Page 10 of Left on Read

My hand flies to my face, trying to pass it off as a cough or a sneeze or something. I can’t be laughing. The girl in front of me might think I’m laughing at her, and I’d rather die than make someone feel like that.

“Sorry.” I fake cough again. “Excuse me.”

Her face, which had turned suspicious, softens, and she keeps talking. I narrow my eyes and shoot Hayes a look that I hope screamsGo to hell.He grins, of course.

Get it? $10? HAMILTON??

He took the sticky note back just to write that. That was risky. I’ve never really passed notes in class before. Texted, sure. Butactually physically passing a sticky note back and forth is different. Not that Professor Lowry is paying the slightest bit of attention.

I dare to write back to him in red ink.

Oh so YOU did the reading? REALLY? I assumed you didn’t, given how little you’re contributing to this conversation. OR ANY CONVERSATION, EVER.

Hayes chuckles then. He doesn’t even try to pass it off as a cough or anything. Both the girls across from us smile at him.Of coursehe timed his chortle exactly right to seem as if he was laughing at a joke they just made.

Well, if defense isn’t working, I guess it’s time to play some offense. I reach over him to grab another sticky note from the pad, and I furiously scrawl with my trusty red pen. The words even look angry.

You and Hamilton have a lot in common, actually. Loud. Cocky. Never the president.

I know you like Lowry and all, but we really gotta talk about the way she dresses.

You don’t have enough ink.

Written on a handout ofNatureby Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Why are you erasing everything?” Mom asks, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s gazing down at me with thatmom eyebrow,the overly slanted one that suggests I’m doing something wrong. “At some point, shouldn’t you just start over?”

I look so much like her. Round face, tiny nose, eyes that are arguably too big. Brown hair that’s usually kept in a ponytail because it’s otherwise unmanageable. Sometimes it feels like I’m staring into my future.

She does this. Talks to me even when I have my earbuds in. There’s, like, one rule when people have earbuds in. Don’t talk to them.

And yet.

With a deep, weary sigh worthy of a Victorian girl approaching eighteen without a marriage proposal, I peer down at my plannerpage, which has been decimated by angry eraser lines. The shavings form a sad pile in the corner.

“This is a planner. One can’t start over ina planner.” I shove it away from me like I hate it, even though I would sleep with it clutched to my chest at night if possible. Planning prevents chaos, which, ideally, prevents suffering. My September spread should be exciting, but I have nothing exciting to fill it with. Well, I have homework and projects from myotherclasses to fill it with, but nothing from the class I actually give a shit about.

Mom nods, not because she understands my neuroses, but because she doesn’t have the time to listen to me elaborate on them, and I don’t really have the words to explain them anyway. We tried both when I was growing up, and the nodding just seems to work best.

“So what’s the problem, then?” She leans back, settles in. Her hair’s darker than mine; that’s the only noticeable difference. Her bangs are getting too long, the only part of her near-black hair turning gray. She’s constantly sweeping them off the tops of her glasses.

I sigh again, because this is another thing I don’t have the words for. I try anyway.

“Have you ever wanted something really bad, and when you get it, it’s … not great?” That’s so not even what I’m trying to say, but it’s all I’ve got.

“Like how when you’re a kid, all you want is to grow up, but then when you grow up, life is just a lot of work and bills and taxes?”

My body sort of deflates, my crisscrossed legs sliding out from under me on the dining room chair and slipping toward the floor. Once more than half of me is under the dining room table, mom sits down across from me.

“What do you do?” I ask. “When life is all work and bills and taxes and not what you wanted when you were a kid?”

Mom smiles—or maybe it’s more of a grimace.

“You live anyway.” She extends a hand and pulls me back toward the light. “I wasn’t even being that serious, Nova. Why are you in such a down mood?”

“This class,” I mutter, flipping through my planner again. “I’ve been looking forward to it, and to learning from this professor, and …”

“It’s harder than you thought it would be?” She assumes, probably because of how often I cry. But no.