There's a table in the back of Bluebell café and we're sitting in it. Grace and I. We're eating vanilla ice cream out of the same bowl. It's so cold on my palate, but it's worth the pain.
"To us," Grace says, holding her spoon in the air. I touch mine to hers and we laugh about it. I imagine sparkly champagne glasses with little black cherries bobbing around in the bubbly. It's a celebration.
"To us!"
I can taste the beginnings of something big on the tip of my tongue. But I swallow it with my ice cream. Grace and I waste away the afternoon. Eating ice-cream. Flipping through magazines.
I lay in bed that night after walking Grace home, thinking that it's all a bit underwhelming. I haven't seen Billie since the notebook ordeal. And the fact that school was starting up again and I was going to be seeing her again made me anxious. Scared.
But, I wouldn't let it get to me.
I can't shake the nervous energy in my veins the next morning. I shiver beneath the shower. Not because the water was cold. But, it is and it is all so insane. I feel so tired. Right down to my bones.
I sleep at the kitchen table over the oats dad made for breakfast. Legs jittery beneath my things. Boots digging into my butt.
"Are you ready?" Dad tosses the car keys up into the air. Alive and ready to tackle the day.
I nod bleakly over my porridge.
The car idles in the school parking lot, waiting for me to get out of the car. Then dad's waiting for me to get out of the car.
"It will still be here tomorrow," dad says when he realized I'm not getting out. "But, there's a certain project due today. And I'd hate for you to fail because you were nervous, kid. Give it a try. Why don't you?"
I nod. But, I can't move. I try and I try and I try. But, I can't move. I'm screaming at the weirdness inside of me to stop being so peculiar. Only, it won't stop. So, I sit there until the school bell goes.
"Lockland—" Dad's hands are shaking in the steering wheel. He's contemplating being a good parent or the dad that I need. A bit of him is telling the other bit that it's just school. She's a human. With feelings and fears.
But, I'm over it. I see Grace slip into school with a few minutes to spare. And I'm still scared, but I can't disappoint her. We're partners. We're more than Billie ever was for me. Partners are for people who don't know anything about each other.
"I know." My feet are on the asphalt. Unsteady. Scared. But, dad's gone before I have an opportunity to hesitate. So, I don't. I follow Grace into the school.