Almost There

- 45 -

Tess had been afraid that breaking up with Isaac would be dramatic and messy. Would the high school rumor mill churn out inventive explanations for their split? Would Isaac confront her in the halls? Would he be weird—or even cruel?

But it was actually easier than she had dared to hope: apparently convinced that she'd been serious, and perhaps aware that Tess's parents were involved in her decision, Isaac ignored Tess completely. He didn't even look at her in the halls. He acted as if he'd never met her, as if he didn't even realize she existed.

At first, afraid that pain caused his reaction to their breakup, Tess felt guilty. Jacqui kept her straight.

As for the other matter, there were rumors. Once or twice, Tess passed Isaac's friends in the hall and heard them whispering or laughing. She caught the tail end of one of their comments, spoken just loud enough for her to hear: "...wouldn't put out."

It stung to know that people were talking about her, but Tess did her best to focus. She had bigger worries. If Isaac had felt the need to sell a story so people didn't think he'd been dumped, she would do her best not to care. Let them say what they wanted. She only had to survive a few more months, and then high school would be behind her forever.

Despite everything going on in her life, Tess did not forget the essay contest as February wore on into March. Had she found the information about the contest on her own, she might have pushed the matter aside and decided not to enter. It was just another thing to worry about, another stressful task on top of the mountain of worries she had to deal with.

But Miguel was the one who'd brought the flyer and encouraged her to enter. He was the one who'd said he thought she would have an interesting story to tell. And he was the one who had spent hours and hours of his life helping her survive her senior year. When it came down to it, Tess didn't care about the essay contest for herself; she cared for Miguel, who had become a friend. He had believed in her, and the least she could do was try.

It was stupid, but maybe it was a way of thanking him for everything, even if they weren't working together any more.

Throughout February, Tess thought about what to write, but couldn't settle on an idea; her break-up with Isaac was fresh, and it took her a few weeks to fully adjust.

As the March deadline crept closer, knowing that the essay would take her a lot of time to perfect, she tried to get more serious about deciding on what to write. There was school, there were family vacations and things like that, but none of these things seemed important enough to write about; there was nothing that would stand out from the hundreds of other stories kids Tess's age would tell. In the slivers of time she had between homework and sleep, Tess wrote lists and drafted introductory paragraphs in an old notebook, but she hated everything she produced.

Then, one night, it came to her.

She was sitting in the living room with her dad, watching half an hour of television before she went to bed. Robert was watching a documentary about World War II; Tess drifted in and out of the show, thinking about the essay. As her mind and her gaze wandered, her eye fell upon the family portraits on the wall: Tess, her mom, her dad, and Julia.

Tess got up from her seat and walked over to the family photos, her arms folded. She gazed at Julia's photograph, looking her sister in the eyes in the only way she could for the rest of her life. And she realized she had known what to write about all along.

***

It was March 1st, a Thursday night, and when she called him, he came.

"From an objective point of view, there are some things we need to tweak." Miguel's voice was soft. He stared down at the hand-written pages Tess had given him. After a moment, he looked up at Tess, his dark eyes gleaming.

"That's great," said Tess—but she didn't feel great. She felt light-headed and strange. She realized her hands were shaking and clasped them tightly together, trying to stop the trembling.

"I'm trying to be professional about this, but I can't. Tess, if I'd had any idea..." He hesitated. "I just had no idea."

She nodded her head, not trusting herself to speak.

"Are you sure you want to enter this into the contest?" Miguel looked down at the pages again, and then he laid them on the table, carefully, as if they were sheets of glass.

"I want to enter it." Tess put a hand on her essay. "This was really important for me, Miguel. I feel like I've faced something I've been pushing into the background of my life. It's something I needed to face. The world knows I feel guilty about what happened to my sister. I was driving when we crashed. But they don't know everything. I just needed to tell someone, even if it's some random person in an office reading scholarship essays. Having this out there...It's weird, but it feels like a weight off of my shoulders."

"It's intensely personal. It's probably the most personal thing I've ever read." Miguel smiled at her and laid his hand on top of hers. "I think it's really brave of you to enter it. And I'm so glad you called me, Tess."

Seeing his smile alleviated some of her anxiety—anxiety about reaching out to him after she'd cut him out of her life, and anxiety about sharing what was easily the most personal story she had ever told anyone in her life, aloud or in writing. His hand on top of hers was warm, and a flood of affection for Miguel, a tutor and a friend, came over Tess. Confused and flustered, she gently pulled her hand away from his. "I'm really glad you came, Miguel. You didn't have to. I didn't think you would, after..."

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it any more, Tess. I know why you asked me to leave. I'm just glad you asked me back. I'm sorry to say this, because I know it's still fresh, but I'm glad you're not with him any more. The way you talked about him..."

Tess struggled for a moment with a way to thank Miguel for being brave enough to tell her the truth; his perspective had been what showed Tess what she needed to do. But she couldn't; she had to focus on one intensely personal thing at a time. "Will you help me with the grammar and stuff? for the essay?"

"I'd be glad to."

"I want you to be honest. Just ignore the topic, if you can, and be honest about where I need to work on it. I want it to be as good as it can be if I'm going to enter this contest."

"Mission accepted." As the unexpected intimacy of the moment faded, Miguel reached for a red pen and scooted his chair closer to the table. "Let's start with the introduction..."