The Forever of Ella and Micha

toward me and we held onto it together. “What’s that thing he used to say all the time?” Micha asked me. “About life?”
    “It isn’t as important to feel great about all the things we do,” I say softly. “But how we feel toward the end when we look back at everything we’ve done.”
    Tears streamed from my eyes as we tipped the jar sideways and spilled the ashes off the cliff. As we watched them float down to the lake, Micha wrapped his arm around me and took a shot of tequila. He had offered me a sip, but I had declined.
    My insides shook as pain rushed through me, but I quickly repressed it. Though sunlight sparkled down on us, there was a chill in the air as I observed the lake that seemed to hold everything. It was connected to so many deep, painful memories of my past with my mom and myself.
    “Earth to Ella.” Lila waves her hand in front of my face and I flinch. “You seriously space off more than anyone else I know. Class got out like five minutes ago… What the heck is that drawing of? It’s creepy.”
    Drawn back to the present, my gaze sweeps across the empty desks in the classroom and then falls on the pen in my hand, the tip pressed to a sketch of my face, only my eyes are black and my skin looks like dry, cracked dirt.
    “It’s nothing.” I stuff the drawing into my bag and grab my books. Sometimes I lose track of time and it’s unsettling, because so did my mother. “It’s just a doodle I was messing around with during Professor Mackman’s boring lecture.”
    “What’s the deal with you? You’ve been like super spaced out and super grumpy,” Lila asks as we walk out of the classroom and push out the doors, stepping into the sunlight.
    I adjust my bag on my shoulder and pull my sunglasses down over my eyes. “It’s nothing. I’m just tired.”
    She stops abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk, narrows her blue eyes at me, and puts her hands on her hips. “Don’t shut down on me now. We’ve been doing so well.”
    I sigh, because she’s right. “It’s just this dream I’ve been having.”
    “About Micha?”
    “How’d you guess?”
    She elevates her eyebrows. “How could I not guess? All of your thoughts are about him.”
    “Not all of my thoughts.” I dwell in my thoughts about my dad, who’s in rehab and how he won’t talk to me.
    We stroll down the sidewalk and she links arms with me. There’s a skip to her walk, and her pink dress and blonde hair blow in the gentle fall breeze. About a year ago, Lila and I looked very similar, but then Micha cracked through my shell and I opted for a happy medium. I’m wearing a black Spill Canvas T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and my long auburn hair hangs loosely around my face.
    “Where should we have lunch?” she asks as we reach the edge of the parking lot. “Because our fridge is empty.”
    “We need to go shopping.” I scoot over as a group of football players walk by in their scarlet and gray uniforms. “But we also need a car to go anywhere, since you won’t take the bus anymore.”
    “Only because of that creeper who licked my arm,” she says, cringing. “It was disgusting.”
    “It was pretty gross,” I agree, trying not to laugh.
    “My dad’s such a jerk,” Lila mutters with a frown. “He should have at least warned me when he decided to tow my car back home. It makes no sense. He doesn’t want me there, yet he takes my car away because I ran out during the summer.”
    “Dads tend to be jerks.” At the end of the sidewalk, I veer to the left. “Mine won’t talk to me.”
    “We should make a Dads Suck Club,” she suggests sarcastically. “I’m sure a lot of people would join.”
    I strain a smile. I don’t blame my dad for his negative feelings toward me. It was my choice to leave that night my mom died and now I have to deal with the consequences—it’s part of moving on.
    I stay under the shade of the trees as we head up the sidewalk toward the side section of the school. “Let’s just eat at the cafeteria. It’s the easiest place to get to.”
    Her nose scrunches. “Easy, in the sense that it’s close. But other than that there is nothing easy about…” She trails off as her eyes stray to the side of the campus and a conniving smile expands across her face “Here’s an idea. You could ask Blake to give us a ride somewhere.”
    I spot Blake walking across the campus yard toward his car. He is in my water base media class and talks to me a lot. Lila insists it’s because