Page 5 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
Our phones vibrate again. This time with a text from Delaney. My heart thumps so hard I think Mitchell must hear it.
Delaney:I’ll be home Thursday! Dance Legacy represent!!!!
She then sends a photo of herself doing an arabesque on a foggy San Francisco campus. I can imagine her propping her phone on some bench to get the shot. It’s the first time I’ve heard from her in over a month, and I want to cry looking at her photo. Everything from her shorter hair to the third piercing in her ear is different. She looks older. Worldly.
“She looks…” But I finish the thought in my mind.Thin.
I wonder if Mitchell stalks them like I do. Kenji living in a beach town, Delaney in a big city. I’ve examined every snap, every post. Their cool new friends. Their cool new dorms. Their cool new lives that are so different from my own.
In my weaker moments I check up on Reid at Stanford, too. I know I shouldn’t. I have no right to. But when the craving to see him overpowers me, I can’t help myself. So far it hasn’t made a difference, anyway, since he never posts anything. Sometimes he’s tagged in things, but it’s almost always race pictures where he’s flushed and focused in a sea of other runners.
There’s nothing about his new life. Nothing about how he’s doing. Nothing about the real him.
Without leaving me any time to realize what’s happening or to fix my hair ormurderhim, Mitchell snaps a selfie of us and sends it. To the chat. Straight to Reid.
“Mitchell,” I say evenly. “What the actual fuck?”
“Everyone else sent one. Relax, you look perfect.” Mitchell turns the phone toward me even though the photo pops up on my screen. Okay, despite the sweatpants, it could be worse. My dark hair is clean at least and full of volume, falling over one shoulder. The green of the couch brings out the green of my eyes, which are wide in surprise at Mitchellholding up the phone. The sunset light outside adds a glow to my fair skin.
I wonder what they’ll think when they see me. What Reid will think.
Maybe I look a little older, too.
If I do, it’s probably in the grizzled, weathered way old cowboys do. Not in the cool, college-campus way.
“You’ve been underground long enough. You’re going to have to face everyone again next week anyway,” Mitchell continues, “so we might as well start with your actual friends.”
God, I hope not everyone. My stomach is only knots.
Will Reid respond? He always hated the group chats. He openly admitted to putting us on mute the majority of the time. But every now and then he’d chime in, so I know he checked it.
Every buzz creates a leap of anticipation. But his name doesn’t appear once in all the back-and-forth.
Mitchell purses his lips, scrolling quickly. “Okay, obviously, all the Legacies are coming back. Josh just posted about it and so did Nicole.”
We exchange a look, and I drag a hand down my face. Fantastic. The guy who ruined my life and the girl who got Legacy over me.
Mitchell continues. “Dramaaaaa. Nowthiswould be a good doc.” He goes still and lowers his phone. “Wait, weren’t you already working on something like that?”
My stomach twists again because, yes, I dedicated my entire senior year to gathering footage of our class and following the experience of becoming a Legacy. I even submitted a short sample as part of my own Legacy application with the full intention of finishing it at the culminating event of Legacy Weekend.
ThisLegacy Weekend.
But that was before my future got completely derailed.
I pivoted to learning about nature docs this summer because I wanted to forget about how volatile and messy and awful humans can be. Trees only take care of one another. Plus, they communicate via fungal networks.Fungal networks.
“Okay, think about it. Everyone coming home is always a hot mess.” Mitchell pinches the fabric of my sweatpants at the ankle. “The documentary competitions would eat that shit up,” he presses.
He’s not wrong. When people come home, drama follows.
“But—”
“If you say anything about fungal networks, I swear to god.”
I glower at him. “You’re so annoying.”
“Clara, your video was amazing last year—”
