One (One Universe)

possibly have lunch with her. She catches my arm, nods, and smiles wider. “Come on.” She drags me through the lunch line while pointing to a table populated with half a dozen girls as gorgeous and confident as she is.
    I punch my lunch choice into my cuff and scan it at the screen at the beginning of the line. I glare down at the tray that rises up on the platform in front of me.
    I don’t care what anyone says — that gloppy, pale yellow mush is not mac and cheese.
    I sit down and crane my neck toward the door, waiting for Elias to show up and stride toward his seat at the table.
    “Hey. Have you seen, uh…”
    “Elias?” Leni smiles at me, like we share a secret.
    “Yeah. I have something to give him,” I say, pointing to my bag to show that it’s not just an excuse.
    “That’s cute,” one of her friends — another cheerleader, I assume, with shining brown locks — says.
    “Is she crushing on Elias?” another brunette asks. “Save your energy, honey. Elias VanDyne has only dated one girl at this school, and that was back when we were little freshmen.”
    I raise my eyebrows at her, silently questioning — I can’t help it — and she suppresses a grin and points at Leni, her index finger making a circle in the air.
    “Yep. Helen and Elias, sittin’ in a tree…”
    Leni rolls her eyes, pushes the girl lightly on the shoulder, and says, “Quit it. You know I was too good for him.” She laughs, and all the other girls eye each other, responding with lighter, shorter laughter.
    So Leni’s the ringleader of this group. That could be really good or really, really bad. Depending on how much she feels like sticking up for me.
    “Yeah. Too good for all the boys at this school, apparently.”
    “You know it.” Leni’s smiling, but it’s the same smile I’ve seen on her before — and on Elias. Faking it.
    One of the brunettes points at me. “She’s not really going for Elias, anyway. Not dressed like that.” My chest burns, and I’m sure my cheeks do, too, but once again I’ve got nothing to say. I don’t want to be the Girl Who Stomps Out of the Lunchroom. Not if I’ve got three more years here. I concentrate on feeling heavy, on staying in my seat.
    “Oh, lay off, girls. I’m trying to save Merrin from eating lunch in some classroom and being hassled by the janitor.” Now they laugh on cue.
    I manage a smile at Leni, grateful that she’s deflected the attention from me. She reaches down and squeezes my knee. The contact surprises me, but it’s not too bad.
    It’s an art day, and I’m sure I’ll see Elias in that class, but he’s not there, either, or at our lockers afterward.
    All the students seem like they’re normal height now without Elias’s head bobbing around the hallways above everyone else’s. It’s weird, and I don’t like it.
     
    After I fidget through the rest of my classes, it’s like I’m on autopilot. Get in the car. Text Dad: “Going to study again.” I already finished all my mindless homework in sixth period study hall anyway.
    I tell myself I’m just going to drive by his house, see if his car is there. I don’t know. Make sure he’s okay.
    I zoom in one side of Superior’s suburbs and out the other, feeling lighter and freer when my car hits the dirt-and-gravel roads of the bonafide country.
    Even though it’s only a couple miles out of town, everything feels so huge out here. Like it’s mine to reach up and grab if I want it. The clouds roll across the gray-blue autumn sky in billowing mammatus puffs, and for a second, I’m not thinking about Elias, but about the pictures I used to draw as a kid — illustrations of myself stretching out across the clouds like they were pillows.
    I spot the glass walls of the VanDyne house reflecting bright patches of sunlight out into the road. The glare blocks my view into the house, but my eyes train on the music room at the end of the wing anyway. I think about the drums in there, waiting for me to play them again.
    What I’m really wondering, I admit to myself, is whether Elias is in there too, thumbing over the guitar strings, remembering what it was like to play with me, missing my angry, loud pounding.
    Because I know I’m thinking about the way his fingers looked playing that guitar, the relaxation on his face when he looked up at me. Like, in that moment, he was really home.
    No, I realize, as I pull into the driveway without really realizing it. He’s not in there. He’s not here at all.