Her eyes lock on to me. “Don’t move.”
I swallow. How? How does this day keep getting worse? I close my eyes, trying not to let the memory of my swollen throat overtake me. The way I couldn’t breathe no matter how hard I tried.
“Do you have your EpiPen?”
“In my locker,” I mumble, barely moving my lips.
Emma nods. “Okay. Should I get it?”
“No.” The bee makes its way over my eye and down my cheek. “Please get it off me.”
“You’re going to have to bend down,” she says.
I know that’s what I need to do, and other than the slight shake of my hand, I can’t move. “I don’t think I can.”
“Yes, you can. Just open your eyes.”
“I can’t.”
She touches my leg again, but this time it isn’t initiated by confusion. It’s a deliberate choice to touch me.
“Look at me, remember,” she says.
Did she just say what I think she did? My heart plummets in a second, aching for our past. All from one reference to the friendship we used to have. Every time I was scared, that’s what she’d tell me.
Look at me.
I open my eyes.
Emma’s hand is outstretched, tempting me to come down to her. There’s something oddly comforting about the confidence on her face. The same confidence I hate now was once something I admired, and it’s what convinces me to trust her.
I take her hand and lower myself, careful not to make anysudden movements that might agitate the bee. I step off the chair and sit down on the desk.
Emma comes closer, eyes intently on my face, watching the bee move. She grazes my cheek with her finger, and my heart does the unthinkable.
It flutters.
It flutters the same way it used to every time she came near.
I stop breathing.
Growing up, Emma was my favorite part of the day. I’d wake up early to run next door, waiting at our tree house, excited for every adventure she’d come up with. She wasn’t just my friend. I’d had friends before, but Emma was different. I was in awe of how colorful the world seemed around her, and every moment was an adventure. She made me happy. She made me laugh.
But she didn’t always make my heart flutter. That came later, and she didn’t do anything different. She was the same girl I grew up with, wild hair, running barefoot in her backyard, but then when I was thirteen, I found myself thinking she was pretty.
I remember it as clear as day.
We were sitting on the plush pink rug next to her bed like we had done so many times before. I was resting against the wall, and she was supposed to be studying, but instead she was folding her homework sheet into an intricate airplane. She folded it in a way that weighed down the front and then she tore two sections, one on either wing, to form flaps.
“We’ve been here for an hour and you’ve hardly done anything,” I’d said.
She scowled, holding the plane up with both hands like it was on a pedestal. “You call this nothing? It’s a masterpiece.”
“You know what I mean,” I said, tucking my textbook closer. I didn’t want to be studying either, but Mom would’ve flipped out if I came home without it done.
Emma tilted the plane up. “This is my best one yet. I think I’ve perfected the design. Watch.” She threw it into the air as she had done with other countless planes around her room.
But this time it flew straight toward me and directly into my eye. “Emma!” I yelled, covering my eye. I didn’t expect the tip of the plane to be such a weapon, but my eye burned, watering right away. I regretted wearing my contacts that day.
