Page 61 of Across His Line

“See?” she says. “Now you’ll remember.”

And she goes.

I stand in the hallway and listen to her footsteps go down the stairwell, quick and light, until the door closes behind her.

Twelve twelve.

She was right.

I’m never going to forget.

11

A Sweet Potato for One

Tessa

I’m fourth in line at the post office with the mailer under my arm when it hits me.

Why did I tell him that?

And then I said now you’ll remember, like I want him to know my birthday.

I am cringing on the inside.

And he’s definitely going to remember it now. If he can remember my shoes that he can’t seem to stop looking at, he’s going to remember that my birthday is his birthday swapped. Two-one to one-two.

The woman behind the counter calls next, and I step up and put the mailer on the scale. She asks if there’s anything liquid, fragile, or perishable inside, and I say no.

I’ve known his birthday since ninth grade because knowing things about Rafferty Waleska was useful. It was armor. Every fact was another brick in the wall. Now he knows mine, and it isn’t useful to him at all. There’s no reason for him to have it. It’s just a thing I gave him. I don’t know why that feels so much more exposed.

I pay for the postage and go back out into the cold. I don’t know why, but I’m half-expecting something to happen, so every corner I turn, I’m bracing myself to see him. Twelve twelve, little Tessa. I can already hear him in my head. He always took what I said and used it against me. It’s what I’d have done, if I were him, and if I were cruel.

The next time I see him is that night. I’m in the dining hall when he comes in with Nash and Koda, and they sit three tables over, and I watch them without meaning to.

I’ve watched Rafferty Waleska in a lot of rooms. I’ve never watched him like this. Koda is telling a story with his whole body, something about a goalie and a bag of ice, and Nash is eating. Rafe says something under his breath, something short and flat that I can’t hear. And Koda chokes on his water. Nash puts his fork down and laughs, actually laughs, the kind of laugh I’ve never once heard come out of Nash Kennebeck. And Rafe just keeps eating, completely straight-faced, like he has no idea what he did.

I didn’t know he could be funny. I know he doesn’t do nice. I don’t think he knows how. But I never saw this in high school. I never saw him with anyone who wasn’t either scared of him or trying to be him.

It doesn’t make me forgive him for everything he’s done. There will always be the girl at the end of a lunch table inside of me who would never forgive him, and I’m not going to sell her out because he made Koda Barnes choke on his water.

But I can’t keep pretending they’re exactly the same person anymore. The boy who stood in the east stairwell and the boy three tables over. In high school, he wasn’t a person to me. He was a weather pattern. A thing that happened to me between seven-forty and three-fifteen. And this one is eating chicken and making his friends laugh. He has an NHL scout, and a birthday he doesn’t seem to care about.

I take my tray to the dish return and go home before he can see me.

On Sunday morning, he passes me in the hall and says, “Hey,” and keeps walking. An hour later, he holds the stairwell door when I’m coming up behind him with my laundry, without looking back to see if I noticed. My heart’s racing the entire time like he’s waiting for the right time to attack.

That afternoon, I finally call my grandma back.

I’ve been putting it off for two weeks. Not avoiding her. I texted. I sent hearts. I told her I got her voicemails and I’d call when I could talk, and she sent back a thumbs-up, which she learned from me and uses for everything.

She picks up on the second ring this time.

“Hi, Tess.”

“Hi, Grandma.”

She sounds better. I listen for the thin spot, the half note. It isn’t there. She sounds tired, but she sounds like herself. She tells me my cousin, Dylan, is staying with a friend across town for a while. She mentions the woman at church with the bad hip got a new hip.