She still has time,my inner optimist encouraged.You gave her a day;it’s not even lunch.
Mr.Goldberg took attendance and then we handed in our homework before he began deconstructing our country’s government. And holy shit, thatdrone.Fifteen minutes was my breaking point today. “Yes, Mr.Barbour?” Goldberg asked after I’d raised my hand. “Question?”
“May I go to the nurse?” I said. “I’m not feeling so great.”
My teacher didn’t answer; he just adjusted his glasses and gave me a look. The thing was, visiting the nurse was sort of my MO in this class. It was just so brutally boring.
“Mr.Goldberg,” Leah Brennan said when he still hadn’t spoken. “I’m sorry, but youhaveto let him go! His sister’s in thehospital.Who knows? He could be sick, too.”
“Yeah!” the class agreed, and thanks to some other passionate pleas, Mr.Goldberg begrudgingly wrote me a hall pass. “I hope it’s nothing too serious,” he told me, then muttered something that sounded a lot like “Damn senioritis.”
There were only a few people in the hallway, but I kept my head down to avoid any inquiries about Grace. She could address them herself when she was back at school on Monday, since storytelling was apparently a new talent of hers.
She’s playing us,my gut was telling me.She isnotsick.
But I was about to be.
“James, honey,” Mrs.Emerick said when I walked into her office. She smiled, and the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes deepened like my grandmother’s. “I was wondering if I was going to see you today.”
My spine straightened. Yes, I was what you’d call a frequent flyer at the nurse’s office, but notthatfrequent. Onlyto get out of history…sometimes bio…and occasionallygym.
“Because of Grace,” she continued, rising from her desk. “I worried that you’d take a turn as well.”
Phew.
“I felt fine before school.” I sagged into my usual chair. “But now my stomach’s queasy and I’m getting a little lightheaded. I’m seeing spots, too.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs.Emerick said. “Let me get my thermometer.”
“Okay,” I softened my voice a little, and once her back was to me, I bent over and licked my palms like an overly friendly dog before rubbing my face with saliva. My fail-safe cover for clamminess.
“Well, your temperature’s normal,” Mrs.Emerick announced when the thermometer beeped ninety-eight degrees.“No fever.” She also pressed the back of her hand against my forehead. “Although, you do seem a little too sweaty in my opinion….” She paused. “You said you felt nauseous?”
I nodded.
“Why don’t you go lie down while I get you some Tums?”
Tums: a school nurse’s cure for any illness in existence.
“Orange or grape flavored?” Mrs.Emerick asked once I was settled on one of the cots in the adjacent room.
“Mixed berry, please, if you still have it,” I replied, and popped a couple pink tablets before she offered me a cool compress. It’d be perfect to wipe the spit off my face.
“Now you get some rest,” she said. “I’ll just be at my desk if you need me.”
“Thanks so much, Mrs.Em,” I said, because really? A cool compress?
The woman was, in all seriousness, a saint.
Maybe I fell asleep at some point, maybe I didn’t, but either way, I thought about Isa. Her too-tight ponytail, specifically. All I wanted to do whenever I saw it was tug off those silk scarves that tied it back so her smooth hair would fall down her back. I hoped that her stress would fall away with it. “Have you ever seen Isa with her hair down?” I once randomly asked Grace, and she’d given me this you-are-a-weirdo look. “Of course,” she said. “Everyone has. She used to wear it down in elementary school, always with a bow. Each day was a different color. Monday was pink, Tuesday was yellow, Wednesdaywas—”
“That’s not what I meant,” I’d mumbled, and again was treated to the you-are-a-weirdo expression. Half of me then wanted Grace to ask what I meant, but the other half didn’t. Explaining would be too awkward.
Why did Grace and Isa have to be so close? Why were they always texting or FaceTiming or Snapping or hanging out together? Why had our families nicknamed Isa my second sister?
It made things so fucking difficult.
I used to wonder why she wouldn’t go out with me. First, I thought I’d misread everything entirely—the stopping by myroom more often, the new late-night texts and phone calls, and privately calling me “J.” I figured I was nothing more than a brother-type to her.
