They Wish They Were Us(29)

“Thanks, Diane,” I say. She tips her little white cap and disappears into the kitchen.

“I saw that article about Shay,” Jared says. His voice is small. “Is that why you wanted to come here? To talk about it?”

My chest tightens. I never even thought to talk to Jared about Graham or Shaila or Rachel’s texts. I shake my head but can’t figure out what to say.

“You must miss her,” he says.

“I do. So much.” I blink back tears. This was not how I wanted this to go. “But don’t worry about all that,” I say. “The police are on it. We have to trust they’ll figure everything out.”

“I guess.”

I take a deep breath and tuck my hair back behind my ears. “So, how’s school?” I ask.

“Fine,” he says. “But . . .”

“But what?”

Jared sighs, letting out a whoosh of air, like a balloon being deflated. “I feel like I’m gonna fail bio.”

“What?” I lean in closer. The edge of the table digs into my ribs.

Jared looks down and taps his fingers against his mug. “I don’t know. It’s just so hard. Not my thing.”

“Did you have your first midterm yet?”

He nods. “Sixty-eight.”

“Jesus, Jared. Why didn’t you tell me?” I hiss. “I could have helped you.”

Jared lolls his head back and half closes his eyes. “Come on. You’re like perfect at this stuff.”

I shake my head. I want him to know the truth, the real truth. I was always deemed the smart one by Newman children standards. We had both been at Cartwright Elementary through fifth grade. The classes were big and the expectations were low. But I was labeled gifted back in kindergarten with Miss Becky, when I had moved up a reading level before anyone else. So when Jared announced that he, too, had Miss Becky for kindergarten, I clasped my hands together at the dinner table. “You are so lucky,” I had whispered to him. “Miss Becky is the best.”

But Jared had a harder time with letters and numbers, at first. It would be another few years before he was actually diagnosed with dyslexia. He got into Gold Coast as part of their learning disability outreach program. No reduced tuition for him. Just the promise of being taken care of with small classes and specially trained teachers and tutors. My parents jumped at the chance. They never talked about how they found a way to pay for it. My guess was a second mortgage and a shit ton of debt. But back then in Miss Becky’s class, he just couldn’t keep up at the rate I had.

“Miss Becky doesn’t like me,” he said one day after school. His huge eyes filled with tears and spilled down his cheeks in big wet plunks.

“Of course she does!” I said to him, holding his hand and petting his hair.

“She doesn’t,” he said. “I’m not like you.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just hugged his warm little body to mine, trying not to cry, too. We were not the same, I learned. That was the first time I realized there was actually a possibility that we could grow up to not have the same favorite foods or the same taste in books or the same grades. It was a horrifying thought, that our little lives could diverge at any point without warning. Was this only the beginning? I wondered.

But we were so similar with our saucer-size green-brown eyes and our shared hatred of mayo. We both loved the stars, thanks to Dad. As we grew, we began to look more and more alike, too. The only thing keeping us from being considered twins was our age. Our dark wavy hair curled in the same places. Even our arms sported the same freckles we turned into constellations every summer. Cut from the same cloth, Mom would say. Two sides of the same coin.

I look at him across the booth at Diane’s now and I see all those years he spent trying to catch up to me, jumping over hurdles that seemed too high for him to reach in order to impress teachers like Miss Becky, to get into Gold Coast, to be friends with kids like Bryce at school. It’s then I realize it must be exhausting trying to keep up with Jill Newman. Just like it was exhausting trying to keep up with Shaila Arnold.

“You’ll bring it up,” I say. “You’re not going to fail. Maybe a C, sure, but that’ll straighten itself out by the time you graduate.” My brain starts calculating, trying to figure out what his average will be if he aces this semester’s final with a little help. There’s gotta be a bio answer key, or at least a study guide, in the Files. The C won’t affect his overall GPA too badly by the time he’s a second-semester junior. That’s when it really counts.

“Easy for you to say,” he mumbles as Diane drops giant plates in front of us. Jared lifts the sticky glass bottle of syrup and drenches his stack of pancakes in a thick, sweet stream.

“Not easy for me to say. I had so much help, you don’t even know.”

“Oh yeah? From who?”

Suddenly, I’m not hungry anymore and the eggs in front of me start to look like barf. “The Players . . .” I start, trying to figure out how to explain this to him. “It’s just . . .”

I pause. I swear I feel a vibration in my pocket. Rachel. I whip my phone out under the table to check, but there’s nothing. Phantom sirens. Where is she? I wonder. Why hasn’t she responded? I slide my phone back into my pocket and look up at Jared, remembering what we were discussing, why we’re here.