Surviving High School

aren’t you?” she asked after a second.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You’re always joking, entertaining people.”
    “Thank you?”
    “Don’t get me wrong, I like that you’re funny. But sometimes, don’t you feel like it’s nice to slow down and just talk without all that pressure to be witty?” Emily didn’t have much practice making conversation alone with boys, let alone on dates, but something about Ben’s easygoing nature made her feel like she could say anything. She wanted to know everything about him.
    “Huh,” he said, looking a bit lost in thought.
    “What’s with that shelf of trophies?” asked Emily. “You were so—I don’t know—elusive the other night. What made you stop competing?”
    “Nothing specific, really,” said Ben, sinking deeper into his chair. “Well, I guess, like a year ago, my parents split up, but that isn’t what made me stop trying to win science fairs.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry,” said Emily. She felt bad—Ben looked so uncomfortable now. Maybe she’d pushed him too far. “That must have been tough.”
    “Yeah,” said Ben. “I don’t know. I don’t blame my mom for leaving. By the time she took off, my dad was basically living at Lowman-Howe—that’s the chemical company he works for. He’s just that kind of guy. He’d rather be in his lab than back at home. Even when he is around, he’s always at his computer or checking his BlackBerry.”
    “What about your mom?”
    “She’s kind of the opposite. She’s all about yoga and eating vegan and ‘finding herself.’ She moved to New York for good when she split up with my dad.” He looked up at Emily. “What about you? What’s your family like?”
    “My mom’s pretty cool,” Emily started, figuring she’d save talking about her dad for later. No need to scare Ben off on the first date. Was this even an official date? “She’s an elementary school teacher, so she was great when my sister and I were little.” She regretted the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. Why had she mentioned Sara? She just hoped he wouldn’t ask anything more about—
    “What was she like?” he asked. “Your sister, I mean. I met her a couple of times, but I never really got to know her.”
    Emily looked down at her drink. What was there to say? If what Samantha had said the other day was true, maybe Emily didn’t know anything about Sara at all. For a second, she thought about telling him “I don’t know,” but then shethought better of it. For now, it was better not to open that door.
    “She was great,” she said. “She was a hero to me. She was going to grow up and win every medal out there. And then she got in a car with that stupid boy, and then—” Her hands were shaking. “You work so hard for something, and then it gets taken away in an instant.”
    “What happened?” Ben asked. He reached out and took her hand. “I don’t really know all the details.”
    “It was a rainy night. Sara had stayed late at the pool to go swimming. The guy, Nick Brown—he’s a yearbook photographer, so he stayed with her to take some pictures. She was supposed to run home as part of her training regimen, but instead she ended up getting a ride from him. He crashed less than a mile from my house. He was fine. She wasn’t.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean, I was pretty upset when my mom left, but at least she wasn’t—”
    “Yeah.”
    She wished she could just talk about her sister’s death like a normal person. But she couldn’t. The thought of it always reminded her of the simple fact that the universe wasn’t fair. A girl could spend her whole life preparing for races she’d never get to swim. A random stranger could get her killed and still end up roaming the halls of her high school a few months later, taking pictures for the stupid yearbook.
    “Please,” she said. “Say something. Anything. Talk about something different.”
    “I, uh—” She could tell he was thinking about making a joke. But he must have changed his mind, because instead he said, “I almost went with my mom when she left. But I didn’t. I think she assumed I’d follow her wherever she went, and when that turned out to be false, it really hurt her.”
    As he spoke, Emily felt her body stop shaking and her breathing return to normal. She liked the sound of his voice. She felt calm in its presence.
    “She thought I’d chosen my dad over her, but that wasn’t it. I just figured I’d rather stick