Page 156 of The Glass Girl

I walk to his desk. Every single kid in the room is looking at me.

He hands me a folder with a packet of paper in it.

“You’ll need to make up the final exam for the fall. Let’s set up a time during one of your lunches next week. Each of your teachers will have work for you. Check in with them today at the beginning of each class.”

He snaps back to the room.

“Eyes down, do your bell work, nothing to see here,” he tells them.

Heads duck down.

I take the folder, which is stuffed with assignments, and start walking to my seat.

“Bella,” Mr. Lopez calls.

I stop and turn around.

“Do the best you can,” he says gently.

I slide into my seat, stare at the desk for a minute, trying not to crumble, and then open the folder he gave me to find the bell work.

—

Between classes I havethump­thump­thump­thumpand I try to dowren, sparrow, roadrunner, quailinside my head as I look and not look at the other kids, wondering when I’ll bump into Kristen or Lemon or Dylan or Amber or wondering how many kids know, how many kids saw the video, what they’re thinking, do I hear whispers or is that just my brain making the whispers up and it hurts. I want to run out of the school as fast as I can, but I can’t. It’s like gym with Phil: I have to keep picking up the heavy medicine ball when it falls, even if I don’t want to. I manage to make it to a restroom at some point, but thereare a couple of kids in there acting funny in a stall and I can smell something familiar and I remember what that girl said in group, that the smell makes her ache. It made me ache, too, in the goat pen with Charlotte.

For a split second, standing outside the stall listening to them giggle, I want nothing more than to bang on the door and say,hey, save some for me,but instead I turn around, my bladder burning, and get the hell out of there.

Fran said, “Some days seem to last forever but there is always another one in your future. Move toward that.”

—

Lunch.

There are thousands of kids here, millions of kids, there is no space for me.

My brain says:Make one.

My heart says:It’s too hard, too tired, text Mom, have her come get you.

Thump­thump­thump­thump

“Bella?” Soft voice, fingers on my shoulder.

Dawn.

“Sit together?” she says. “Over there.”

I can’t move.

“I’m here,” she says. “Follow me.”

Table at the end, underneath the high windows. She’s nudging me along.

Just sit, Bella. Take out your lunch, eat it, no matter how much you can’t taste it. You only have three more classes and then home, the safety of home.

Dawn is quiet, opening her Tupperware, setting her water bottle on the table.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she says. “I didn’t know today was the day. It’s okay that you haven’t texted me.”

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