I’d been back, but there was nothing new. I logged on to iChat next and stared at the shadow of his name on my offline buddy list, like I could will him to appear, like the chime of him coming online would sound any second just because I wanted it to.
I rolled the golf ball under my palm, as the lyrics echoed in my head. The image of the boy standing on the Jaguar flashed through my mind, sending the same rousing shock through my body as when I first saw him, and I wondered if I’d ever see him again.
Tucking the ball into my pocket, I went out to the garden.
CHAPTER 7
A HIGH-PITCHED VOICE pierced through the music. It took a second to remember where I was: third period English. Lifting my head from the desk, I could make out the silhouette of Miss Porter looming over me. Her lips were moving but I didn’t hear a word she was saying.
She tapped my shoulder and motioned for me to remove my headphones. I took out the left earbud and let it dangle against my hair, like a long, white, plastic earring. I forgot I was even still wearing them. I was listening to a new playlist I had put together last night. I had stayed up for hours scouring the Internet, trying to find the song, even though I knew it didn’t exist, that it was a figment of my imagination. That’s what led me to discover all these other songs. Music was usually just something I had on in the background, something I used to fill the silence. But last night, for the first time, I really listened to each song and what it was about—love and loss and heartache. Maybe it took getting your own heart broken to really understand the true power of music—and why people wrote it.
“Are you all right?” Miss Porter whispered, crouching down so that we were on the same level. The rest of the class was busily writing in their notebooks.
“I know I’m behind.” I pulled my mother’s tattered copy of
Mrs. Dalloway
from my bag. At least I remembered to bring it.
“I’m not worried about that,” she said, smoothing over the front cover of my book. It was bent from being stuck between two others on the bookshelf in my parents’ room for so many years. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
She was the first teacher to come close to broaching the subject of my absence, like she was breaking some collective pact.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. I knew she was only trying to be nice, that besides Annie, she was probably the only one in this entire building who was on my side. But her attention only made things worse.
“The assignment is on the board,” she said, straightening up. “Just do the best you can, even if you haven’t finished the book yet.”
I copied the question into my notebook—
Describe how nature is an important theme in the novel and how it relates to Clarissa
Dalloway
. Without having read a single page of the book, it was all nonsense to me. English was normally my best subject and it was my only AP class. Derek said I would have been better off taking economics or government. He said English was a big waste of time since novels were all just a bunch of made up stories that had nothing to do with the real world. I was beginning to realize that maybe he was right. If only I had listened to him. About this class, and about everything else.
Without my playlist to distract me, the velvety voice erupted in my head. It was deeper, huskier now, like footsteps walking over a gravel path. The lyrics came out haltingly, like candies pried from a child’s hand, as if the singer didn’t want to let them go, each word a part of himself he was reluctantly setting free. There was something brave, hypnotic even, about how vulnerable he sounded. It wasn’t until there was a knock at the classroom door that I realized I had drifted off once again.
Miss Porter opened the door, where the hall monitor stood on the other side. He handed Miss Porter a small envelope with the school logo printed in the corner. I glanced up at the clock. There were
I rolled the golf ball under my palm, as the lyrics echoed in my head. The image of the boy standing on the Jaguar flashed through my mind, sending the same rousing shock through my body as when I first saw him, and I wondered if I’d ever see him again.
Tucking the ball into my pocket, I went out to the garden.
CHAPTER 7
A HIGH-PITCHED VOICE pierced through the music. It took a second to remember where I was: third period English. Lifting my head from the desk, I could make out the silhouette of Miss Porter looming over me. Her lips were moving but I didn’t hear a word she was saying.
She tapped my shoulder and motioned for me to remove my headphones. I took out the left earbud and let it dangle against my hair, like a long, white, plastic earring. I forgot I was even still wearing them. I was listening to a new playlist I had put together last night. I had stayed up for hours scouring the Internet, trying to find the song, even though I knew it didn’t exist, that it was a figment of my imagination. That’s what led me to discover all these other songs. Music was usually just something I had on in the background, something I used to fill the silence. But last night, for the first time, I really listened to each song and what it was about—love and loss and heartache. Maybe it took getting your own heart broken to really understand the true power of music—and why people wrote it.
“Are you all right?” Miss Porter whispered, crouching down so that we were on the same level. The rest of the class was busily writing in their notebooks.
“I know I’m behind.” I pulled my mother’s tattered copy of
Mrs. Dalloway
from my bag. At least I remembered to bring it.
“I’m not worried about that,” she said, smoothing over the front cover of my book. It was bent from being stuck between two others on the bookshelf in my parents’ room for so many years. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
She was the first teacher to come close to broaching the subject of my absence, like she was breaking some collective pact.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. I knew she was only trying to be nice, that besides Annie, she was probably the only one in this entire building who was on my side. But her attention only made things worse.
“The assignment is on the board,” she said, straightening up. “Just do the best you can, even if you haven’t finished the book yet.”
I copied the question into my notebook—
Describe how nature is an important theme in the novel and how it relates to Clarissa
Dalloway
. Without having read a single page of the book, it was all nonsense to me. English was normally my best subject and it was my only AP class. Derek said I would have been better off taking economics or government. He said English was a big waste of time since novels were all just a bunch of made up stories that had nothing to do with the real world. I was beginning to realize that maybe he was right. If only I had listened to him. About this class, and about everything else.
Without my playlist to distract me, the velvety voice erupted in my head. It was deeper, huskier now, like footsteps walking over a gravel path. The lyrics came out haltingly, like candies pried from a child’s hand, as if the singer didn’t want to let them go, each word a part of himself he was reluctantly setting free. There was something brave, hypnotic even, about how vulnerable he sounded. It wasn’t until there was a knock at the classroom door that I realized I had drifted off once again.
Miss Porter opened the door, where the hall monitor stood on the other side. He handed Miss Porter a small envelope with the school logo printed in the corner. I glanced up at the clock. There were
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