Watch Me Disappear

friendship with Mrs. Morgan is finally paying off. My mother actually asked me if she’s been too strict with me.”
    “Crazy!”
    “And part of my new relationship with my mom includes the ability to choose my own friends, which means I can come hang out with you.”
    “Lizzie, this is awesome,” Missy says. “Can you come over tonight? I have practice until 6, but you can come for dinner after that.”
    It seems as if true and lasting happiness can come from something as simple as a cell phone. Things are looking up again.
    My newfound liberty is extended beyond having a cell phone and hanging out with Missy. I am also allowed to have my own Email address, as long as I write the password down and put it in a sealed envelope next to the computer. My mother promises she will not open it unless something happens to me, in which case she can access my account like some kind of super-sleuth. She got that idea from a PBS documentary on teens and the Internet. She also told me I can have a Facebook account if I want, but for that one, I have to give her the password now and let her patrol my account whenever she wants. I opt out of that. For one thing, I would have to make a new profile or she’d see that I’d been a member for two months already. Besides, a lot of the appeal of Facebook for me was that I was doing something forbidden, and anyway, I can still log on at Missy’s house or the library without having my mom scrutinize my profile or stuff other people are posting. Lastly, she set up lessons for me with a driving school, so I will finally be able to drive myself places instead of having to rely on someone else all the time. It’s all pretty overwhelming.
    The first time I go to Missy’s house after I get my cell phone, I add my number to my Facebook profile. If my mother knew, that would be the end of the cell phone and my friendship with Missy. Somehow, even with all my new privileges, I still have to sneak around.
    I spend the last week of the summer hanging out with Missy and Wes, who have become inseparable. We watch Lucas when Anna runs errands or just wants a nap, or we drive out to the state park where the water in the swimming area is spring-fed and therefore always freezing, even at the end of August. Even I go swimming; I know neither Missy nor Wes care what I look like in a bathing suit or what my hair looks like when it air-dries in the sun. I know I’m going to sound melodramatic here, but honestly it’s the best week of my life so far.
     
     

Chapter 10
     
     
     
    And then school starts. Summer is gone as if it never happened, and I am once again learning my way around, trying to keep track of all the new faces and names. At least this time I know a few people, some of whom even smile or say hello in the hallway.
    Missy and I have two classes together, AP Physics and AP History. I also have one class with Maura, AP Art History, and I see Maura bright and early every morning, as she is my ride to school, an arrangement worked out by our mothers. Right from the first day, I have been drowning in work. Maura and her friends are talking about senior slide, but I know I will be working straight through May to do well on my AP exams. Maura and Jessica seem utterly unconcerned with college admissions. Both have already made up their minds on UMass Amherst, and they are both certain they’ll get in. Katherine is more studious; she intends to go to Wellesley like her mother and her grandmother before her. Katherine and I have several classes together, but she’s wound so tight I mostly try to steer clear of her.
    The person with whom I have the most classes is Hunter Groves. It is no surprise really; we’re both taking mostly AP classes. The only class we don’t have together is studio art, my one non-AP elective, a class I share with Paul. Hunter takes AP Anatomy and Physiology that period. There are a few of us who travel together all day from one AP to another. Kids were already talking about study groups before any tests had been announced, and they included me in their plans. I’m glad; if school is going to be my entire life until May, at least I’m not alone.
    At my last school, there weren’t many opportunities to take advanced classes, and it wasn’t “cool” to be smart. If you did well in school, you either had to accept outcast status or not tell anyone. I had no social life anyway, so I had no one to tell about my grades one way or the other. I just floated along,