“School doesn’t need to know everything.”I sighed.“Let me call your dad and give him a heads up.”
“Will he be mad?”
“Concerned,” I said.“But that’s not the same thing.He’s gonna want to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“Why don’t you go splash some cold water on your eyes,” I suggested.“It’ll help with the crying puffiness.I’ll call your dad and then we’ll get you to the hair salon.”
She bit her lip.“Thanks, Wyn.”
I waited until she was in the bathroom before I called Archer.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey.Just wanted to give you a heads up that Lenni isn’t going to school today.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yeah.I’ll tell you about it tonight.”
“All right.”
“And since she’s not going to school, you and I can’t have lunch together.”
“What if I come home and have an actual lunch with both of you?”
I smiled.“I’d like that.I think Lenni’d like that too.”
We hung up just as Lenni came back into the bedroom.Mildred belly-crawled toward Lenni who immediately gave her some love.
“Come here a second,” I said to her.“I want to show you something.”
Lenni hopped onto the bed and took a seat next to me.
I opened my phone again and scrolled through the photos before finding the one I wanted.I turned the phone and showed it to Lenni.
“Is that you?”She peered closer.
“That’s me,” I said.“Completely bald.”
“Why?Did you shave your head on purpose?”Lenni looked at me and then glanced back at the phone.
I gave it to her so she could really study it.
“Yeah, I did,” I said.“Sophomore year of high school.I donated my hair to a wig company.Scroll to the next photo.”
Lenni did as I said.“Who’s that?”
“That’s Aubrey.She was my best friend.She was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer the first few months into our sophomore year.”
“She’s pretty,” Lenni murmured.
“Yeah.She was.”
Lenni looked at me.“Was?”
“She died.Right before her sixteenth birthday.”I took the phone back from Lenni and stared at the photo of me and my high school best friend, both of us as bald as the day we were born.“She lost all her hair when she started treatment.She had gorgeous hair.”
