The Beginning of After

mirror check. I’d put my hair in a headband, careful to seem casual, yet a little dressed up.
    And then we heard Joe knock on the door.
    I looked down at the road from the window of Joe’s truck and realized why people got cars like this. They made you feel safe in an exclusive, almost heady way. Like you were so far removed from the ground and everything around you, how could anything touch you enough to do damage?
    “When my dad decided to get an SUV,” Joe said as if reading my mind, “he sold this to me for a dollar.”
    “Bargain,” I said.
    “But I have to pay for the insurance.”
    We were silent again, for maybe the tenth time since he’d picked me up. I was beginning to accept that this was our thing, this start-and-stop way of talking.
    I could just say, “Guess what?” and spill my news about Yale, and the conversation would roll forward so easily. But for some reason, I couldn’t form the words.
    Maybe someday soon I would be able to tell him everything, about all my doubts and questions, with fingers crossed that he would get it. Not tonight, though. Not here, with just a few more minutes until we reached the library, when I didn’t know what the night was supposed to bring. To change the subject, I almost told him about Meg and me and our fight. Again, something stopped me.
    My mind jumped back to the email I’d gotten from David the night before.
don’t sweat it about megan dill. doesn’t sound like you’re ready to fix things yet anyway. i’ve found that letting something stay broken for a little while helps me understand it.

    What David had said made sense to me. There was no point opening it up to other opinions.
    Joe made the final turn onto the street where the library was, and I dug my hands, still shaking a bit, deep into the pockets of my parka.
    “This one is my favorite,” said Mrs. Lasky, Joe’s mom, to Ms. Folsom. It was SuperBrat, of course. “Joe says he’ll give it to me when the show’s over.”
    I stood next to the snack table and peered across the room at the two walls where the paintings hung. Joe had framed them himself with simple black wood frames and white mattes he’d gotten at Target. The two layers, Joe’s caricature cut out and laid against my background, gave each one a 3-D effect. They looked great.
    I scanned the artwork and wondered which would have been Mom’s favorite, or Dad’s, or Toby’s. But I had no idea, and a sadness washed over me. Were they already that far away?
    Joe was busy taking pictures and chatting with Ms. Folsom. Every time some new person ambled down the stairs into the room, Joe walked up to say welcome and introduce himself. Nana and the Mitas came through. Mrs. Mita hugged me too tight and left a lipstick mark on my cheek, and I let Nana take one photo of me in front of the paintings.
    “Let’s get one of you and Joe!” she said.
    Joe heard and bounded over before I could refuse, and then Mrs. Lasky appeared with her own camera. So we posed, smiling, and as soon as all the cameras had snapped—I think Ms. Folsom got hers in there too—I made a beeline for the bathroom. On my way out, I heard Joe asking Nana which painting she wanted to keep.
    I washed my hands and rinsed, then washed them again just because it was something to do, and I wanted them to smell nice for Joe later.
    Even though I wasn’t sure how soon I wanted later to come.
    “Is this any better?” asked Joe, as I felt a blast of hot air coming from the vent in front of me. The temperature had dropped sharply, and Joe spent the entire drive from the library to Yogurtland fiddling with the dashboard temperature controls.
    “Yes, thank you,” I said, my teeth chattering.
    “It’ll get better in a minute,” he said. “Maybe fro-yo isn’t such a good idea. I just thought we should celebrate.”
    “They sell hot chocolate,” I suggested. Celebrate or not, I wasn’t ready to go home yet.
    Joe pulled into the parking lot outside Yogurtland, which shared a small shopping center with two other stores. As he stopped the car, I noticed a bunch of kids going inside. Joe recognized them too.
    “Kevin McNaughton,” said Joe, a simple observation.
    The Railroad Crowd.
    “Jesse Pryde. All those guys,” I said, trying to match the matter-of-factness in Joe’s voice.
    Joe started to turn off the truck’s ignition, but I grabbed his arm and blurted out, “Let’s not go in.” He gave me a puzzled look, so I added, “The car just got warm, and it