I let out a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”
“Just . . . be careful, okay? Scott’s great, but he’s a bit of a player.”
The beer sours in my stomach. “A player?”
“I’m not saying he doesn’t like you or that he’s gonna ditch you or anything. I just . . . if I were you, I’d take things slow and keep it casual, you know? Just have fun.”
I nod, as if my heart isn’t cracking into a million pieces. “We’re totally casual,” I assure her, lying through my teeth. “There’s no way I’d get serious about anyone right now.”
Jessie
When we walked into English class today, Miss Donaghue was handing back our short story assignments. Finally.
From the moment I handed mine in, I couldn’t wait to get it back. I’ve never poured so much of myself into anything before. I got inspired the day after my mall adventure with Annie, and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning polishing it. It’s the best thing I’ve ever written, and my first short story to get a proper ending.
“Annie,” Miss Donaghue said when she caught sight of us. “You continue to surprise me. I truly did not expect the werewolf Good Samaritan story.”
I stopped in my tracks, gaping at Annie. “You didn’t!”
“What? It turned out great, right, Miss D?”
“Surprisingly so.” She laughed. “There’s some good character development in here, which is difficult to pull off in a short story, and you made excellent use of humor to offset the horror elements.”
I raised my eyebrows at Annie, impressed. So much for the slacker lifestyle.
“And Jessica,” she said. “Excellent writing as usual. I really enjoyed the way you played with the conventions of fairy tales.”
“I’m so glad you liked it,” I said breathlessly, my heart leaping.
“I must admit, though, that I was hoping for a different ending.”
I blinked at her in surprise. The ending was the best part. “I . . . I wanted to turn the damsel in distress story on its head,” I explained, thinking perhaps she’d missed the point. “Instead of the princess being rescued by a prince’s true love, she’s rescued by friendship.”
I could feel Annie’s eyes on me, and my face flamed with embarrassment. It sounded so cheesy here in the classroom, but it was different in the story.
“I see that, and I enjoyed it very much,” Miss Donaghue assured me. “But I couldn’t help hoping along the way that the princess might find that she didn’t need rescuing at all. It seemed as if that’s where the story was going, and then the friendship solution came in at the last minute and ran off with the ending.”
I reached out to take my paper from Miss Donaghue, but she held on to it and made sure I was paying attention before she continued. “Just because that’s the ending I wanted doesn’t mean it’s the way it should end, though. Do you understand what I mean?”
I shrugged. I wanted her to stop talking. I felt like the whole class was overhearing my story get ripped to shreds.
“I want to give you something to think about in case you feel like working on this story some more. Right now, the ending feels tacked on, but if this is the ending you like, there are ways of building up to it so it flows more naturally.”
I nodded, afraid to say anything. Her words were careening around inside my head, and I was having trouble piecing them together. I just wanted to escape to my desk and catch my breath.
“Come see me if you’d like some help developing this,” she said, letting go of my paper. “I think that with a little work, it could be something really special.”
“Sure,” I said, knowing I’d never touch the story again. I folded the pages and pushed them down into the bottom of my bag.
I swung into my desk and dropped my bag on the floor, ignoring the looks Annie was giving me.
My cell phone vibrated with a text from Annie: Don’t pout. She said great things!
I turned and nodded at her, faking a smile to show I was fine. I wasn’t, though. I was dangerously close to a panic attack.
I took deep breaths while Miss Donaghue handed back the rest of the assignments. In through my nose and out through my mouth. You can do this, I told myself, just like my therapist taught me. Imagine breathing in the calm and breathing out the panic.
By the time Miss Donaghue started passing around copies of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, I was feeling better. I even managed to roll my eyes at Annie when our loser classmates started groaning about the play.
“You’re going to love this story,” Miss Donaghue said. “In fact, some of you might already be familiar with it.” She held up a DVD case. “Who’s seen She’s the Man?”
A few hands went up.
“Isn’t that the one where the chick dresses up like a guy?” Marcus Jones asked from the back of the classroom. Great. Whispers of Lezzie Longbottom echoed around the edges of my brain, shattering my calm and inviting the panic back in.
I focused on Miss Donaghue’s voice and pushed back the memories. “Yes,” she said, ignoring the laughter that ensued. “The role of gender and sexual identity is fascinating in this play, and we’ll be discussing that in depth. We’ll also explore love, ambition, disguises, and mistaken identity. All is not what it seems in the kingdom of Illyria. Or at Illyria High School, as we’ll see in this movie.”
Excited chatter broke out as Miss Donaghue got ready to play the movie.
“Hey, Miss D,” someone behind me said, “isn’t the girl in this movie the one who went mental?”
And that was it.
Miss Donaghue kept talking. Something about Amanda Bynes. But I couldn’t hear a word over the roaring in my head. My throat had closed up and I couldn’t get air into my lungs.
Not now, my brain
