Absent (Katie Williams)

when Kelsey and the ponies pass us in a coltish, neighing herd, I start after them.
    “Where are you going?” Evan calls.
    I turn and shrug. “To hear what else she says about me.”
    I trail along behind the ponies, listening for Kelsey to mention my supposed suicide again. But the group is caught up in a debate about whether a comment one of their friends made at lunch was intended to be bitchy. All the way to the science hall, the debaterages on, and it isn’t until we reach the classroom door that I remember what Kelsey has last period.
    Physics. The class where I died.
    I haven’t been back here since that day. My old desk is still empty. The desks around it are empty, too, like the dead places in the ocean where the fish won’t swim and the coral has turned all broken and gray. Mr. Cochran is still on extended leave, and the class starts perfunctorily with the substitute dropping a quiz on everyone’s desk. Kelsey and the ponies dip their heads over their papers.
    I wander the rows, pausing at Usha’s desk. She marks the questions correctly until she gets to the last one, where she pauses, pencil hovering over the options.
    Discounting air resistance, what is the increase in speed for each second an object falls?
    I actually remember this one from our egg-drop study packet.
    Answer A reads 15 feet /second 2
    Incorrect.
    Answer C reads 56 feet /second 2
    Also incorrect.
    Answer B reads 32 feet /second 2
    “Time,” the sub calls. “Pencils down.”
    “It’s B,” I whisper to Usha. “Mark B.”
    Usha dips her pencil to circle C. Without thinking, I put my hand over hers, willing it to B. My hand should swipe right through her hand, her paper, the wood of the desk. But it doesn’t; instead, it bumps against something. Or rather, something bumps against it. It’s been so long since I’ve felt something like this, it takes me a moment to place it: resistance. It’s a simple feeling, as if my hand has bumped into hers, but to me it’s alien. I gape at my hand, thenUsha’s. She hasn’t marked the paper yet. In fact, she’s stopped, pencil in midair, staring at the question like it’s staring right back at her.
    “Usha?” I say.
    This time, I hear her answer me.
    Paige.
    I get a creeping sense of déjà vu. There’d been a similar whisper yesterday when Lucas and I stood at the edge of the road. What had happened exactly? Lucas had looked back at the burners’ circle. I’d heard a whisper of my name, and then . . . On impulse, I reach out and put my hand through Usha’s. Again, it bumps against something, but this time I push back, I push through it. I’m holding Usha’s hand just like I did with Lucas’s.
    Then I realize that I’m not holding her hand at all. My hand is Usha’s hand. I’m holding her pencil. I can feel the crimped wood of it, the keen edge of the paper under my other hand, the pebbly plastic of the chair beneath me, the firm tile of the floor resting under the soles of my shoes. I suck in a breath of surprise and feel even more surprise as I draw actual air into actual lungs.
    I am Usha.
    I move my hand (Usha’s hand) and mark B.
    I stare at the quiz, the trail of lead that I’ve left behind.
    I’m bumped again. This time it’s bigger than a bump; it’s more like a rough shove, like when someone “unintentionally” plows into you in the hallway. I’m shoved out. Usha is above me, shaking her head foggily, and I’m not just shoved out; I’m sinking through the floor. I drop through the cottony insulation and sheathed electrical cords, through a government class set up like a mock court, through another floor that becomes a ceiling, another classroom flickering with the light of a projector, another floor, and then the basement,and a stack of old gymnastics mats that, comically, do nothing to break my fall. My legs drop through the mats, and I land at last, crouching on the dirt floor next to a croaking pair of ghost frogs.
    As soon as I get my feet under me, I stand and race up the stairs, slamming my hovering boot soles down neatly on each step. I climb the next flight and the next and the next. Then it’s down the hall and through the door into the physics classroom.
    The sub ambles between the desks, sweeping up the last remaining quizzes. Usha’s quiz is still on her desk, but he’s headed to her now. I hurry forward, heedless of the desks that pass through my legs, focused only on the rectangle of white paper as if it’s a beacon, a lit doorway