Absent (Katie Williams)

arm. “You liked the insult.”
    “I like lots of things,” he says.
    “Fine. Here it is. It’s embarrassing because I thought it made me special, because Lucas Hayes was special, and he’d chosen me. Turns out, I could have been anyone.”
    “You?” Wes says softly. “But you’re Kelsey Pope, remember?”
    I look up to see if he’s mocking me, and he is, but in the nicest way possible.
    “Can I tell you what really happened? In the bathroom?”
    He nods.
    I comb the grass next to me, all in one direction, then all in the other. “It wasn’t that they were kissing.” I shake my head, still not understanding what I’d seen, only understanding what it made me feel, sick and scared. “They were, then they stopped. And then he asked her to lie down on the spot where Brooke Lee, where she . . .”
    “Died?” Wes asks incredulously.
    “It was . . .” I shiver. “I don’t know. He wasn’t like that before. With me. He was nice. He was actually really nice and normal.”
    “Was he nice? Really? Because—” He stops, but I already know what he’s going to say. I can hear it in his thoughts. “Can you keep a secret?”
    I nod.
    “Paige Wheeler and Lucas Hayes were together.”
    “They were?” I try to sound surprised.
    “I saw them in those trees by the soccer field a couple of times. Kissing. They didn’t see me.” His lip curls.
    “You look like you disapproved.”
    “Yeah, I did, sorta.”
    I shake my head. “Why did you even care?”
    “I got the feeling that he’d talked her into keeping it a secret and . . .” He looks away. “I don’t know. No way to treat a pretty girl.”
    “Pretty?” I say, my surprise becoming real.
    His eyes narrow. “There’s more types of pretty than yours, you know.”
    “Oh, no, that’s not . . . I didn’t mean it the way you think I meant it.” Kelsey, I remind myself. He thinks I’m Kelsey.
    He thinks I’m pretty, my mind counters, unbidden.
    We walk back in silence across the field. I’m aware of his shoulder next to mine, his swinging arm, the rise and fall of his walk. I’m aware of the amount of space between us, mere inches. Just before we reach the school building, I stop. He stops, too.
    “Hey,” I say.
    “Hey,” he replies. He looks at me, squinting. “You’re different.”
    “Different how?”
    “From how I thought you’d be.”
    You are, too, I think, but instead I blurt out, “Would you go to prom with me?”
    He blinks. “Didn’t you already ask me that?”
    “No,” I say. “That wasn’t me.”
    “An imposter, then?”
    “Yes,” I agree. “An imposter. But this is me right now. Asking you. To prom.”
    For a long moment, Wes doesn’t say anything. Then, inch by inch, one side of his mouth lifts into a grin.

19: SECRET GIRLFRIEND
    I STAY IN KELSEY FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON. WES AND I arrive late in the art room to stunned silence from our classmates. No whispers, though, no laughs. I almost smile in gratitude. We sit at our usual opposite tables, not looking at each other, but after class, he falls in step with me again, walking me all the way to physics, the halls around us holding their breath.
    He doesn’t mention the prom until just before we part ways, when he runs a hand through his shaggy hair and says, “I seem to remember you saying that I don’t have to get a corsage.”
    “No corsage necessary. And,” I think quickly, “you don’t have to pick me up. We can meet here at school. In the hall by that sheet for the mural.”
    “No meeting parents either?” He grins. “I didn’t realize I was going to get lucky.” The grin disappears as he hears his own words. “Oh. I mean . . . I didn’t mean—”
    I laugh until the embarrassment on his face becomes laughter, too.
    “So, prom?” he says.
    “So, prom,” I agree, the words—no less who I am, no less the person I’m speaking them to—surreal.
    I sit through physics in a daze. But beneath the disbelief is a little green sprout of happiness, like the ivy in the crevice of the roof ledge. But with it comes another feeling: regret as wide and deep as those first days after my death. What if I hadn’t wasted my time—myself—on a guy who was only around for kisses in the trees? Would I have noticed the crooked-smiled burner who wanted to know me better? What if I hadn’t pushed him away with my nicknames and judgments? Who would he have turned out to be? Who would I have been?
    It’s the memory of Lucas and