“That explains my science mark, then. I practically live on these things.”
“Let the record show that you are the one who brought up school on slacker day,” I pointed out.
Annie rolled her eyes. “You are a true inspiration to slackers everywhere. Clearly, the cheese sauce is doing its job.”
She picked up our tray and headed for the garbage cans. “C’mon, rebel. Let’s go hit the bookstore.”
I jumped up and skipped along after her. “This is the best day ever.”
Or it was. Until we rounded the corner and I saw Courtney and Larissa sitting on a bench outside the bookstore.
I stopped in my tracks and pulled on the strap of Annie’s bag. “Never mind. I . . . Let’s just go.”
“Go where? What’s wrong?” She followed my gaze to the benches and sighed. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going to the bookstore.”
I put my head down and followed Annie, my heart thundering in my chest. Please please please don’t notice us.
“Hey,” Courtney called out as we passed.
“Hey,” Annie answered, slowing to a stop and smiling at Courtney. My anxiety reared up like a frightened animal, clawing away at my insides.
“You’re in my science class,” Courtney said, getting up and walking slowly toward us. “The infamous Annie Miller. Tough girl from the city, right?”
Annie crossed her arms over her chest and stuck her chin up in the air. “And you’re the infamous Courtney Williams. Queen Bee of suburbia. Right?”
My heart liquefied and my brain screamed at me to run. Courtney would blame me for the Queen Bee comment, I just knew it. Who else would have planted that idea in Annie’s head?
Before I could make a break for the bookstore, though, Courtney laughed. And not a mean, mocking laugh. It was a real, genuine, appreciative laugh. “I like you,” she told Annie before turning around and heading back to the bench.
“Lucky me,” Annie muttered, looping her arm through mine and steering us into the bookstore.
I made it to the middle of the store before the dizziness hit. “Hang on,” I said, trying to sound casual. I leaned against the closest shelf and took slow, even breaths.
“What’s wrong?” Annie asked, narrowing her eyes at me. “Are you freaking out?”
“No,” I scoffed, grabbing a random book off the shelf. “I just wanted to check out this book.”
“I see,” Annie said in a mock-serious voice, one side of her mouth twisting into a smile. She plucked the book from my hands and turned the cover to face me. “We’re reading erotica now, are we?”
I could feel the heat radiating off my face. “I just . . . those girls don’t . . . we don’t get along.”
“They’re just girls, Jess. You don’t have to be scared of them.”
I nodded, blinking back tears. “I know.”
“But you were going to miss out on book shopping just to avoid them.”
I shrugged, willing her to stop talking about it.
“Don’t do that, okay?” she said gently. “Please don’t do that. You’re amazing. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not.”
I forced a smile onto my face. “I won’t,” I said, wanting to believe it.
I love how Annie didn’t back away from Courtney. I’d give anything to be that kind of girl, but I’m not. Whatever protective shielding girls like Annie and Courtney have, I was born without it.
Annie
I stop halfway down the stairs and hold my breath, listening hard. Nothing. The house is that kind of intense quiet that almost seems loud.
I creep down the rest of the stairs and ease into the dining room. It’s two thirty in the morning and I should be asleep. That’s not why I’m sneaking around the house like a criminal, though. I’m on a mission, and I don’t feel like explaining myself to anyone.
I sit cross-legged on the floor and pop open the bottom door of the china cabinet. I know it’s in here. A big black memory box all about me. My dad stores everything in there—school photos, report cards, drawings, and souvenirs.
My fingers close around it, and I pull it onto my lap. It’s so heavy. The weight of my fifteen years.
I hear footsteps upstairs, and then the click of the bathroom door closing. I’d like to stay down here and spread everything out on the floor, but I don’t want to get busted studying pictures of myself in the dead of night. I’m pretty sure that trips some kind of weirdness alarm.
Back in my room, I set aside the report cards and newspaper clippings. It’s the pictures I’m after.
I’m obsessed with old photos.
It started with the book about Sylvia Plath that Miss Donaghue lent me. She’d read my essay about The Bell Jar and thought I might like to learn more about the author. I inhaled the book in a day and then bought my own copy, mainly because of the photos in the middle. There’s this one picture of Plath that I can’t stop staring at. As stupid as this sounds, I’d never really thought of her as a real person before. It’s like . . . it’s like she was too much to be contained in such a simple-looking package. The picture in the book looks like someone you might see at the bus stop or in the mall. No matter how long I stare into her eyes, I can’t see any sign of the tormented genius who wrote The Bell Jar. I can’t see the person who decided to kill herself. She doesn’t look like a ticking time bomb to me. She looks like a regular person.
So I started thinking about pictures of me. How do I look to other people?
I lay my school pictures out on my bed, sorting them by grade before scanning through them. I’m looking for some essence of me. Something that shines through from an early age. But if it’s there, I can’t see it, because all I can see when I look at those pictures of me is my mom.
When I had a mother, my hair was always
