A Season for Fireflies (9 page)

WHEN I WALK INTO THE HALLWAY THE ENDLESS
streams of bodies just getting out of homeroom are a welcome camouflage. Phones ding and beep, girls near me squeal about their dresses for homecoming, and my thoughts are drowned in the slam of locker doors. I walk slowly so as not to draw any attention to the limp, and make sure to pull down on the sleeves of my cardigan to cover any of the ferns that could accidentally show.

Concentrate on the center of your foot, press down, and repeat.
It's useless. I might as well not have any toes. I smooth any flyaways on the top of my head and even though I curled my hair this morning the humidity makes it fall flat. I don't
think
I look
like I was almost fried twelve days ago.

I'm heading toward my locker when someone cries my name.

“Penny! You're back!” Eve runs toward me. She's got long blond hair now, not the chin-length bob I remember.

“Do you know me?” a different girl says, and runs at me too. She has black hair with dyed green tips. I don't know her. “Kylie told me you don't remember anyone!”

“How about me?” asks a girl whose features seem familiar but I can't place her either.

“I . . .” I start to say, but more and more people circle around me.

You look amazing!

What happened?

Do you remember the lightning?

Penny                         Penny!

Penny!
       

                           
Penny!

Penny
                                   

             
Penny!

Penny
                

I bring my hand to my head and cover my eyes. I keep my eyes clenched shut. My stomach lurches. People touch my forearms and shake my hand and I feel pressure on my skin, even under the long sleeves of my cardigan. It burns.

I try to walk but Eve gives me a side hug and my knees nearly buckle at the wash of heat that rolls over my ribs when she squeezes me. I glance around, searching for a familiar face, but
people either are nearly on top of me, or they pass too quickly for me to pick anyone out. Metal-flavored saliva rushes into my mouth.

“Okay, okay! Break it up. Coming through.” Panda's voice booms through the air. He parts the crowd. “Come on,” he says, and pushes both his arms out to make room for me. I rush through.

“Thanks,” I say breathlessly.

Eve calls after me, “I'll see you at lunch!”

I want to stay and talk to Panda, but my skin is on fire and if I don't get this cardigan off me, right now, I am going to lose it. Another flush of heat rolls over me and I limp as fast as I can down the hall, turn away from all the well-wishers and into the quiet of the hallway where the art studios are. There are no art classes during this time block, and most days it's deserted. Alone, I can finally breathe.

I lean my head back against the cement wall. I slip the cardigan off my shoulders so I'm just wearing a black tank top, exposing my chest, neck, and arms. The cool air on my skin nearly makes my knees buckle from relief.

“I can do this,” I whisper. I just have to get through a few classes. I can keep up with the work. I know I can. “I can do this,” I say again.

Someone clears his throat. Wes steps out from an art room at the end of the hall.

I jump up, pulling my cardigan to my chest.

“I just needed a second,” I say, trying to explain why I'm ripping off my clothes in the middle of a hallway.

He walks to me; he is so much taller than I remember. In my head he's still kind of lanky, standing on the stage with a script in his hand. But he's changed in a year. This version of Wes is muscular. Older. He stops across from me and digs his hands deep in his pockets.

“How are you?” he says.

“Okay, Gumby. You?”

A tiny smile tugs at his mouth as he meets my eyes. His gaze pauses on the figures on my arms and stomach. His eyes trace along my shoulder and stop, focusing on my collarbone.

“They're called Lichtenberg figures,” I say quietly. I'm not sure if he cares.

He clears his throat, breaking his gaze away from my skin. I lean forward, drawn by the scruff of facial hair on his chin. I want to touch him. For a second, we look into each other's eyes. There's hurt in his expression.

“How are—” I start.

He squeezes his eyes closed like pain has rushed through him and he backs away quickly. I immediately slip the cardigan over my shoulders with a sore lift of my arms.

“I have to go,” he says, and hurries down the hall, around the corner, and away.

“I'm sorry,” I whisper, but it's too late, he's gone, and the heat between us crackles outward into the air, away from me.

Dr. Abrams has explicitly instructed me not to drive for
two weeks
, which is fine by me because I only had a permit the last I remember
.
So, after school, Bettie drops me off at home before
heading home herself. There's a black Honda in the driveway that I don't recognize.

Just as I open the door to step into the kitchen, I hear Dad talking to a man whose voice I can't identify. “Mr. Berne, I'm sorry to bother you, but I'm Troy Fellizi from Channel Six News.” The man's voice comes from the living room.

“I was hoping to speak to your daughter when she comes home from school. I'd love to interview her for our morning news program. It's a real survivor story,” he explains.

