“Beck!” Teacher calls out. She points my way. “Come help this girl.”
“Okay,” someone answers, but my eyes are too blurry to see.
A minute later, a boy stands in front of me. He has shaggy brown hair that needs a trim and warm brown eyes, the color of chocolate milk when Mommy adds an extra spoonful of cocoa powder.
“Hi,” he says softly, like he’s trying not to scare me.
“H—hi,” I stutter, my chest heaving.
“What’s your name?” he asks, eyes bright and curious.
“Gracie Smith,” I say. “I live on the second floor. In an apartment. In Ohio.”
The boy nods like this is very important information, then points to himself. “I live in Ohio too. I’m Oliver Becksworth the Third,” he says, puffing out his tiny chest. “But everyone calls me Beck.”
I blink, my tears slowing. “Why so fancy?”
He shrugs, his narrow shoulders lifting and falling. “It’s my dad’s name. He’s number two, and I’m three. Never met my grandpa. He was number one.”
That seems like too many numbers, so I don’t say anything.
Beck looks down at his shoes, then over at the windows. “He doesn’t live with us anymore,” he adds. “Dad. He went somewhere else.”
My stomach feels funny, like when I swing too high at the park.
“I don’t know mine,” I tell him. I’m not crying anymore.
“Oh,” he says.
We stand there for a second. Not talking. Just being quiet together.
Then his face changes, lighting up like he remembered something important.
“Do you like frogs, Gracie?” He smiles, showing a gap between his front teeth so wide you could stick a dime in it.
“Yeah?” I follow his gaze across the room to something that looks like a fish tank, except it isn’t full of water.
“There’s two over there,” he says. “Frogs. Big ones. Wanna go look?”
I rub my eyes with both fists. They still sting a little.
“Okay,” I tell him.
“Cool!” Beck’s face lights up and he turns to go, but he hesitates. “You won’t be scared? Some kids are. We can do something else.”
I’m already moving.
I breeze past him, excited now, my shoes squeaking on the classroom floor. I grab his sleeve as I pass, tugging him along with me.
“Come on, Beck!” I say. “Let’s go!”
Beck
Present
“Going to bang him.”
Gracie’s words linger in the air like smoke. The choking kind.
