Wish You Were Gone(14)

“Want me to come with you?” her brother said.

“She’s fine,” Willow told him. She was rolling a quarter expertly back and forth over the tops of her fingers like it was nothing. Then, with a flick of her wrist, it entirely disappeared. “Right, Kelsey? You’re fine.”

“Actually…” Kelsey said to her brother. “Can you?”

Hunter slid his mirrored sunglasses on. “I’ll catch up with you later,” he said to Willow, who looked temporarily stung at being dismissed. But Kelsey couldn’t care at the moment. She was too grateful to have her brother by her side.

The stares of her classmates on the quad were pitying, curious, and oddly superior—as if having a living father was one more thing they could now lord over her. For a girl who had spent most of her life as the invisible sibling to her athlete-god brother, the attention was disconcerting. But this was her punishment for having a parent who died in such a spectacularly buzzworthy way, with a totaled garage and a flattened hundred-thousand-dollar car. One last parting gift from dear old dad.

Kelsey upped her pace to match Hunter’s long strides. She just wanted to get inside and get to Mrs. Tisch’s room. Alexa had texted that she was waiting at her locker with a welcome-back surprise, which almost definitely meant her mom’s homemade peanut butter cups. This actually might turn out to be an okay morning, if everyone would just stop staring.

She hoped Hunter was wrong about the musical. Performing on stage, attending rehearsals, being part of that community—she needed it like a plant needed water. Was it weird that this was what she was thinking about right now? Maybe she should be thinking about life and death and whether her father was burning in hell.

From the corner of her eye, Kelsey saw Jason Katz, the geek who had taken her as his queen back in the sixth grade, begin his approach. Kelsey started to smile. Jason was awkward, but he could be okay, and she wouldn’t have minded a distraction right about then. But then Jason registered the presence of Hunter and nearly tripped himself stopping short. She was still marveling, not for the first time, at the scope of her brother’s power, when she heard the words dad and garage and total massacre rise up from somewhere to her left. How much would she have to pay her brother to stick with her through classes, like a bodyguard?

How did it even happen? someone said. Driving through your own garage? It’s so fucked up.

An odd hollow suddenly opened up inside her stomach, as if some roided-up superhero had just punched a hole right through her. For a second she couldn’t breathe.

Dad.

He was actually gone. Actually never coming back. Was this grief she was feeling? Here? Now? Maybe she wasn’t dead inside after all.

“What’s up?” Hunter said.

“Nothing.” They’d reached the door and she ducked inside, breathing a sigh of relief at the cool silence of the hallway. Technically, they weren’t supposed to be inside yet, but Kelsey had a feeling no one was going to try to admonish the Walsh kids right now. “Thanks for coming with me.”

“Look, it’s gonna be weird today,” he said, taking his sunglasses off again and looking her in the eye. “Probably all week. Just power through, okay? And text me if you need me.”

“Thanks, Hunt.”

“Whatever. Don’t get all sappy on me now.” He gave her a grin, which seemed to take some effort, then strolled off toward the senior hallway. Kelsey hooked a right and beelined it for the arts wing. Someone was in the band room practicing Vivaldi on their clarinet and butchering the crap out of it. Still, the sound was oddly comforting. Normal. Back to normal.

She expected the musical tryout list to be posted on the bulletin board outside the classroom. Mrs. Tisch liked to do things the old-fashioned way, rather then use Sign Me UP!, the app the rest of the school used. But the board was bare. Kelsey glanced into the open classroom. Mrs. Tisch was sitting at her desk, looking at something on her computer and taking notes in a notebook. She was so pretty—slim and blond—the youngest teacher at Oakmont Day. Today she wore her hair in loose tendrils down her back and a formfitting black shirt tucked into a houndstooth check pencil skirt. Kelsey thought that if she was ever going to have a crush on a woman, it would be Mrs. Tisch.

She knocked lightly.

“Kelsey!” Mrs. Tisch stood up and tossed her pencil down. “It’s so good to see you. I’m so sorry about your father.”

Kelsey lifted her hand. “It’s fine.”

Mrs. Tisch blinked.

“I mean, I’m sorry. It’s not fine. I just never know what to say when someone says that. Do you say It’s okay or I’m sorry, too or Thanks? It’s not a sentence that has a good response.” She gave an awkward laugh.

“Makes sense,” Mrs. Tisch said. “So, I bet you’re looking for the Wizard of Oz sign-ups? I was just about to put them out.” She lifted a sheet of paper, then put it back down on her desk. “Unless… I mean… I’m sure this is a bad time.”

Kelsey walked over, grabbed Mrs. Tisch’s pencil, and wrote her name in clear, stark print at the top of the list.

“Great!” Mrs. Tisch said. She looked up at Kelsey, who felt suddenly conspicuous. She had always been bad at asking adults for things. Especially cool adults. She simply lost all confidence. “Was there something else?”

“Remember when I told you I was thinking about applying to Daltry and you said you thought it was a great idea and that you would write me a letter of recommendation?” she said in a rush.