Chapter 3: Return

Zoey went back to school on a Monday, three weeks after the accident.

Her mother walked her to the front entrance and didn’t pretend she wasn’t doing it. Zoey let her. They stood at the doors for a moment and her mother straightened her jacket collar the way she used to do in elementary school and said, “You call me if you need anything. Anything at all.”

“I know,” Zoey said.

“I mean it.”

“Mom. I know.”

She went in.

The first hour was fine. People were glad to see her — genuinely, warmly glad. Teachers checked on her quietly before class. Deja fell into step beside her between periods and talked enough for both of them, which was exactly what Zoey needed. The building was familiar. Her locker combination was still in her fingers. She sat second row in AP English and opened her notebook and for about forty minutes felt almost like herself.

Then the warmth arrived.

It came without warning the way it always did now. The boy two seats over shifted in his chair and looked at her and the signal fired and Zoey felt her eyes go to him before she could stop them. He was nobody she’d ever particularly noticed. Average in every measurable way. But her eyes found him and held a half second too long and she watched his expression change — mild surprise, then something more interested — before she pulled her gaze back to her notebook.