I step out to the screened-in porch attached to our kitchen so I can listen better. I hold my backpack close to my body so nothing inside will jingle or clank.

“She's still recovering, and I'm not sure she's ready for visitors just yet. Can you show me some of your credentials?” Dad says.

There's the sound of latches like the journalist is opening a briefcase.

“I don't think Penny will want to be on TV.” Mom's voice. “Besides, we would rather not draw attention to Penny's aesthetic reactions to the strike.” Of course Mom would be concerned about how it
looks.

“Aesthetic?” the journalist asks.

“She has some markings on her skin,” Mom explains.

Great. So now the public will know that I've got ferns all over me. I crack open the door and tiptoe into the empty kitchen.

“I'd also love a chance to catch up with you, Mrs. Berne. What are your present plans? Will you be returning to the event planning industry?”

God, this guy is good.

“Can I offer you some water? Coffee?” Mom says.

“Water would be great,” the reporter says, and Mom's soft footsteps pad from the living room and she stops, freezing when she sees me standing just outside the kitchen door with my bag held to my chest. She must be able to tell from the expression on my face that I heard what happened in the living room.

“Do you want him to interview you?” she mouths.

I shrug. It might not be bad to tell people what happened.

“I don't want him to take pictures of my skin,” I say.

She nods. “We won't let him.”

“Okay,” I say. “I guess that would be all right.” She leads me into the living room. I note as we walk in that there are no wine bottles in the wine chiller or any glassware in the bottom of the sink. I know she pulled a bottle out the night we got back from the hospital, but I don't think she ever opened it.

Maybe things really have changed?

The next morning before school, I root through the bag I had with me in the hospital. At the bottom is my hospital bracelet. I tape it to the second lined page in the journal that Dad gave me. As I'm putting the journal in my school bag, I notice a pile of books on the floor next to my desk. Some of the items in the pile are binders from last year's classes. On the very top is my day planner. Nice! If anything, there might be some answers in there about what happened between my friends and me.

“Penny!” Bettie calls, and I slip the day planner in my school bag too.

I double-check to make sure my long-sleeved shirt covers my
figures, and only when I am adjusting it does someone knock on my door.

I expect it to be Dad but Bettie walks in.

“Your friend is here to drive you to school.”

I immediately think of Wes, but that's not possible.

“My friend?” I ask.

I peek outside.

“You've got to be kidding me,” I say at the sight of a lime green Lexus with Panda in the driver's seat. I limp downstairs and note on the way that Mom is still sleeping. Dad is already in his basement shop, working.

When I get outside to Panda's car, I run my hand down the custom paint job. No one would
sell
a car in this color, let alone
buy
one.

“
When
did you get this monstrosity?” I say through the open window.

“Well, Miss Memory Challenged,” Panda says, and with a click the doors unlock. “I got it last year with the money I got for a voice-over commercial.”

“You could have sprung for a more subtle paint job.”

He laughs. “Get in.”

My thighs shake as I bend and slip into the car. The car is a complete shit show inside. Although it doesn't surprise me, there are at least ten different types of potato chip bags on the floor. I pull down on the arms of my shirt.

He hands over a coffee. “Just the way you like it.”

I sip on it and inhale the roasted but bitter coffee.

“Wow, is it bad or something?”

“What?” I say. “No, it's really good.” I force another sip.

“You're full-on grimacing, Berne. If I wasn't driving, I'd take it from you.”

We head out of my neighborhood and past the marina. In another mile we'll be at school.

I grip the warm cup between my hands.

“So . . .” I say casually. “How long have I been drinking black coffee? You know, like this?”

“Last year,” he says, and I nod and force another sip. The last I remembered, I usually drank London Fogs. Earl Grey tea, vanilla syrup, and steamed milk.

After a few twists and turns of the road, Panda pulls into the EG Private parking lot. When he puts the car in park he looks over at me. Concern on Panda's face makes his round features seem smaller.

I unclick my seat belt and place the coffee in the cup holder so I can open the door with my left hand. Panda scoots out and around to the passenger side. By the time he gets to my door I'm nearly out of the car. I don't usually see Panda serious—hardly ever. He's barely speaking above a whisper when he says, “Berne. How are you?”

“I'm here. I just want to be normal, whatever that means. I don't want people making special accommodations for me or anything.”

“Well, that's something.” His eyebrows rise.

“What?”

“You. With the volunteering information.”

I don't understand this at all. “What do you mean?”

“You're not big on giving up information about yourself. You know, when
emotions
are involved.”

