Chapter 6: First Bell

Monday morning arrived like a held breath.

I woke up before my alarm at 5:47 AM, according to the clock on my nightstand. The room was gray, the sun not yet up, the world still sleeping. For a moment, I didn’t remember. For a moment, I was just a girl in a bed, with nothing to do and nowhere to be and no one to be but myself.

Then the moment passed.

Today.

I sat up. Swung my legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold, the cheap tile that every rental in North Phoenix seems to have, the kind that holds onto the night’s coolness long after the sun has started to burn.

Today.

I walked to the window. The parking lot was empty except for my mother’s car, the dumpster, and the stray cat that had been living under the stairs since June. The Smitty’s was still lit up, still open, still selling limes and bread and sympathy cards to people whose hearts hadn’t stopped yet.

Today.

I took a shower. The water was hotter than usual, because I wanted to feel something. After all, I wanted to burn, because I wanted to remember that my body was alive even when the rest of me felt like a ghost.

When I got out, I didn’t reach for a towel. I just stood in the bathroom, dripping, watching the steam fade from the mirror. My reflection stared back at me, a girl with wet hair and tan lines and eyes that looked older than sixteen.

The tan line is almost gone now. The ghost of the coveralls had faded to almost nothing, just a suggestion of where the fabric used to rest. In another week, it would be gone entirely. I would be one color from head to toe, the color of a girl who had stopped hiding.

I ran my fingers over my shoulders, my arms, my stomach. The skin was softer than I remembered, maybe, or maybe I’d just forgotten what it felt like to touch myself without fabric in the way.

Today.

I walked back to my room and picked up the things I would need: sandals, my father’s hat, a small backpack with my phone and my wallet, and a printed copy of the letter I’d written. No clothes. No coverups. No “just in case” outfit hidden at the bottom of the bag.

Today.

The kitchen smelled like coffee and toast. My mother was standing at the counter, wearing the same robe she’d been wearing for days, her hair still messy, her face pale.

“You’re up early,” she said.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither.”

She slid a plate across the counter to toast with butter, cut diagonally, the way I liked it. I didn’t remember telling her that. Maybe she’d always known. Maybe that was what mothers did.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Eat. You’ll need the energy.”

I ate standing up, because sitting felt too much like waiting, and waiting felt too much like being afraid. The toast was good, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, and the butter melted into the crevices where the knife had scored the bread.

David came out of the bathroom at 7:15, his hair wet, his clothes rumpled. He looked at me really, the way he’d been looking all weekend, like he was trying to memorize my face in case he never saw it again.

“You’re really doing this,” he said.

“I’m really doing this.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”