Far from the Tree(26)

“Grace?”

She looked up. Mrs. Mendoza was smiling down at her, the way priests do when they’re visiting sick people at the hospital. Benevolent, but also silently wishing for hand sanitizer.

“I was just saying that if you’d like to spend the next few days in the library doing makeup work just so you can catch up a little, that’s fine.”

“Oh,” she said. “No, that’s okay.”

There were snickers behind her. It sounded like Zach. And Miriam Whose-Last-Name-Grace-Could-Never-Remember. You know people have been laughing behind your back for a while when you can identify each giggle’s source. “Too bad I couldn’t have a baby,” the voice said. Grace was right—it was Zach. “Get out of homework. Score, man.”

“Ugh, you are the worst.” That was Miriam. At first Grace thought she was defending her. She was about to turn around and smile when she really heard what Miriam said. She said “You’re the worst” in the way girls say things when they want boys to think that they’re teasing, like, “You’re the worst, but I still like you enough to hook up with you, even though you’re the emotional equivalent of dirt.”

Then again, who was Grace to judge? The last boy she’d liked got her pregnant, left her alone, and took another girl to homecoming on the same night she gave birth.

She couldn’t exactly blame Miriam for poor life choices.

She couldn’t help but wonder what Maya would say to Zach if she were in this situation. Grace hadn’t known Maya that long, but she was pretty sure that Maya would have thrown herself back into school the way lions ran into the Colosseum during Roman times: teeth sharp and claws out.

Grace channeled that energy. “Wow,” she said, turning around to look at Zach. “Nothing gets past you, does it? You’re very observant.”

Grace was pretty sure that instead of a lion, she was the equivalent of a mewling kitten.

Zach just smirked and took his baseball cap off, smoothing down his hair before putting it back on. “Whatever, Baby Mama,” he said.

“Zach, seriously,” Miriam joked. Grace would have given her kingdom to grab Miriam by the shoulders and shake her until her head wobbled on her neck.

But then Mrs. Mendoza started talking (“Zach, take off your hat, you know the rules in my classroom”), and Grace found her pen and opened her notebook. Just act normal, she told herself.

She acted normal through English and second period (AP Chem), but third period was where it all fell apart. If, by fell apart, you meant crumbled into oblivion.

Third period was U.S. history.

Third period was with Max.

Janie wasn’t the only person who hadn’t realized Grace was coming back to school, judging by the look on Max’s face. He was laughing with Adam, one of his friends, and when Grace walked into the room, his eyes got so big that he looked like a cartoon. If Grace hadn’t hated him so much, it would have been funny, but the only thing she felt was a sick thrill for surprising him. She liked the idea of keeping him on his toes, popping up where he least expected her, a flesh-and-blood ghost to haunt him for the rest of his life.

Grace knew it wasn’t possible, but it felt like everyone in the room stopped talking when she walked in, their heads swiveling between her and Max. As if this period was suddenly the new episode of a soap opera, and the long-thought-dead evil twin had just sauntered back into town.

She sat down in her normal assigned seat, which, unfortunately, was right across from Max. She had chosen that seat back at the beginning of the year because it was easier to talk to him that way. Now she cursed Past Grace for making such a terrible decision. Past Grace, it turned out, was a real idiot.

Adam was giggling and saying, “Dude, dude,” quietly, the way you do when you have a secret.

“Shut up,” Max hissed at him. Adam had been (and, Grace assumed, still was) as dumb as concrete, one of those guys who thought he was a football star when he really just watched from the sidelines and high-fived other people when they made the winning touchdowns. Grace had never liked him, and Max knew that.

Unlike her first two teachers, Mr. Hill ignored Grace and got down to business, which she appreciated. Sympathy was sometimes worse than being ignored. “Okay, bodies,” he said loudly. (Mr. Hill always referred to his students as “bodies.” It was a little distressing at times. Grace couldn’t help but picture a roomful of corpses.) “Let’s focus!”

Grace dug her pen out of her bag, willing herself to not even look at Max. She could see his feet, though, and he was wearing new shoes. That blew her mind. Somewhere in the time between when she’d had his daughter, met her half siblings, and returned to school, Max had gone shopping and bought new shoes, like his life was still normal; like it hadn’t changed at all.

And the truth was that it hadn’t. Somewhere in the world, another couple was raising Max’s biological child. And he had new shoes.

By the time Grace found her pen, her cheeks were bright red. The urge to use it to scribble all over Max’s shoes was strong, painfully so, but she just set it down on her desk and looked forward.

“Hey,” Adam whispered across the aisle as Mr. Hill turned toward the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. “Hey, psst! Grace!”

She didn’t turn around. She knew Adam wasn’t going to ask about how she was feeling, or wish her a good first day back, or see if she needed anything.