Chapter 9 - The Girl in Green

Next was lunch. The worst time of the day. When I was in middle school, I never braved the cafeteria with its cacophony of noise, limp iceberg lettuce salads, and endless opportunities for shame.

I ate when I got home from school, throwing random veg into ramen with whatever condiments I could find—peanut butter, soy sauce, ketchup. I’d take my lunch out into Michaela’s backyard. Michaela had an herb garden and never minded if I stole mint or Thai basil for my ramen.

Michaela lived on salads made from expensive ingredients like heirloom tomatoes and walnuts. Sometimes she would come out and express frustration at how much salad she’d made and how there was no one around to eat it. It was the most transparent kind of lie, but I appreciated it.

Michaela had fed me like I was a starving child, and not a near-adult, perfectly capable of surviving on lattes and prepackaged pumpkin spice nut bars I stole from the corporate coffee shop where I worked.

I missed her.

I didn’t want to go down to lunch by myself, but I was hungry.

The dining hall was full of students, noise reverberating across the tiled space. I had to admit, I loved the vintage tile—but sonically, it was a disaster. I scanned the room for Ava or Kenzie, but neither were there. There were two or three people I recognized vaguely from my morning classes, but no one I felt comfortable enough to sit with.

Barlow was at a table with a guy I recognized from English and two other boys I hadn’t seen before. He looked up and caught my eye momentarily before looking away. He didn’t look back up. One of the few people I knew here, and he was going to pretend he didn’t know me. Terrific.

I wanted to leave, but that would look even worse.

My eyes came to rest on Star, sitting at a corner table, alone. She gave every impression of wanting to preserve her bubble of isolation, which was fine with me. I hoped that she would be okay if I sat at her table.

In the buffet there were fried green tomato sandwiches near a stack of bologna sandwiches. I grabbed one, and a banana, and made my way to Star’s table.

I slid into a chair across from her and watched as Star peeled an orange placidly and methodically, ignoring everyone. A spritz of orange scent wafted across the table. The fried green tomatoes were tart and nicely crusted in cornmeal, and I was happy for the companionable silence, and the reprieve from social death.

Star looked up. She pulled off her headphones.

“Jess,” she said. “Why are you here?”

It should have been a rude question, but coming from Star it didn’t feel rude, just disarming.

“I didn’t want to be alone,” I said. “But I didn’t want a lot of noise either.” I pointed to my ear. “Phonological processing disorder. Sound is turning to mush in here.”

“Makes sense,” she said. “It’s the tile. I don’t think they factored in acoustics when they built the hospital. But the tilework is beautiful.”

“Is that why you decided to come here?” I asked. “Because you like the building?”

“Partly,” she said. “But I like the school. You don’t ever have to ask for accommodations. They just give them to you.”

I thought about Dr. Jacobsen’s class. How he’d handed me an e-reader and told me to find a place where I was comfortable. For me, that was a slouchy chair with room to stretch out and fidget. For Star, that was a cubicle without distractions.

“I guess that’s true,” I said.

Star nodded and replaced her headphones.

I liked Star. The next time I sat down next to her, she wouldn’t ask me why I was here, because she’d know. And I wouldn’t have to yell pointless conversation over the cacophony, because Star wouldn’t expect it. On a day when my mom left me behind without even bothering to say goodbye, finding someone to sit with during lunch felt like a small, but satisfying victory. It was enough.

* * *

When classes ended around four, all I wanted to do was head back to my room and fall face down on my bed and sleep. At home, when I did go to school or work, I’d come home feeling spent and foggy, and I’d face-plant. My best sleep always happened in broad daylight, in the late afternoon.

Fearless sleep.

I trudged up the stairs toward the girls’ dorm. Someone called my name. I turned.

A tall blond girl stood at the bottom of the stairs. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, with her long blond hair in high pigtails, and carried a weird stick in her hand.

“Field hockey,” she said.

“Okay?”

She took the steps two at a time and thrust the stick at me.

“No. Field hockey—you,” she said.

“No thank you,” I replied. I gave a shrug that I hoped encapsulated my indifference to all sports and sporting events. I didn’t even know what field hockey was.

“The headmaster said you’re going to join the team. I’m Madison, by the way,” she said. “I’m the captain of the team.”

This was Madison, Kenzie’s roommate.

“I’ve never played anything before,” I said. “I’m not sure you want me.”

I avoided team sports, especially after having a bad experience with forced soccer in the fourth grade. The gym teacher cajoled us into being aggressive in our drive downfield. I took her literally on the aggressive part, and my ball handling ended up with a girl on the ground clutching her shin, weeping. Also, I was offside. Apparently, there are rules in soccer. It’s not just kicking and running. And then I got a lecture on sportsmanship from the gym teacher, which ran entirely counter to her previous lecture on aggression.

Madison twirled the stick like a majorette. I couldn’t help but be a little impressed.

“We have a game in two weeks, and I need someone like you on my team.”

“Someone like me?” I said. “Just because I’m big doesn’t mean that I’m athletic. I don’t do sports.”

