Page 28 of The Last to Let Go
I look up at her again, wanting so badly to be able to believe her, to be able to respond, but how can I even put into words how much is riding on my success here? Thankfully, she fills in the space instead.
“And forget about those girls, okay? Really. Please don’t let them get in your head—I hope they’re not in your head.” She grins as she looks at me. “I like your hair down better, by the way. All crazy like that—not everyone can pull that off.” She runs her hand through her own hair again, this time flopping it to the opposite side.
Sidestepping her compliment, I clear my throat and try to smooth my hair back with my hand. “They’re not in my head,” I tell her. “I don’t even care about that. That stuff is, like, the very least of my worries, so...” I stop myself from saying anything more, likeI didn’t come here to make friends, then add, too late, “Thanks, I mean.”
“I’m Dani, by the way.” She extends her hand. “A junior. And you’re... new?”
I take her hand. “Brooke. I’m a junior too. I just transferred here from Riverside.”
“Really, why?” she asks. “I mean,welcome, of course. But it must be weird to transfer halfway through like that.”
“Well, Jefferson offers the best AP classes.” She’s nodding in this way that tells me she’s expecting more of an explanation. “It’s not like I’m some genius or anything, I’m just trying to get a jump start on college. And they didn’t offer a lot of the classes at Riverside. Like AP Psych, for example.” Oh my God, I can’t stop my mouth. “That’s what I want to go to college for, at least I think I do. Or it’s on my list, anyway”—earlier versions of my list included paleontology and marine biology, and there was a time when I thought I’d be a veterinarian, a sculptor, a pilot—“so it just made sense to take AP Psych now. You know, here. Now. So...” I pause.
“Wow,” Dani says, shaking my hand fiercely. “So what’s wrong with you?”
I think my face must be hovering between expressions. “Oh. Right, I know. Sorry, I just—I tend to ramble when I’m nervous, I guess.”
She laughs, showing all her teeth, so loud that it echoes through the whole bathroom, bouncing off the tiles and sinks and mirrors. “No, I mean, anyone who wants to be a psych major really just wants to figure out exactly how crazy they are, right? That’s my theory, anyway. That’s what my older sister’s going to school for, and she’s basically nuts. So”—she raises one eyebrow, finally letting go of my hand—“what’s wrong with you?”
As I look at her, I feel all my dread and doubts retreating back, way back, a smile hijacking the muscles of my face. “What’s wrong with me?” I repeat, trying to come up with something witty. “Do you want that alphabetically or chronologically?” I hear myself say, an unprecedented lightness in my voice. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t know who I am right now, and somehow that feels... terrific.
“Ha!” She raises her eyebrows. “Well, I’d actuallyreallylove to hear it chronologically, but since the bell is going to ring in, like, thirty seconds, we might need to start with theAs. You may have noticed that I tend to ramble as well?”
“Then, I’m in good company.”
“I’d like to think so,” she says. “So... study buddies?”
I feel my head nodding up and down before I’ve even had the chance to weigh out the pros and cons. “Deal,” I tell her.
The bell rings.
“?’Kay. Later, then.”
As she turns to leave, I want to follow behind her and ask her why she’s being so nice to me. I want to tell her I like her purple hair and ask about her eyes—did she get them from her mother, from her father? I want to stop time and savor this feeling. But she pushes through the door without another word. I check my reflection in the mirror once more—I swear I have a subtle glow to my cheeks, a gentle sheen bouncing off my loose hair. Like maybe something from Dani has rubbed off on me.
At lunch I consider going to the nurse’s office. For a moment I miss my old school—I miss the predictability of it, miss knowing my place, knowing that I can sit in the empty seat at the table in the far corner and no one will bother or question me. I can read and be left alone. I don’t have that here. But as I’m lurking outside the door of the nurse’s office, scoping out the two beds with thin foam pads covered with starchy white sheets and protective paper, and deciding on an ailment that will get me out of lunch but not send me home, I hear my name being called. When I turn around, Dani’s standing there.
“Dibs,” she says, or at least that’s what I think she says.
“What?” I ask, looking back and forth between her and the boy who’s standing next to her—he’s wearing skinny jeans, and his hair has been carefully sculpted so that it hangs down across his forehead at an angle. He’s taller than both Dani and me, and he looks like he just stepped out of a magazine shoot for something really trendy and expensive.
“We’re calling dibs on you,” she explains. “Before anyone else snatches you up.”
“Um. Dibs. Okay. Is that a good thing?” I ask.
“Hell yeah,” she says. “This is my bestie, Tyler. Tyler, say hi to Brooke,” Dani instructs, looping her arm with his.
As I open my mouth to say hello, a trio of guys runs up, tearing through the hall like a hurricane, and shoves in between us, yelling at everyone, “Are you ready? Are. You. Ready. Are you ready?” I plaster myself against the wall to avoid being trampled; meanwhile, Dani scrunches her nose up as she watches them proceed down the hall, and says simply, “Jocks.”
I guess some things stay the same at every school.
“Welcome to Jefferson Hell,” Tyler says with a polite nod of his head, barely even batting an eye at the commotion. “I think we’re in chem lab together, right?” he asks.
“Oh.” I try to recall, but my mind is still in a whirlwind. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Are you brainy? Because I suck at chem—I could use a partner who won’t let me blow myself up,” he says, completely serious, as if blowing himself up is something that happens all the time.
“Um... yeah, I—I guess.”
