Page 65 of What You Left Me

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I promised Petra I’d be patient. I will. I mean, Iam.But there’s all this drive in me now and nowhere to put it. I’ve seen glimpses of the way life’s moving on without me. It’s happening. Petra’s friends have found my friends. A good reason is being made out of this.

What I’ve been missing is that it’s not about getting help. It’s about giving it. I was on the right track with the whole small changes thing. But now it’s time to go big or go home for the one person who needs to be free more than I do.

Spits.

• • •

I stare down the same front doors I’ve entered every Monday of what seems like my entire life. I am the last senior on Earth. Maybe the universe.

Missing this final has been nothing but an excuse. A way to keep myself safe from a world I wasn’t ready to understand. Avoid everything and never get hurt again. But the real world threw itself on me like paint. It covers my clothes. My thoughts. All of me. I am so much more than the white linoleum and the white brick walls and the buzzing white fluorescent lights. So much more than Ryan’s Jeep and the way he hurt me. So much more than I ever gave myself credit for.

The hallways shrink as I grow taller. I swear the top of my head grazes the ceiling outside of Ms. Hornsby’s classroom.

• • •

Paging Spitty Alan Kuspits Jr.

It’s me, your best friend, Martin Frederick McGee. I’d like to have a word with you. Please allow me the opportunity to enter your dream again.

I know. You think dreams are pointless. You’ve never shared yours with me, except for one time—the most important time. You told me about the one where you saw your mom, and she told you everything would be okay. This is like that. Just like that.

Go to sleep. You have to be tired. Your head’s hit the airbag like a million times too many now, your nose ballooning up on the spot, gushing blood. Reminds me of eighth-grade gym when Chris kicked the soccer ball at Turrey’s face and tried to act like it wasn’t on purpose, even though we all knew it was totally on purpose. Turrey got so much blood all over his gym shirt and Mr. Healy made him get a new one the next week because he kept rewearing the bloody one to piss off Chris. Give Turrey a back pat from me for that, will you? That was classic.

But seriously, you were messed up. I promise this is the last time I’m going to let that happen to you. Promise on the pact. Speaking of, when this is all done, I do want you to double-check my body like we promised. There’s a chance I’m not understanding how all this works. I trust that you’ll make sure. And give that letter to my family. It was almost ten years ago that I wrote it, so the spelling’s probably pretty shoddy—I still get hung up on the wordremember—but the idea of it is right. Be happy. Move on. Make a good reason out of everything that happens.

Spitty Kuspits, let’s go for one last joy ride in the White Whale.

• • •

“You’re early,” Ms. Hornsby says as I enter her classroom. I did so many things, and I’m still ahead of schedule.

“Is that okay?”

“I’m glad you’re here at all.” She pulls a timer out of her drawer and hands it to me. Then she hands me a Scantron and the exam questions. All business. “Set this for fifty minutes and turn in the final when it starts beeping.” She nods and returns to grading papers.

As I look at the exam on my way down the aisle, it really hits me. If I don’t succeed, I’m forever trapped in a place I don’t want to be anymore, giving power to a memory that doesn’t deserve that kind of control over me.

My phone starts buzzing. “Oh, yes, that. I almost forgot. No phones,” Ms. Hornsby says. “Bring it up here.”

I pull it out of my purse and see that Turrey is calling. I stall, unsure if I should answer or hand my phone over. “Can I take this really quick?”

“It’s now or never, Petra.”

I miss Turrey’s call. Within seconds, Cameron is calling.

Ms. Hornsby stands and walks over to me. “Whoever it is, they can wait. Your future is more important.”The phrase of the century.She snatches the phone from my grasp and gives me a textbook teacher’s glare. “Now or never.”

• • •

You’re always late, Spitty. I saw you push the other people aside to scoot down your row into your seat. I still don’t understand how you were late to your own graduation and you still managed to get your parking spot. “You can’t rush perfection, man.” That’s what you’d say about it. That’s what you always say.

But I need you to hurry.

I need you to let me help.

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