Pretend She's Here(79)

“OMG, you haven’t met him!”

“Her latest obsession. Prepare to hear everything,” Alicia said with an exaggerated sigh.

Jordan shrugged and smiled. “He moved here from North Carolina just before Christmas. He had a minute with Monica, but what can I say? He saw the light.”

“You’re going out?” I asked.

“Yes, if I can overcome the Scorpio-ness of it all,” she said.

“What about Eric?” I asked, trying to keep things straight.

“The never-ending saga of Jordan’s boyfriends,” Alicia put in, rolling her eyes.

“Eric and I ended before Thanksgiving. Whatever. Kirk gave me this.” Jordan touched the shark tooth.

Whatever. I heard the word and remembered the email Mrs. Porter had written for me to send home, how she’d made me sound like somebody else—like Jordan, or anyone. Just not myself. I felt sad to think no one had noticed. My family, who knew me so well, hadn’t caught the fact I’d written a word I would never have used in a million years.

The bell rang, and Dan walked straight over to me.

“Hey,” he said. There was excitement in that syllable, so much, it took me aback. He stood a little too close. There was almost no space between us. He looked straight at me with a slack mouth but eyes searching and full of—what? Not questions, but happiness to see me. And behind that—wow—care.

“Hey,” I said.

“For so long,” he said, “we didn’t know.”

“You didn’t know what?”

“If you were okay. Where you were. It wasn’t like you to run away.”

“No,” I said.

“I knew you hadn’t.” He put his hand on my shoulder. It was a gesture both comforting and odd, something a parent or teacher would do. Then he pulled me against him, so hard he almost crushed my not-quite-healed ribs, but I didn’t cry out. I felt his chest shaking with emotion. Dan was crying. I just squeezed my eyes tight and knew that in another world, a lifetime ago, this would have made me happier than anything.

The bell rang, and the tide of everyone streaming toward class tore us apart. He lowered his eyes, as if ashamed of showing his feelings, or maybe upset that I hadn’t returned them. He went his way, and I walked into American history class.

Jeff Woodley sat in the third row. My first instinct was to pretend I hadn’t seen him and walk to a desk across the room. Instead I took a deep breath and went to sit beside him. I could only imagine how he felt about the fact I’d just spent the last few months as a warped version of Lizzie. He was wearing the chain around his neck, her ring dangling from it. Our eyes met.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I never wanted to be her.”

“Em, I know that. It freaked me out, but only for your sake. It must have been horrible.”

“It was.”

“You were in People magazine. They did this creepy compilation photo, your face merged with Lizzie’s.”

“Are you serious?” I asked. My family had shielded me from that one. “When did it come out?”

“Like two weeks ago.”

“I’m sure my parents won’t show me, but I kind of want to see.” I took out my phone.

“Okay, call me obsessed,” Jeff was saying, “but I couldn’t stop looking at it. Seeing Lizzie, well, it was a little like having her brought back to life.”

I started to look up the article on my phone, but then he slid the magazine out of his backpack and opened to the page. I stared at the bizarre photo—it was like of those M. C. Escher drawings, where a flock of birds transforms into a school of fish. Half Emily Lonergan, half Lizzie Porter.

It was hugely disturbing, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

“I don’t want to look at it anymore,” Jeff said. “Now that you’re back.”

“Me neither,” I said.

He ripped the page from the magazine and handed it to me, and I shredded it into tiny pieces, balled them up in my hand, and walked them to the trash can in the front of the room. When I got back to my desk, Jeff reached across the space between us and linked his fingers with mine.

Ms. Fowle began lecturing on Lieutenant Colonel William Ledyard, a local soldier who had fought during the Revolutionary War. Kids in our area had grown up with the story; most of us had visited Fort Griswold on class trips or with our families. I felt relieved that this was a familiar lesson, that I could ease myself back into studying with facts I already knew.

“September 6, 1781, the Battle of Groton Heights,” Ms. Fowle said. She was small and compact, with straight dark hair and tattoos of roses on her wrists. She wore a fringed black leather vest over a flowing beige tunic, with leopard-print leggings and pink cowboy boots. Her big brown eyes were kind. Rumor had it she reenacted local battles and also that she was obsessed with zydeco music.

“Colonel Ledyard refused Benedict Arnold’s command to surrender Fort Griswold,” she was saying. “The British had eight hundred soldiers, Ledyard had about a hundred and fifty. The Americans held the British off for nearly an hour.” She paused. “Now, Benedict Arnold. We all know his name is synonymous with what?”

“Being a traitor!” Liana Hagen called.

“That’s right. He was born twelve miles from the fort in Norwich. He was a Connecticut native who became known as the Dark Eagle—why would he have been given that name? Anyone?” She looked straight at me.