Surviving High School

Alicia.
    “Emily, how nice to bump into you. I’ve been looking for you, actually.”
    Emily wiped at her eyes, hoping she wasn’t tearing up.
    “Everything okay?” Alicia asked. “You want to talk about it?”
    “Not really.”
    Alicia sat down on a chair in the counselor’s waiting room and gestured for Emily to sit with her. She reluctantly complied.
    “Look, I’m not going to be one of those adults who comes in and tries to tell you your problems are small, or that they’ll go away, or that I can solve them for you,” said Alicia. “Honestly, for me at least, high school was the most stressful time of my life. Way worse than college. And I’m sure I didn’t even have to deal with half of what you’re going through. I was justa straight-up nerd. I didn’t play sports. And I never had to deal with some other girl stealing one of my textbooks.”
    “You heard about that?”
    “Just a rumor in the faculty lunchroom—not enough to actually punish anyone, but I’m tempted to believe it.” Alicia opened her bag and pulled out a book. It took a few seconds for Emily to realize it was a history textbook.
    “Would you believe that Honors History was my favorite class back when Mr. McBride was my teacher?” asked Alicia. “Or that I loved it so much I ‘lost’ my textbook on purpose? Of course, those were in the days before he started docking you a letter grade for that. I just had to pay a twenty-dollar replacement fee.”
    She handed the book over to Emily.
    “I wish I could do more,” she said. “I know you’re going through a lot. But maybe the book will help just a little.”
    For a few seconds, Emily just sat there, dazed, looking at the textbook, not knowing what to say. Finally she asked, “You were a nerd?”
    Alicia smiled. “Definitely. Still am. What other twenty-three-year-old would be so eager to go back to high school?”
    Emily took the book and tucked it under her arm.
    “Thanks,” she said. “This really helps.”
    “The rest is up to you,” said Alicia. “Good luck. As hopeless as things seem, remember, they will get better.”
    A few minutes later, after Alicia had left, Emily walked back to the pool. She sat by the edge of the pool and dangled her feetover the side, feeling the warm water against her toes. She looked again at the leaderboard, where her sister’s name had now been replaced by Dominique’s.
    Things had seemed better after her talk with Alicia, but seeing the changed leaderboard brought her feeling of helplessness flooding back. Maybe her father was right. What was the point of going on if no matter how well you swam, someone would eventually come along and erase your name? Sara had given everything to swimming, and what had it given her in return? A name on a leaderboard that was destined to be replaced.
    Emily must have been sitting alone with her thoughts for twenty minutes before he came in. She recognized the long shadow, the figure distorted by a camera that hung around his neck.
    “I had to see it to believe it,” said Nick Brown. “I thought her name would be up there forever—or at least for a few more years.”
    She was too tired to scream at him this time. Instead, she spoke with soft, slow-boiling rage.
    “Someone like you could never know what it means to have your name up on that board.” She refused to look at him.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “She gave up everything—everything—to get her name on that board. And then you—you took it all away.”
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am. I loved her, too, you know.”
    She turned to look at him now and saw that he was crying.He wasn’t sobbing, but tears were unmistakably rolling down his face. She wasn’t sure she’d ever seen a guy her age cry like that, even an emo one like Nick Brown. Was what Samantha had said true? Could Nick and Sara really have dated?
    Hot tears escaped her eyes. Sara was erased now, forever. And even worse, the sister she’d known had apparently been a fake. If she and Nick had really dated, then Sara had spent the last year of her life lying to Emily.
    “I don’t even—” Emily said. “I don’t even know who she was.”
    Nick knelt by her side and offered her a packet of tissues from his backpack.
    “I do,” he said. “Will you come with me for a minute?”
    “Come with you?” she asked, getting to her feet. “Whatever happened, whoever you were to her—it doesn’t change the fact that you killed her.”
    She