I stood, brushing wetness from the folds of my clothes where it had collected. “I’m going to go now, Nan. I’m not sure where, but it may be a while before I’m back. A long while.” I took a step closer to the headstone, running my hand over the arched top, hoping to feel something of Nan. But of course, it was just cold, hard marble. Nothing like the woman I’d known.
“I love you, Nan,” I told her, closing my eyes and turning my face to the sky, letting the rain beat down as I listened one last time for anything, any part of Nan.
It was probably just the wind and rain hitting the stones around me, but walking down the hill to my waiting cab, I thought I finally heard her. Or maybe it was just my own inner voice, the one that was my guide all along, repeating her trademark phrase: What now?
I climbed into the back of the taxi, wishing I knew.
Chapter 30
The first day of school. The first day of the rest of my life. It was surreal, walking through the doors of Ashville High again. I hadn’t been gone that long, but felt like I’d gone really, really far.
I’d forced myself to come back here, hoping it might make me feel normal again. I really needed that.
“Cassie!” Tasha ran down the hall grinning, her hair cut short in a sleek bob. She looked older, but in a good way. Not the way I felt. She grabbed me in a tight bear hug. “I’ve been trying to get you. You’ve been back for days. Why didn’t you call?”
“Sorry, Tash. I’ve been swamped.”
“What’ve you been doing?”
“Oh, you know …” Yelling at my dead grandmother, packing up the apartment like I have someplace to go, trying to decide if I’m fate or just fated for the asylum. “Sorting through stuff. Getting my bearings.”
“Yeah, it must be weird to be back.”
“Understatement of the year.” The idea of sitting through classes, trying to pretend any of this mattered … I kept trying to convince myself I could make it work, but I felt totally off, like the latch on my old locker, bent in a way so it never quite snapped into place. There were a few things I’d honestly been looking forward to, though. Seeing Tasha was one of them.
“Well, I’m glad you’re back,” Tasha said, tucking a sweep of hair behind her ear. “I have soooo much to tell you, but first I want to hear about Kansas and your aunt. And your boyfriend! Oh my God, Cassie, what a crazy summer you had!”
“Yeah, it was.” Literally.
Tasha nudged my arm. “C’mon, let’s find our lockers. You can tell me about it on the way. Where’s yours?”
I looked at the slip of paper telling me what to do, a relief to have this small part of my life mapped out so clearly. “Just down the hall. Three fifty-one.”
Tasha frowned. “I’m downstairs. One twenty-two. Who do you have for homeroom?”
“Milchuck.”
“We’re not together,” she said. “I’ve got Mrs. Allen.”
“Yeah, I saw you weren’t on my list.” I’d also seen who was, my breath catching when I thought of seeing him again.
Ashville High looked the same as when I’d left in May, the gray linoleum floors shiny but still not quite clean, tiled walls, kids lingering by their lockers smiling, whispering, picking up right where they’d left off.
“So? Tell me about Lucas,” Tasha urged. “I got all your e-mails. I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk more …”
“That’s okay.”
“It sounded so intense! Was it hard to leave? Are you going to see him again?”
I shook my head. “We broke up.”
“What?! Oh my God, Cassie.” She stopped, grabbed my arm. “What happened?”
If I’d been thinking straight these past few days, I’d have come up with something to tell her. It was obvious we’d come to this. I could say it was an argument, but Tasha would never leave it at that. She’d think I was nuts if I told her it was about a philosophy lesson and probably even more nuts if I explained why that lesson mattered.
“Hello? Cass?”
“I’m sorry, Tasha.” I smiled weakly. “I’m a little out of it.”
“No shit.” She crossed her arms, waiting. “So? What happened?”
“Oh.” I sighed. “Long story.” Tasha frowned. This was the kind of thing best friends shared, but there’s no way I could tell her. Not all of it. “It’s way too much to get into here. We’ll talk later.”
“Well, are you okay?” We started walking again. Tasha was still frowning, but seemed more worried than annoyed.
“Sure,” I said. “It wasn’t meant to be. I’m over it.”
Tasha stopped again and looked at me hard. “No you’re not.”
“No,” I said, actually smiling. This is what I loved about Tasha. “I’m not. But I will be.”
We’d reached my locker and Tasha leaned against the wall while I twirled the knob, setting the combination. The door clicked open smoothly.
“Works,” I said, shutting it. I had nothing to put in there, but they made us check them anyway. “Should we do yours?”
“Yeah.” We walked down the stairs and toward her locker, Tasha telling me about the summer in Ashville, the boy she’d worked with, weekend trips to the beach, concerts. It sounded so nice. Ordinary.
Classmates passed us, waving and nodding. I smiled back, trying to be happy about being back here, among friends. Trying to look as sane as Tasha or as any of them. Trying not to notice the way they looked when they walked through the shaft of sunlight streaming in the window—as if they were marked. They weren’t. Not today.
The bell rang just as we got to Tasha’s locker.
“Ugh! I can’t believe school’s starting again already,” she said. “You’d better get upstairs. Want to come over later today? You can stay for dinner, my mom’s making tacos.”
My fave. “Sure.”
“I’m glad you’re back, Cass,” Tasha said, punching my arm lightly. “I missed you.”
“Yeah, me too.” I had missed Tasha and our lazy afternoons at her house, runs for coffee at Jake’s. I didn’t know if we could ever go back there, though. I was a different person now. Of course, so was she. That’s part of what William James was saying with the whole Divinity Street thing Lucas and I had talked about in his apartment: none of us are ever who we were yesterday.