The Art of Losing Yourself (12 page)

G
RACIE

The town whizzed past at a very steady thirty miles per hour. Carmen held the steering wheel at ten and two, making driving instructors everywhere proud. I sat in the passenger seat picking a cuticle, my mind fast-forwarding to lunch in the cafeteria and the utter awkwardness that would be finding a table. I hated high school. I hated that Carmen insisted on dropping me off like I was a little kid. And I hated the fact that I tried so hard to look like I wasn’t trying so hard. I went through all three of my outfits this morning before settling on my favorite pair of skinny jeans—black and frayed—my go-to boots, and an Orange Crush T-shirt. Carmen took one look at me and said she would take me shopping later in the week. I took one look at her and scoffed. Something told me her taste and my taste were about as far apart as Santa Claus and penguins.

My cuticle burned. A pinprick of blood oozed from the tear. I stuck my finger in my mouth and sucked away the stinging, trying to ignore the insecurity swelling in my gut.

Carmen gave the steering wheel a couple taps with her thumb. “Are you nervous?”

I found another cuticle and got to work.

“Because it’s okay if you are.”

I could feel her peeking at me. She did that a lot. Like I was some sort of wild animal that might, at any moment, go ballistic and cause injury to myself or the people around me.

“When I had to change schools in sixth grade, I was so nervous on the first day.”

A couple of teenagers in a Honda CR-V sped past us. Carmen flipped on her blinker and turned onto a street called De La Cruz Boulevard, lined mostly with residential houses and a few scattered businesses.

“Bay Breeze is a great high school, though. The teachers are really nice. I’m sure they’ll make you feel welcome. And Ben’s there if you need someone to talk to.”

“I’m not nervous.”

“Oh, okay. That’s good.”

I blinked at her through my bangs. This morning, when Ben had asked if I was coming, Carmen stepped in and insisted she was going to drive me. It was one of the few times I’d heard them talking to each other, and I’d been sleeping under their roof for four nights now. Something was definitely afoot. I had a strong suspicion that something was me—the perpetual irritant. “Is this going to be a morning ritual—you driving me to school like I’m five?”

“It’s your first day.” Carmen turned onto Breeze Street, which came to a T, at the center of which was Bay Breeze High School in all its glory—a sprawling brick building with a crowded parking lot and a large blue-and-gold sign in front that said Bay Breeze High School, Home of the Sting Rays.

“I’ve been getting to school without your help for years.” On my first day of kindergarten, I walked myself to class and watched as all the mommies and daddies hugged my classmates good-bye. Carmen hadn’t been there then, and I didn’t need her here now. “So can you please do us both a favor and stop trying so hard?”

Her face paled.

A pang of guilt twisted my stomach, but I didn’t have time to deal with it. We were officially in front of the main entrance, where kids mingled on the steps leading up to the double doors. Before Carmen could do something crazy like get out and walk me inside, I stepped into the morning heat and slammed the door shut.

After stopping in the front office to snag my schedule and listen to a miniature pep talk from my new guidance counselor, I found my landing place—locker 128. Hopefully the last high school locker I would ever have the displeasure of owning. I spun the dial combination and transferred the contents of my bag into the space while students milled around behind me. So far, I’d managed to avoid eye contact with all of them.

“Do you have everything you need?”

The familiar voice behind me belonged to Ben.

I shoved my backpack inside, grabbed a folder and a notebook, and slammed the locker shut. “Did Carmen send you to check on me?”

“No, I thought of that all on my own.”

“I’m touched.”

A small cluster of thick-necked boys walked past us, slapping Ben high-fives along the way. One would think—from their cocky swagger—that they’d won the game on Friday night.

“I can see they’re still pretty upset about the big loss.”

Ben smiled. “You know, Gracie, for some reason people around here tend to like me.”

“You have them fooled, huh?”

His smile grew. “Feel free to name drop if you think it will help.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I have practice after school, so I think Carmen’s going to pick you up.”

