My thoughts cut off as I remember. The snow. The darkness. Blake. Adam.
I sit up, scanning my room as I kick the covers off my legs. It’s cold and dark. Too cold and dark for seven o’clock in May. I shiver as I rise from my bed, padding across my wood floor. My curtains are tightly shut, not a sliver of daylight showing around the edges.
I pull the drapes open quickly, like I’m ripping off a bandage. Outside, it’s still winter. Inside, I die a little.
I press my palm to the cold windowpane with a sigh. The street looks magical, every house and mailbox dipped in a snow so white it looks like sugar. It’s like a Christmas card.
But I’m not ready for Christmas. I’m ready for jean shorts and sweet tea and long, sticky nights with cicadas singing in the grass.
I return to my bed, curling into a ball. It wasn’t a nightmare. I’d known that, of course, but nothing else seemed possible when I’d stumbled in here last night.
Now, the newness of the day hits me like teeth, gnawing at the unwelcome truth. I’m missing time. A lot of it.
“Chloe?”
My mom’s voice drifts up the stairs, familiar and just a little scratchy so she probably hasn’t had much coffee.
“You want breakfast, honey?”
No, I really don’t. I want my six months back.
I try dialing Mags again before giving up and heading downstairs. Mom is peering into the fridge, her hair in a towel and her shirt buttoned wrong. Nothing newsworthy there. Until she turns at me and breaks into a grin.
“Morning, Superstar. Need some oatmeal to keep that brain churning?”
Uh, what? I blink several times, and she just laughs, pulling out a carton of blueberries and a couple tubs of yogurt. Which is…weird. We don’t do breakfast. Not together, anyway.
“Too early, I guess.” She nods at a cup and saucer on the counter. “Your tea’s ready.”
Tea? We have tea in this house?
I don’t know what she’s talking about, and I’m too tired to care. The coffeepot is sputtering, so I head over to get myself a cup. One whiff and a wave of queasiness rolls through me. I push the pot back onto the burner.
“What’s wrong with the coffee?” I ask.
My mom sighs and takes another sip while my stomach cramps in protest. “Don’t start again, Chloe.”
My hands are shaking now. I can’t handle this. It’s just too scary.
“Mom, I need to talk to you.”
“Is it about Vassar? Honey, I know it sounds hoity-toity, but with these scores, you’ve got to consider—”
“It’s not about Vassar, Mom. It’s about me. I’m having some trouble.”
She looks up, her gray eyes clouding with worry. “What kind of trouble? School trouble? The kids in the SAT group?”
I can’t blame her for asking. If I go down in the yearbooks for anything it’ll be Most Likely to Not Live Up to My Potential. “No. I’m just…I’m forgetting some things.”
Her relief is palpable, bringing pink back to her cheeks. “Of course you’re forgetting things. You’re exhausted, honey. You’ve been studying day and night, putting in extra credit.”
“I think it’s more than that,” I say, though the idea of me investing in extra credit is just insane. I’m a Play Now, Work Later girl, and she knows it better than anyone.
She takes a breath, hands moving absently to her throat. “You don’t think it’s those panic attacks again, do you?”
She says it like a dirty secret, almost whispering it. I feel like she’s poised on the edge of a knife. One wrong word from me now and she will return to the mother I remember. Quiet. Distant. Disappointed.
“Maybe I just need some sleep,” I say with a sigh.
Mom nods so quickly it’s like she spoon-fed me the answer. She clears the table, though I’ve barely touched my yogurt. Typical. I get a smile and a pat that’s supposed to be reassuring. And then she’s up the stairs and I’m left on my own.
Across from me, the fridge whirs to life and I glance at the clutter strewn across the doors. I watched a Dateline episode once about how criminals could learn everything about you from digging through your trash. They’d have better luck looking at our fridge.
Bills, birthday pictures, concert tickets, notes we leave each other, it’s all stuck up there, layered so thickly most days, it’s hard to find the handle to get the darned thing open. And today there are some new things to the mix, one in particular that I can’t stop staring at.
It’s a printout from a website placed front and center on the left door. I remember the logo in the corner from the information they passed out in homeroom. It’s the SAT website.
Blake’s words from last night play through my mind. You’re in the top three percent, Chloe.
My scores. My SAT scores are on my fridge.
My heart starts pounding harder and faster. Even from here I can see my name at the top and a series of numbers circled in red in the middle. There are comments from both of my parents, stars and exclamation points all over the place.
I stand up and head over, frowning at the four digits that spell out the impossible.
Two thousand one hundred and fifty-five.
My mouth drops open. No, it can’t be right. I’d hoped I’d manage maybe 1650. Anything over 1700 and I would have lost my mind, but this?
I check again. My name, the scores, the dates. It’s all there.
It has to be a mistake. What else could it be? This is the kind of score genius kids get. Future rocket scientists and surgeons and…psychologists.
I press my thumb over the four numbers and think of the row of psychology books lined up above my computer desk. I think of that first panic attack when I sat there panting and shivering in the girls’ locker room, sure I was dying and desperate to understand how something like this could happen to someone like me.
When I pull my thumb away, the numbers remain.
2155.
Maybe I don’t remember that test, but I took it.
This score? It changes everything.
***
My shower is beyond brief. I spend a minute checking myself over in the mirror. My hair is at my shoulders now, but it’s still dark and curly enough to be a hassle. The rest of me seems unchanged. Green eyes, narrow nose, and dimples I’ve hated since I first noticed them in the second grade.
My phone rings when I’m finishing my hair, buzzing on the sink.
“Mags,” I breathe, scrambling as it skates across the vanity. I catch it and search for her name, but it’s not Maggie. It’s the number I saw over and over in my phone last night. The one I obviously call all the time these days.
I answer it, hoping that Maggie’s number has changed—that she’ll be yelling at me for not calling and asking me what we’re doing for lunch.
“Morning.” It’s Blake. My shoulders sag, and he goes on, not waiting for me to respond. “How are you feeling?”
My eyes search for the mirror. I look tired and pale. Maybe even a little scared.
“I’m okay.”
“You sure? Did you have your mom look at your head?”
I test it with my fingers, but it’s barely sore now. Not likely a brain injury.
“She did. It’s fine,” I say, because lying is easier than explaining I totally forgot about my head after his good-bye kiss completely squicked me out.
“Good,” he says. “So you want me to come in? I’ve got your breakfast.”
My spine goes stiff. “Come in? Are you here?”
He chuckles at that. “Your car’s at school, babe. Did you think I’d make you walk?”
Babe. Girlfriend. All kinds of impossible words that feel too ridiculous to be believed. They also feel sort of…nauseating.
“No,” I say, forcing the word out through a tight throat.
Blake makes a noise on the other end of the phone, something between a snort and a sigh. “Are you sure you’re all right? I hate to say it, but you’re acting like a total head case.”
The word pinches the last nerve I’ve got, but I’m sure he can’t mean anything by it. And he’s got a point. If he really thinks I’m his girlfriend, then I am being a head case.
I force a stiff chuckle. “Sorry, I didn’t get enough sleep. I appreciate you stopping by. Can you give me two minutes?”