I’ve been through this drill before. I’m five eleven and a half, so of course everyone thinks I play basketball like a demon and have a great outside three-point shot. Only, I don’t.

“I don’t need coordination, I need intimidation,” Madison said. “I want the other team to step on the field, take one look at us, and think, ‘Oh fuck!’”

“Thanks,” I said. Not at all sarcastic.

I was beginning to understand why Kenzie thought Madison was a lot. No filter.

“Layla used to be our intimidator, but now she’s . . . gone,” Madison said. “I already told Coach Mullins you’d take her place.”

The way Madison lowered her voice and looked around when she said she’s gone gave me the impression that she had more to say about Layla.

“Where do you think she went?” I asked.

Madison took a step forward and whispered, “Between you and me, I think she made it out.”

“You mean Layla ran away?” I whispered back. “How?”

There was one road in and out of the school, and it was a long walk down the mountain. I’d already tried one of the trails. Maybe I could have made it if it hadn’t been for the fog—and whatever was out there.

“If I knew, would I be here?”

Madison thrust the field hockey stick forward. It hit me squarely in the center of my chest and I grabbed it.

“On the field,” she barked, lunging down the stairs. “Ten minutes.”

I went upstairs to change.

I found shorts and a sweatshirt in my closet, and I took the hockey stick she’d given me outside. The school was on a sharp rise. There was a circular drive in front of the school that ended up in a small parking lot to the side. Across the drive a set of stone stairs led down a short hill to a flat plane with two fields.

As I rounded the corner of the building, I stopped. On the smaller field, boys kicked around a soccer ball. Barlow and the guy with the red swoop of hair, Soren, were both there, running toward a knot of guys clustered around a ball.

On the main field, girls held sticks and chased after a smaller ball. Ava was already on the field. I recognized a girl from math class. Elise, I think.

A stocky, imposing man with a mustache handed me what looked like plastic half socks. Shin guards. I assumed this was Coach Mullins.

“Do I have to do this?” I said, making the last-ditch effort to get out of field hockey. “I already went hiking with Dr. Jacobsen today. I don’t think I need another workout.”

At the mention of Dr. Jacobsen, Coach Mullins wrinkled his nose as if something smelled off. I couldn’t tell whether he disapproved of Dr. Jacobsen, or if he considered hiking to be a woke liberal pastime. He gave off that vibe.

“Exercise is good for you,” he said gruffly. “It’ll clear your head—help you sleep.”

I refrained from telling Coach Mullins that I could sleep just fine now, and it wasn’t a problem. My problem was that he was interrupting my afternoon nap.

Coach Mullins didn’t look receptive to any further conversation, and I didn’t want to be sent to Ms. Burton’s office, so I jogged out onto the field, stick in hand. The ball headed toward me, along with a tangled rush of legs. I slapped it away, trying not to hit anyone with my stick. I only partially succeeded on the last account, but the ball flew down the field toward Madison in the goal. A girl I didn’t know made a push toward the goal, which Madison easily blocked.

“Good one,” Ava said, turning toward me.

“Thanks.”

“I told Madison you’d be good for the team,” Ava said.

This was the same Madison whom Ava had called a sociopath the night before.

“I didn’t know you were friends with Madison,” I said.

“I’m friends with everyone,” Ava said lightly, just a touch of irony.

“Sure you are,” I replied.

Ava took off running after the ball and I followed.

Field hockey was more fun than I expected it to be. If you hit someone above the waist the coach would pull you off the field, but otherwise, it was a free-for-all. The worst thing about field hockey was Coach Mullins. Whenever anyone slowed down, he yelled “Hustle, hustle!” and “Be a go-getter!”

I was not used to this much cardio. Halfway through practice, I slowed down.

“Pick up your feet, Jess! Move it!”

He pronounced my name “Chas,” giving it a dudebro spin.

When we finished, Ava and I stood together in the field alongside Elise and a muscular dark-haired girl whose name I didn’t catch. Madison came loping over to collect my stick.

“Not too bad,” she said. “Almost as good as Layla. The next game is a week from Saturday.”

“I didn’t say I’d join the team, I just . . .” I started, but Madison had already grabbed our sticks and bounded away.

“It didn’t take her long to replace Layla,” Ava said bitterly.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s not your fault,” Elise said. “Someone had to take her place.”

Elise and the other girl wandered toward the back of the school and the locker rooms, but Ava remained rooted to the spot. I stayed by her side, feeling strangely guilty for having stepped into Layla’s role, first as her roommate, and now on the team.

“I don’t blame you,” Ava said. “It just bothers me that no one is worried about Layla. It’s almost as if she was never here in the first place.”

I thought about the black plastic trash bags, and Layla’s choice between foster care or this school. I ran because I had a home to return to. Even if Mom wasn’t in Austin, I knew Michaela would take me in.

It might be different if I had nothing to return to.

“So what do you think happened to her?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Ava said. “But I want to—”

“Stop dawdling and hit the shower, girls,” Coach Mullins bellowed.

Ava and I ran to the back door. We were the last ones in.