Chapter 1

The Last Week of Summer

I changed my shirt three times before noon, which would have been less pathetic if I were going anywhere.

The first one was too tight around my chest.

The second one made me look twelve.

The third one was fine, probably, except that the second I looked in the mirror I could already picture somebody prettier wearing it without even thinking about it, which ruined it completely.

I peeled it off and threw it on the bed, where it landed on top of the other rejects. My room looked like a small, cotton based disaster. Jean shorts on the floor. Tank tops hanging halfway out of my dresser. Two different pairs of sneakers by my door, both somehow wrong for two completely different reasons.

Behind me, my mirror leaned against the wall with the kind of honesty I hated. My legs looked too pale. My stomach looked soft in the wrong places. My hair, which had dried in a weird half wave from yesterday’s shower, looked like it had given up on itself sometime during the night.

I picked up another shirt from the pile. Light blue. Soft fabric. Cute on the hanger. Somehow embarrassing on me.

I pulled it over my head anyway.

No.

Absolutely not.

I stared at myself and tried to figure out what the actual problem was. The shirt was not ugly. My room was not ugly. The light coming in through my window was even nice, all soft and gold and annoyingly peaceful.

The problem was that next week was the first day of high school.

And I still looked exactly like me.

I folded my arms and leaned closer to the mirror, like maybe my face would explain itself if I got near enough. There was nothing especially wrong with it. That was part of the problem. I was not so pretty that people noticed. I was not so ugly that anybody felt sorry for me. I was just regular, which was somehow worse.

Regular girls got overlooked.

Regular girls got called cute when people were being polite.

Regular girls spent middle school watching other girls walk into a room and somehow collect attention without asking for it, like it was something in the air and they had been born knowing how to breathe it.

From downstairs, I heard my little sister Lucy yell, “Mom, she’s using my markers!”

Then my mom yelled back, “Then stop leaving them everywhere!”

Then Lucy yelled, “They were in my room!”

Then my dad said, in the voice he used when he wanted everyone to calm down without actually getting involved, “Maybe this is a great time for both of you to take a breath.”

I shut my eyes.

There were people who said they loved hearing their family all around the house because it made things feel alive and warm and homey. Those people were either lying or had much quieter families than mine.

I tugged off the blue shirt and sat on the edge of my bed in my bra and shorts, looking at the mess around me like it had personally offended me. My phone buzzed beside my leg.

Mara.

u alive or did back to school shopping kill u

I stared at the screen for a second before typing back.

depends who u ask

Three dots appeared instantly.

dramatic. good. means ur fine

I could hear her saying it in that exact deadpan voice she always used when I was acting insane. Which was kind of often.

Another text came through.

my mom got me the ugliest sneakers ever. come over later and tell me if i can still be seen in public

I smiled a little before I could stop myself.

Mara had been my best friend since sixth grade, back when we both had weird hair and no idea what to do with eyeliner and still thought it mattered who sat near us on the bus. She had seen me cry in a movie theater bathroom, let me copy her math homework twice, and once told a girl to shut up when she made fun of my old glasses. She knew everything about me. More than anyone.

Maybe too much.

That thought came quick and ugly, and I hated myself a little for having it.

I set my phone down without answering.

Outside my window, the sky was bright and washed out with heat. One of the neighborhood kids rode past on a bike, shirtless and screaming for no reason. The summer was ending the way it always did here, with everything still hot enough to make you feel tricked. Like school should not be allowed to start while it still felt like July.

I looked back at the mirror.

High school.

The words felt bigger than they should have. Not exciting exactly. More like dangerous.

Middle school had not been the nightmare people in movies pretended it was. I had not gotten shoved into lockers or humiliated in front of the entire cafeteria. Nothing dramatic like that. It was worse in a quieter way.

It was a hundred small things.

The wrong thing said too loudly.

The wrong joke at the wrong table.

The time I cried in front of Kaylie Benton in seventh grade because she told me, in this fake sweet voice, that my dress was “actually brave.”

The group photo in eighth grade where everyone else somehow knew how to stand and smile while I looked like I had been caught in the middle of apologizing.

The fact that boys never really noticed me until they needed help with homework or wanted to ask if Mara was dating anyone.

The fact that when I did get attention, it felt like an accident.

High school was supposed to fix that.

Not by magic. I knew that. I was not stupid.

But maybe by distance. Maybe by new hallways, new classes, new people who did not already know the most embarrassing things about me. People who had never seen me trip in front of the cafeteria or wear that awful pink lip gloss I was briefly convinced made me look mature.

I stood up and went back to my closet.

I reached for the white tank top I had bought last month with my birthday money. It was simple, but it looked good on the girl in the online reviews, who had glossy hair and collarbones like she deserved them.

I pulled it on and looked again.

Better.

Not amazing. Still me. But maybe a version of me that had a chance.

There was a knock on my door before I could ruin the moment.

“Come in,” I called.

My mom opened it halfway and looked around at the bed, the floor, and the open dresser drawers. “Wow.”

“That is not a helpful tone.”

“It was not supposed to be helpful. It was supposed to be accurate.”

She pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped inside holding a basket of folded towels. My mom always looked like she had already lived a full day before noon. Today she had her hair clipped up, little gold hoops in, and the expression she got when she was trying not to be annoyed by something that definitely annoyed her.

“You planning on cleaning any of this up?”

“I’m in the middle of something.”

She glanced at me, then at the mirror. “Trying on clothes to sit in your room?”

“I was figuring stuff out.”

“For a week from now?”

I crossed my arms. “You do not get it.”

She shifted the towels against her hip. “Then explain it to me.”

I opened my mouth and then closed it.

Because what was I supposed to say?