“So I hear,” I say. Panda opens the car door for me fully and I'm grateful to get out too. Panda swings his bag so it's tighter on his back and begins the walk to school. He's a couple of paces up when he glances back and sees I haven't moved from the car. He's wearing a black T-shirt with an enormous image of a person in cat makeup from the Broadway show
Cats
.

“Why did you come get me today?” I ask and start walking.

Panda doesn't seem to want to answer me right away. I stop, touching his arm lightly. “Come on, Panda. My other friends won't talk to me, but you do.”

He breathes heavily through his nose.

“Okay, but I'm not going into detail. It's too hard.
For me.
”

“Okay,” I say gently, and sort of wish I hadn't asked.

“Because you stood up to my dad once last year.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, when he found out I was staying back.”

“You stayed
back
!?”

“Gee, thanks for your sensitivity.”

I squeeze his arm and walk again. It feels better to have uncomfortable conversations when I'm moving.

“I'm sorry,” I say.

“Ever wonder why I was the one people went to for drugs?” He reads the confusion on my face because he adds quickly, “No. No, you don't. Look, Berne, I was in rehab from July through August this summer. Did a bunch of drugs. Sold 'em too, when I was feeling generous. It wasn't pretty.”

“Oh, Panda, I'm so sorry.”

We walk in silence for a moment. I hike my book bag over my shoulder.

I look around for Richard or for May's white Mini Cooper. Most everyone has gone inside for homeroom and Panda and I are two of the few people left in the parking lot. I see the Mini a few rows down and it occurs to me that maybe Panda and I are alone because Richard didn't want to ride with us. It's almost like Panda reads my mind as he hesitates before the double doors.

“They'll come around eventually. You're a good egg, Berne,” he says as the bell rings, signaling the end of homeroom.

“I don't . . .” I say, and he drops his hand from the door handle. “I don't know why I acted the way I did. But I don't want to become her ever again. Just remind me. Keep me in check, okay?”

“You know I will,” he says, and it's enough to break my heart. “Now can we go to school? I'm already on Headmaster Lewis's shit list.”

AT THIRD PERIOD, I'M IN THE HALLWAY OUTSIDE
the library entrance, waiting for May. I don't want to be sitting in there alone so I'm practicing my balance and leaning against the wall. I kept expecting to see May in some of my classes, but I guess she's in AP. Even with Panda's promise, I know you can't
make
anyone do something they don't want to do. Mom used to say that to me constantly when I was a kid: “You can't
make people love you, Penny.” Funny, because I always felt like if I tried hard enough, I could get anyone to like me. Once I met May I didn't have to worry about working so hard to make people like me anymore.

I check my watch just as Kylie turns a corner, flipping through
a binder from our school radio station. I clutch my books, not sure what to say. Her eyes stab up at me just as Karen walks in from an adjacent classroom. I pull my long sleeves down to make sure my wrists and arms are still covered. Karen stops short just in front of me, unintentionally cutting Kylie off. Kylie's jaw drops and she hurries past. “Wait!” I say, but she's already gone. But I want to talk to Karen too.

Karen takes a deep breath through her nose, so much so that I can see her chest rise and fall. “How are you?” she asks.

“Still here,” I say, laughing awkwardly.

“Good. That's really good.” But her tone, while cordial, is empty. I push off from the wall.

“You look great. No more braces,” I add.

She softens at this. “Yeah, I got them off last summer. I'm sorry to hear about your memory.”

I nod—she nods. We walk into the library, so having something to do with my body helps with the awkwardness. There's more awkward silence, until she says, “I guess I'll see you.”

I lower myself into a seat as she leaves. That was nice and uncomfortable. I make a point to make a note about that interaction in my journal. I get my books and papers together, checking the time—May is ten minutes late.

Just as I think she won't come at all, May sweeps into the library with her long black hair flying behind her. “Sorry I'm late,” she says, and she's out of breath.

The double doors open again and Kylie and Lila walk through them. I press down harder on the tip of my pen as they walk toward our table.

“Hey,” I say to Kylie as she passes by, careful not to miss this opportunity. She glances at May and throws me a half-assed smile. She heads into the stacks without a word. Eve, who basically mauled me yesterday, doesn't even acknowledge me.

May unpacks her bag and when she tucks her hair behind her ear I say, “You got the top of your ear pierced. You always wanted to. It looks cool,” I say.

“I got it last January,” May says coolly, and slides a manila folder across the table to me.

“What's this?”

“No idea. I was told not to open it. Ms. Reley says you're supposed to check in with her at the end of the day.”

I open the manila envelope and an official red sheet falls onto the table. May tries to hide it, but as she gets out her books and notebooks, she glances at the sheet too.

