After hiding the letters, it had been time to make macaroni and cheese, and take Mama a plate she wasn't going to eat anyway. By the time she'd gotten the kitchen cleaned up and did her homework for school the next day, she'd almost forgotten about those old papers from last summer. Or at least she'd made herself believe that she had.
Except now it was the next morning and she couldn't stop thinking about them. All through the long bus ride to the new middle school, and the confusion of trying to find her homeroom and get her locker open, and she still couldn't seem to get those purple squiggles out of her mind. She was scared this was how things went for Mama. Maybe she saw one thing and she couldn't let that one thing go, no matter how hard she tried to , until the only thing that made it go away was sleep. Maybe she could swallow a whole rainbow of pills and it still wouldn't make that one little thing go away.
"Earth to Gracie, hellooo?"
It took her a second to realize someone was actually talking out loud to her.
"Wow, Anne, your hair got really long this summer."
Anne turned in a circle so Gracie could admire the blond hair touching halfway down her back. They had be best friends since elementary school, but Anne spent summers at her dad's house in California, so they hadn't seen each other in three months. A lot could change in three months.
"How was your Dad's?"
Anne started chattering, all about her stepmother, and how she couldn't stand her younger stepbrother, and how much fun she had at the beach. Anne was always full of news after these trips, so Gracie leaned back against her locker, knowing she wasn't going to be able to to say anything except "mmhmm" for a few minutes. It was actually refreshing, having Anne's voice fill her head instead of her own thoughts, and Gracie relaxed for the first time all day. She didn't even try to make sense of what she was hearing; instead just let all those syllables fill her up like a fizzy soda on a summer day. It was a minute before she realized Anne was watching her strangely.
"Gracie? Are you even listening? I said, can you believe she did that? And then I had to share a room with him while they replaced the carpets from the leak and he's such a dork. Ugh, I don't
know how you can stand having a little sister around you all the time," Anne clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh God, I didn't mean that. I'm so stupid. I'm so sorry, Gracie, really, I just forgot and.."
She tapered off, her face red from embarrassment.
"It's okay, Anne, really. You haven't been here all summer. It's no big deal, okay? So tell me some more about the beach--did you go a lot?"
But Anne suddenly remarked that she wasn't sure how to find her next class, and hurried off to look for it to avoid being late.
The summer soda fizzy feeling disappeared as she watched Anne's back hurry down the hallway. She was stuck in her own thoughts again, with Polaroids of Mama in bed, and purple crayon L's, and of course Layla. Always there were thoughts of Layla. She was carrying Layla around like her old backpack from last year and everyone knew it. That's when Gracie realized what sixth grade was really going to be like for her. It wouldn't matter what she said or did in school. She was always going to be known as the girl whose little sister drowned in Cooper's Pond over the summer.
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