I am trying to figure out how to walk into high school and not be the kind of girl people forget while she is still standing there.

I am trying to find one outfit that makes it look like I know how to be a person.

I am trying to become somebody else before next Tuesday.

Instead I said, “Nothing. Never mind.”

My mom watched me for a second with that look adults get when they know something is wrong but decide to circle it instead of landing on it.

“Well,” she said finally, “if you are done having a private crisis, your father is making sandwiches.”

“Sounds threatening.”

“It sort of is.”

She turned to go, then paused at the door. “That top is cute, by the way.”

I looked down at it, instantly suspicious. “You really think so?”

“Yes, Ellie.” She smiled a little. “I really think so.”

Then she left before I could ask whether cute was good or just mother language for acceptable.

I waited until her footsteps moved away, then looked back at myself.

Cute.

Cute was useless.

Cute was what people called little girls and handbags and dogs with one ear up.

Still, I did not take the shirt off.

Downstairs, the kitchen smelled like toasted bread and turkey. My dad stood at the counter with a knife in one hand and a paper towel over one shoulder like he was hosting a cooking show for an audience of zero. Lucy was at the table drawing on a sheet of printer paper with her tongue sticking out in concentration.

The second she saw me, she narrowed her eyes.

“Are you wearing makeup?”

I touched my face automatically. “Mascara.”

“That counts.”

“Thanks, detective.”

My dad looked up and smiled. “There she is. The woman of the hour.”

“I do not think that phrase means anything.”

“It means you made an entrance.”

“I walked down the stairs.”

“Gracefully,” he said.

Lucy made a fake gagging noise.

I grabbed a water bottle from the fridge and leaned against the counter. “What are we even eating?”

“Turkey and provolone for the civilized members of this household,” my dad said. “Peanut butter and jelly for the tiny tyrant.”

“I heard that,” Lucy said without looking up.

“Good.”

He slid a plate toward me. “Your mother said you were upstairs trying to solve fashion.”

“That sounds like something she would say.”

“It sounds like something you would do.”

I took a bite of the sandwich and looked out the window over the sink. The backyard grass was a little burnt from the heat. The fence needed repainting. One of Lucy’s sandals was lying upside down near the patio for reasons no one would ever know.

My dad came around the counter and leaned beside me. “Nervous?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

He gave me a look.

“What?”

“You have your nervous shoulders.”

“I do not have nervous shoulders.”

“You absolutely do. They go up like this.” He lifted both shoulders toward his ears in an exaggerated hunch.

Lucy laughed. “You do.”

I glared at both of them. “This is bullying.”

“It is observation,” my dad said.

My mom walked in then, saving me. “Has anybody seen my phone?”

“No,” Lucy and I said at the same time.

My dad pointed to the fruit bowl. Her phone was in the fruit bowl.

She stared at it. “Why is it in there?”

Lucy looked up from her drawing. “Because you put it there.”

My mom closed her eyes briefly. “Right.”

The whole scene was so normal it almost hurt. The noise, the overlapping voices, the half ridiculous conversation. It should have made me feel safe.

Instead, I had this weird pressure in my chest, like I was standing just slightly outside of it all, already leaving even though nobody else seemed to notice.

My mom found yogurt in the fridge and stood beside me long enough to bump my shoulder lightly with hers. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

She studied me for a second, then nodded like she did not totally believe me but was willing to let it go. “Good. Because I need one child in this house not on the edge of a breakdown.”

“Rude,” Lucy said.

“Accurate,” my mom replied.

I smiled despite myself.

Then my phone buzzed again in my back pocket.

Mara.

hello?? are u ghosting me before freshman year because that would be iconic but hurtful

I looked at the message a little too long.

“Who is it?” my dad asked.

“Nobody.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That is never the answer people give when it is actually nobody.”

I shoved the phone back into my pocket. “It’s Mara.”

Lucy sighed dramatically. “You guys have the same conversations every day.”

“That is how friendship works,” I said.

“Looks exhausting.”

It was supposed to be funny, but something about it stuck.

Because lately, texting Mara did feel a little exhausting.

Not because of her. Not exactly.

Because talking to her felt like stepping back into a version of myself I was not sure I wanted to drag into high school.

That thought made something twist low in my stomach. Guilt, probably. Or fear. Maybe they were basically the same thing.

After lunch I went back upstairs and shut my door.

The room was still a mess, but the sunlight had shifted, turning everything softer. My bed was buried under clothes that all belonged to me and somehow none of them looked like they did. I picked up my phone and finally typed back.

not ghosting. just dealing w a severe wardrobe emergency

She answered right away.

this is why u need me. i tell u when stuff looks normal

I smiled, but weaker this time.

Normal.

That was the problem, though.

I did not want to look normal.

Not anymore.

I sat cross legged on the floor and opened Instagram, which was a bad idea and also apparently my favorite activity. Two girls from school had already posted a back to school shopping picture from the mall. One of them looked amazing in a cropped sweater and little gold necklace like she had been born sixteen.

I stared at it until I hated everyone involved.

Then I clicked out, tossed my phone on the bed, and looked at myself in the mirror one more time.

The white tank top. My hair half brushed. Bare feet. A face that could still turn into almost anything, maybe.

That was the strange part. I was close enough to becoming better that it felt possible. Which made not becoming better feel like my fault.

I stood up slowly.

“Okay,” I said to my reflection, because sometimes hearing things out loud made them feel more solid.

Okay.

Next week I would walk into high school, and nobody there would know that I still thought about stupid things from two years ago. Nobody would know how easy it was for one weird look to ruin my whole day. Nobody would know how badly I wanted people to like me.

I could be calmer.

Prettier.

Less obvious.

Less much.