Rainie cuts Lucia off. “Hathaway’s? Isn’t that the Italian restaurant with forty-dollar meals?”
“Oh, don’t worry about the cost. My folks already paid for everything,” she says.
On cue, Alex and I exchange a familiar glance of exasperation. I look away quickly. It’s too easy to forget I’m not part of the group anymore.
“I can pay my own way,” Rainie snaps. “Just don’t force us to eat at hoity-toity restaurants.”
At this point in the argument, Lucia would usually sigh and pull outher phone to make the requested change. To my surprise, Lucia’s lips purse into a blazing line of determination. “If I didn’t plan prom, nobody else would. I asked you a dozen times where you wanted to eat, and you just blew me off. You don’t get to complain after the fact.”
“Maybe I would’ve paid more attention if I knew our options were starvation or bankruptcy.”
“Give it a rest, Rainie,” Alex groans. “Can’t you just say thank you and move on?”
I’ve known Rainie longer than any of them. Telling her she’s overreacting is the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a forest fire. Before she can try to French braid Alex’s earlobes together, I press a quelling touch to her shoulder. When her glare lands on me, I hold steady against it. We communicate in terse silence.
“Fine. Thanks,” Rainie grunts at last. The table lets out a collective breath.
The conversation flows seamlessly. I stand outside the tide, occasionally wading in with a comment or chuckle. In a few months, they’ll be attending the senior banquet and walking the stage to accept their diplomas. Brimming with excitement at the prospect of steering their lives to new horizons.
I smooth the torn corners of the graduation speech I’ll never get to give and try to be happy for them.
At the bell, Aida says, “I’ll walk with you to the admin building, Mina.” She hoists her backpack over her shoulder.
Lucia grabs my arm. “We’ll see you on Saturday, right?”
I squeeze her wrist. “Try and keep me away.”
Cheered, Lucia wishes me luck on the tryout and dashes to her class across campus. Rainie elbows Alex, but he shakes his head, retreating into the current of students headed for sixth period.
“I’ll make sure he’s less annoying on Saturday,” Rainie says, sighing. “Are you bringing Jesse?”
I scoff. Jesse attending a school dance is beyond even my formerly vast scope of optimism. “Jesse wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near prom.”
“Shame. Would have loved to see someone force Talbot into a tux.” Rainie runs off at the warning bell, leaving Aida to walk with me toward the admin building.
“Don’t you have physics right now?” I ask.
Aida is jittery, restless. She shudders, scanning our surroundings with a care that skirts close to paranoia. “Can’t you feel it?” She rubs her arms, nails biting into the creases in her elbows. “It’s always near you. Waiting. I don’t know how you can breathe.”
I go still. Aida pays me no mind, focused on the dull brown of the admin building ahead. Lunch monitors mill around the quad, ushering loitering students toward their classes.
“Aida, what …”
Without slowing, Aida reaches into her backpack and pulls out the battered sketchbook. At the building door, she pivots. “Here. Take it.” The sketchbook hits my chest.
She may as well have handed me a grenade. I hold the sketchbook at arm’s length, gaze flying between it and Aida. “Are you seriously giving this to me? You haven’t even let me take apeekin all the years I’ve known you.”
“My sketches aren’t always safe,” she says cryptically. “If you’re not meant to look at them, they can hurt you.”
“Aida.” I massage my forehead. “What the absolute living hell does that even mean?”
“It means these are for you. Just for you.” Aida’s gaze strays a few inches to my left before she blinks hard.
“Do you see them, too?” I whisper. “The shadows?”
She tangles her fingers in the gaps of her crocheted sweater, as if she doesn’t know what to do with her hands now that there’s no mysterioussketchbook between them. “I always see shadows, Mina. Always have, always will.”
Before I can give voice to the myriad of questions rushing for freedom, Aida continues, “I’ve felt something attached to you since spring break. I thought I was imagining it. But the drawings …”
