The Things We Miss by Leah Stecher

Author:Leah Stecher
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781547613038
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2024-03-21T00:00:00+00:00

17

The last text on my phone was from Jessi, waiting for my response. Did she think we were friends now?

The idea made panic rise up my body, from my stomach into my throat. I was sitting firmly on my bed, feet planted on the floor, but the world felt off-balance.

I didn’t know her. I mean, we were friendly. We rolled our eyes together in PE, and she was usually my partner when we had to pair up in English. But I didn’t know what to say to her, how to talk to her. When I stepped into conversation with her, I was stepping into unformed space. No landmarks. Only lots and lots of room for mistakes, for arguments, for disagreements. Plenty of space for her to decide she didn’t like me. That I was weird and awkward and just not cool.

The idea of seeing her in class the next day was making me woozy. What things had me-not-me told her during the Autumn Ball? What about earlier today, at school? Did we have inside jokes? Had she told me a secret? Had I told her a secret, the secret? No, certainly not. I wouldn’t. Right?

I didn’t know what to do. So I reached for something solid: Kevin.

He picked up on the first ring.

“Hey. I just got back from a skip.”

“Hey.” He sounded tired. “Thanks for calling.”

“Of course.” I put on a dramatic voice. “I know I’m supposed to give you all the details on the outfits at the Autumn Ball.”

A pause on the other end of the phone. “You did already, at lunch today.” He cleared his throat. “Isn’t that in your notebook?”

I slipped back into my normal voice. “Sorry. Probably. I, um, lost a page. I spilled Mom’s coffee on it,” I lied. I wasn’t sure he would understand why I’d torn it out.

There was another pause. “You lost a page? What day?”

Stifling a groan, I grabbed the red notebook again and flipped through it. The page I’d ripped out was Saturday evening and all of Sunday. I had a few notes for today—Monday—scribbled on the next page, about the last couple periods of the day. “Um, looks like most of Sunday. And some of today. But I’ll get the lessons from other people, don’t worry,” I added quickly.

“Oh. Sure, okay.” Kevin sounded distracted.

“Aren’t you going to ask me how long the skip was for?”

Kevin let out a puff of air. “I . . . ​I don’t know.” I could practically see Kevin shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t know if we’re learning anything useful. Maybe we shouldn’t bother.”

Kevin and I were partners, like Admiral K and Lieutenant Marlow. Even if he didn’t want to use the door himself, he was on Team Magic Door. He was supposed to care about this amazingly weird and wonderful thing that was happening to me. He was supposed to care about me.

“Sure. Yeah, you’re right,” I said numbly. “Probably no need.”

“Right. Um. Anything else you wanted to ask about?”

There was something off about his voice.

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