Waterproof

TEN

Every morning in Physics for the past two days that I've been a senior, Mr. Robins always looked at me as if I were Joise for two seconds until his brain processed everything. I tried to ignore it as much as possible, but the way he locked eyes with me for the few seconds he thought I was her put this feeling in my stomach that was getting harder to ignore. It felt like he was telling me something, and I just couldn't hear what it was.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the bell rang. As I stood up, I pulled all of my stuff up with me and left through the door without so much as glancing at Robin, knowing that he'd be looking at me.

Our conversation from the other day replayed in my head, making me even more thankful that today was Friday.

I silently praised the God of Weekdays for not making more than five of them.

I made my way to my locker, which had since been upgraded to a Senior's locker instead of the tiny ones Freshmen, Sophomores, and Juniors were granted. Thankfully, this one hadn't belonged to Josie.

I opened my locker and a note fluttered to the ground. I raised an eyebrow and shoved my stuff inside before bending down to pick it up.

I unfolded it carefully, preventing rips. In letters as big as the space between the lines, containing no capitals, was: sit w/ us at bleachers. i want to discuss lakyn w/ sarah. i didnt tell her y. -c

The punctuation and grammar was about as good as one you'd find in a text from someone running away from an axe murderer sending out a plea for help.

Nevertheless, I'd be at the bleachers in a few hours.

I rolled my eyes. Why didn't Carson just wait to tell me until third hour? We had it together. Whatever. Blonde moments for people with black hair, I suppose. What do they call those?

[+]

I was the first one to the bleachers for lunch. Probably because my classroom was right next to the cafeteria, obviously a huge perk, but also because I knew for a fact that Sarah, Kirstyn, and Carson always waited for each other. Just like they always waited for Josie.

It was roughly ten minutes later when they started climbing the bleachers to come sit by me. Carson gave me a smile, Kirstyn gave a little half wave while trying to maintain the balance of her backpack and lunch, and Sarah just nodded curtly as she sat down.

"Hey, Elle," Kirstyn said as she sat down on the bleacher directly below me. "How ya' holding up?"

I shrugged. "Could be better, I suppose."

"Things'll look up soon. Just you wait." She patted my knee and turned her attention to her food and phone.

Kirstyn was always my favorite out of her and Sarah. Sarah was always quieter, but when she did talk she didn't usually have anything nice to say. When it was nice, she sounded insincere. But the other three all told me there was another side to Sarah that you only got to know once she truly knew you. Kirstyn, however, was always quick to include me. And sometimes, after Josie and Sarah had gone to bed at sleepovers, (Carson wasn't invited for obvious reasons) Kirstyn would sneak into my room and we'd watch Netflix and eat the candy I'd store up for these occasions. One time, she even fell asleep in my room and claimed to have slept walk to my bed.

Josie didn't believe it, but she also didn't care. She didn't mind sharing friends, but she also didn't have a problem using the They Were My Friend First card when someone, on a rare occasion, would come over to talk to me.

Carson had done it five times. Sarah had done it a whopping total of zero times, and Kirstyn three.

It was nice when they still hung with me instead of joining Joise on one of her crazy adventures.

"So, Sarah, why don't you tell Elle what you'll be doing." Carson tried to start the conversation off easily, but his words came out louder than they needed to. The whole atmosphere was tense right now.

"You're going to need to call Lakyn. Pretend to be some sort of advertiser. Talk about God or something, I don't care. I'll be on my computer tracking her location, and if you can keep her on the line long enough we should be able to pinpoint her."

I nodded. "What if she hangs up too fast?"

"Then you're S-O-L."

I almost asked what that meant, but then I remembered several years ago when Joise whispered it in my ear after mom had told dad he was S-O-L when she burned the lasagna.

I was ten, and also pretty sure she was going to be in trouble with the FBI for cussing.

I nodded, accepting the answer. "How do you hack her?"

Sarah looked at me with a pointed half-glare. "That is not and never will be any of your business."

I cracked a smile at how serious she was about it and then saluted her. "Yes, sargent."

She was the only one that didn't laugh. But I was fairly certain that I saw her mouth twitch in the corner.