SAT SCORE: 1510.

“What!” I screech, and a few heads look up from around the library. A 1510 is
incredible.
Who knew I could standardize test so well?

May cocks her head. “What happened?”

“Oh. It's just my SAT scores.”

“Not good?”

I shrug. I don't want to be too cocky. “It's no big deal.”

“Of course. SAT scores. No big deal,” May says sarcastically. “Anyway . . .” She immediately launches into the expectations that we have in each class by going over the syllabi for English, history, math, and science. Though when I look at my eleventh grade schedule, I note that I took AP Spanish too. I guess all the
free time I would have spent in rehearsals was spent studying instead. There's no way for me to know for sure but it makes sense, though—AP classes
and
a 1510 on my SATs? They don't think I can handle the AP level now.

It takes time,
Dr. Abrams says in my head.

May is all business for the next thirty minutes. When she's done reviewing math concepts, I understand how to do some of the problems but will definitely need a special tutor for math. I note that May is filling out a sheet of some kind with the EG Private logo at the top. She says that we will have to meet at the end of the week to see if I can keep up with the pace in history, but I do pretty solid on her mini quiz from this week's class content.

She goes on and on. My journal pokes out of the top of my bag, reminding me what I need to do.

“May.”

She stops midsentence.

“I'm sorry.”

She closes the folder with all our work and the extra-help handouts from my teachers.

“I know,” she says gently.

“All I say to people is I'm sorry.”

She nods but something in her expression is sour.

“It's not like I think people should forget. It's just . . .”

She isn't looking at me.

“They told me you asked for me directly,” she says.

“So I could talk to you.”

“Oh.” When she looks up, her eyes, which I remember as always having a hint of a laugh behind them, are hard. “I can't
say no to the school counselor. You know that.”

I consider what she says. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I wouldn't want to say no to Ms. Winters either.”

“You
guess
that makes sense? You put me in a crappy position.”

I really don't want that to be true. I imagine myself in her shoes and I wouldn't want to be pressured into this situation either. I groan.

“You're right,” I say.

She gathers her things, and when she stands up, she leaves a hand on her chair. I don't want her to leave, so I press up on my left hand, hoping that I have the strength to get up without my arm shaking.

“I have no way of knowing what to be sorry about. But I am. Believe me. The last thing I remember was you and me at
Much Ado About Nothing
rehearsal.”

“I know that you're sorry.
That
Penny, the one you remember? I do think she would be sorry.” She looks me up and down. “But you're freaking out right now and I don't know if you're sorry because you're desperate or sorry because you miss me.”

“You know I miss you.”

“No,” she says, and she isn't even whispering anymore. “I don't. Because you said you were sorry before and it didn't sound like it when you kept huge secrets from your friends or made me learn Beatrice's lines in two days. Or the day you sat down at Kylie's table at lunch and when I came up to you, you didn't make room for me. Or my personal favorite? When you basically kicked me out of a party at Tank's house.”

“Stop. It's horrible,” I say.

“Yeah. It is. Especially when we watched your mom's story on the news,” May says just as the librarian comes out from behind the reference desk. “You refused to let any of us in. You shut down completely.”

“My mom's story? What are you talking about?”

“Forget it,” she says.

“The news ran stories on my mom?” But May just turns and leaves the library. I almost call out to her, but I don't—I let her walk away.

If the local news ran stories on Mom then it doesn't sound like she “took a leave.”

I feel like a stranger in my own life.

I have to believe that getting my life back is possible. Panda's words about what I did for him are the only shining light. I'm
not
the girl in the stories that May just told me. I'm better than that.

I have to be.

I try the outside cafeteria at lunch. There are five or six tables out here that are adjacent to the football fields. I've been out here a zillion times. I used to sit closest to the soda and vending machine near the far wall so Panda could get mini chip bags. I sit down at a free table at the edge of the fields. I check for Panda but he told me he has a weekly lunch meeting with Ms. Winters. The double doors open behind me, and Kylie, Lila, Eve, and some of the other girls step out, but they hesitate when they see me. Lila locks eyes on me first and turns to Kylie, tucking her chin close to Kylie's ear. I guess that's not a good sign. Eve and
Caroline Hester follow behind Kylie, but the sight of their ponytails tightens my stomach. Kylie, the only one without a ponytail, flips her hair over her shoulder, glances at me, and much to my surprise, walks directly over to the table.

Lila sits down beside me, and Eve next to her. Kylie makes a point to sit down across the table from Lila, leaving the space in front of me empty.

“Sorry about today in the hallway. I needed to talk to Karen,” I say.