Oh dear Lord, no
. “I can walk.”

“Are you sure?”

“That I’d rather walk than be picked up from school? Yes.”

“Okay. I’ll give her a call and let her know.” He told me that if I needed anything—anything at all—his classroom was in the basement, across from the swimming pool, and that I shouldn’t hesitate to come visit. He had no idea how tempted I was to visit him during lunch. He gave my shoulder a squeeze, then made his way out of the locker bay. Several groups of girls stared after him. I wondered if Carmen knew how popular her husband was at school.

I tucked the folder and notebook under my arm and began the task of finding first period. Five minutes and a couple wrong turns later, I found my destination: Debate and Ethics with a teacher named Reyas. My new guidance counselor had informed me that it was as close to my Franklin High philosophy elective as they could find. Inside the classroom, the tables were arranged in the shape of a U with only a few students occupying the chairs. One of the kids—a lanky, blond-haired boy—eyed me in the doorway.

“Boo.”

I jumped—like legitimately jumped—and spun around, fully prepared to sock whoever just booed in my ear. But all the fight swirled away in an aftershock of confusion. Under the fluorescent lighting his skin was more creamed coffee than caramel, but there was no mistaking it. It was Dr. Truth—the boy from the dock. Right there in front of me.

“Good thing you don’t have your knife. I think I might have been stabbed.” He stepped inside the classroom, allowing a couple of students to file past us.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“This is my class.”

I blinked, positive I would wake up at any moment and have to start the whole dreadful morning routine over again. I mean, seriously. What were the chances of this boy having the same first-period class as I did? It wasn’t even a rhetorical question. I honestly wanted to know.

He motioned for me to walk ahead. “After you.”

I took an empty seat at one of the tables in the back.

He snagged the chair beside me, flipped it around, and sat with his long legs straddling the backrest. “So you decided to stay?”

“What?”

“Last time we talked, staying in Bay Breeze was TBD.”

“Oh, yeah.” I swallowed, still plenty shocked that this boy was sitting beside me. I’d replayed our dock visit a few times over the weekend, trying to guess his age. I decided he was probably in high school and acknowledged the fact that at some point our paths might cross again. I just never imagined they’d cross so quickly. “For now.”

“For now,” he repeated.

I scanned the room. Every single student stared at me like I was a fish in a bowl.

Dr. Truth leaned toward my ear. “Don’t worry. They’re looking at me, not you.”

“Sure they are.”

The bell rang. A few stragglers hurried inside, filling the remaining seats. Reyas, it turned out, was a Hispanic woman with black-framed glasses and dark, shiny hair. She sat at her computer and took roll call. Two names in, she called out the name Eli and the boy beside me lifted his arm into the air.

I set my elbow on the table. “Eli, huh?”

“Do you approve?”

I checked him out—from his ratty sneakers, to the casual way he draped his arm over the back of his chair, to his beautiful skin and his multicolored eyes. “You don’t look like an Eli.”

“No?”

I shook my head.

“Do I look like an Elias? Because that’s what my birth certificate says. Elias Dante Banks, to be precise.”

Elias. Now that was a good name.
“Crowds and Power.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a book by Elias Canetti. It helped win him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981.” It took me an entire month to get through it, but I was glad that I did. The guy was sardonic and funny and rambling and profound all at the same time. “It’s also Walt Disney’s middle name.”

Elias was smiling at me.

“What?”

“Do you know this much about names as a rule, or should I feel special?”

“I’m weird with trivia.” My brain had this way of retaining random facts with little to no effort on my part.

“Gracie Fisher?” Reyas pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and did a quick search of the room before finding me.

The fish bowl got smaller.

Heat crept into my cheeks.

“Welcome to Debate and Ethics, Gracie.” She held out a tattered textbook.

When I returned with it to my seat, Elias was smiling at me again.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”

“Nothing.” He tucked his smile safely away into one corner of his mouth—the only evidence of its existence the dimple in his left cheek. “Gracie Fisher. It’s a good name.”