterday’s ghosted staff lines from the board and beginning her warm-up. Mr. Halloway must have been in his office, or back in the staff room running copies, because the band room was empty, save for her and the sweet scent of her favorite perfume.
It was the cusp of summer, the air outside already beginning to turn warm and tepid. Solace reached up the board, showing off her dark thighs as she added another measure.
“Sol, I’m not ordering this again.”
She turned and smiled, and it nearly knocked the wind out of me, then stretched the notes higher and higher, hips swaying as she moved down the board.