“Got it,” she says with a disinterested shrug. I can't read her; she's always been so far away to me—unattainable. The girl who I would have nothing in common with so I just stayed far away. She unpacks a small salad and just when she opens up her dressing, Kylie jumps in her seat, reanimating, with her eyes locked on Lila and Eve.

“Oh my god. I just remembered. I have to see this show on Friday at the Joint.”

“You say that like it's unusual,” Eve says with a laugh.

“Anyway,” Kylie stresses the word, “it's this blues band, but they've got a funk sound. I think the lead guitarist is classically trained so their stuff is really complicated.”

Kylie mentions the kind of instruments they use and the specific equipment. She knows
so much more about music than I realized.

“What time?” Lila asks.

“Nine, I think,” Kylie replies.

Kylie gestures with her hands, excitedly slapping her palms on the table. “Penny, we absolutely have to—”

Not even the outside cafeteria chatter can make up for the silence between us when Kylie stops herself midsentence.

She drops her chin to her chest and throws her hair over her shoulder again. “Habit,” she says, and her cheeks are red.

“We used to go see live music shows a lot,” Lila explains to me.

“I know.”

Kylie's eyes snap up to me and hope prickles in her expression.

“I have lots of pictures. In my room and online.”

I focus down at the lunch I brought from home: celery with peanut butter inside like I might be some kind of first grader. It's just easy to pick up and chew without setting off a spasm.

“Penny Berne! Love of my life!” Alex James says, busting out of the double doors of the school. He sits down next to Kylie so he's directly across from me. “Remember that day we shared on the tennis courts?”

“You don't want to, Penny, seriously,” Lila says with a laugh and Eve laughs too; she even makes eye contact.

“You dick, you know she doesn't,” Kylie snaps at Alex, and for a second I'm grateful that I could like sitting here at this table with them.

But then I have a strange thought. They didn't sit with me because we're friends. It hits me that I've sat down at
Kylie's
table without knowing it. Did I know, on some level, that this used to be our table? But Kylie thought I was purposefully sitting here with her. I don't know which role to play or which costume to wear when the script of my life has been revised without my consent.

There's another bang of the doors when Tank Anderson and a slew of football players head outside and toward the table.

“Hey! Penny Berne! You're back!” Tank says. He sits down. “You coming to my party this Friday?”

A party at Tank's? I'd feel so out of place. Even though I guess they're all my friends, it doesn't feel that way to me.

“I think I'm busy,” I say. “Next time, though.”

“Don't let me down, Berne!” he says, and claps a hand on my shoulder, and before I know what's happened I'm doubled over in pain. With a sharp tug, my hand freezes—the fingers draw together immediately and I howl. I try to get up but fall to my knees, cradling my elbow to my body.

The pain is a needle
stuck in the center of my palm.

Reley is on her knees by my side, seemingly out of nowhere. I register that other people are nearby. Tank keeps apologizing. I press down on my fingers but my left hand isn't strong enough to pry them apart. Tank comes down to his knees on the other side of me. I can't look at him, not with the pain shooting through my hand. The pinching spasm isn't lessening up yet.

“Tank!” Kylie cries. “What the hell did you do?”

“I didn't know,” Tank says, and my stomach tugs at the apology in his tone.

“What can I do?” Reley asks me.

“Nothing,” I groan, and push at my fingers to relieve the raging stabs of pain in the center of my hand. I hunch over to keep my back to the caf. I exhale a few times as my heartbeat pulses in the center of my palm. My back is tight from clenching so hard.

The muscles ease just enough that I can speak without gritting my teeth. “I get these spasms when I move too quickly,” I groan. Eventually, within a few moments . . . my palm releases and my fingers do too. My hairline is wet and when I lift my right arm to wipe my forehead, my bicep shakes and my fingers
finally
loosen fully. Ms. Reley deflates with a big sigh. I sit back on my butt with my hand resting, limp, in my lap.

“What just happened?” Eve whispers.

I push up with my left hand to stand. As I do, May walks outside holding a bagged lunch.

“Someone should walk you to the nurse,” Reley says.

May and I lock eyes.

Reley must notice me looking at May because she twists to follow my gaze. “May Harper!” Reley calls to her. “May will take you.”

“Okay,” I say quietly. “Thanks.” After her outburst in the library, I'm not quite as enthusiastic about being alone with my former best friend.

I struggle to stay upright. I make sure to put as much weight as possible on my good leg. Once I get to May, she holds open the door. My eyes burn with tears but I bite them back by clenching my jaw. I can't look back at Kylie when I have so clearly chosen May to help me, who I know would rather not.