Chapter 2

The door opened. Alex came up behind me, put a hand on my shoulder, and looked at my screen.

He said, "Sophie, why are you hiding in here instead of studying?"

His hand was warm, his palm dry, the pressure exactly right, the same as every other time he had comforted me.

I looked up at him. His face was close, his eyes soft, a smile at the corner of his mouth.

I could see every detail in his eyes, the curve of his lashes, the small mole on the bridge of his nose.

"Nothing." My own voice came out flat enough to sound like a stranger's. "I recorded a video and it kept freezing."

Alex said, "The exam is tomorrow. Get some sleep."

He ruffled my hair and dropped a pencil case on the desk. "I picked up some new pens for you, the kind you always use."

It was a clear plastic case containing a few black gel pens, two No. 2 pencils, an eraser, and a ruler.

I stared at the case and thought about what my future self had said. "That pencil case Alex gave you has disappearing ink pens in it."

"Sophie?" Alex said my name again. "What are you thinking about?"

"About you," I said.

I smiled, picked up the case, pulled out a pen, and wrote one word on a scrap of paper.

I wrote Grant. My last name was short and quick to write.

The ink was black and heavy, and it bled a little into the paper, like any other pen.

He said, "Get some rest. I'll come get you tomorrow."

He kissed my forehead and left, and his footsteps faded down the hallway, and then the front door closed.

I sat at my desk and stared at the word on the paper.

The second hand went around twice. Three minutes. Five minutes. Ten minutes.

I fell asleep at the desk and woke up at two in the morning.

The word on the paper was gone. The page was clean, with no trace left, as if I had never written anything.

I picked up my phone and texted Layla Corbin: [Can you put together a pencil case for me for tomorrow?]

She fired back a question mark.

I sent another one: [Just a backup.]

Layla answered: [No problem.]

I pushed the case Alex gave me into the deepest pocket of my backpack and zipped it shut.

Then I turned on the desk lamp and went through everything I needed for the next day one more time.

Admission ticket, state ID, clear folder, water bottle, tissues, laid out one at a time.

At some point, it had started raining outside, light enough that it only tapped against the AC unit at the window.

I thought about the last thing my future self said. "Sophie, you are such an idiot."

She was right. I was. I had been lied to for that long and still believed the world was a good place, but that didn't mean I couldn't change.

The next morning, Alex showed up with two bags of breakfast.

Orange juice, donuts, and a hard-boiled egg, packed into a plastic bag with the top knotted.

He handed me one bag and pulled a clear pencil case from the side pocket of his backpack.

He said, "This one's yours. Don't lose it."

It was identical to the one from the night before.

I took it and glanced down. Black gel pens, fine-point, the same brand and model as the ones from the night before.

I smiled and thanked him. The second he turned around, I unzipped my backpack, slid the new case in, and pulled the old one out.

The two cases were identical, down to the price tags stuck in the same spot on the packaging, and nobody could have told them apart without looking hard.

I changed my shoes, put on my backpack, and left with him.

We ran into Madison in the hallway. Madison lived across the hall from me, and we had grown up together.

Our moms played cards together, our dads fished together, and we had been in the same class since kindergarten, twelve years by then.

She wore a white dress, her hair down and a little makeup, and she looked less like a girl heading to an exam than one heading to a wedding.

"Sophie." Madison latched onto my arm with her chin on my shoulder, her voice soft as cotton candy. "I'm so nervous. What if I blow it?"

"You won't," I said.

I patted the back of her hand.

"Sophie, you're the best." She rubbed her cheek against mine and turned to Alex. "Did you get Sophie any pens? She said hers wasn't writing well yesterday, and I forgot to pick some up."

Alex held up the pencil case in his hand. "Already done. The kind she likes."

"What a coincidence. I bought the same ones." Madison pulled an identical clear case out of her bag. "If all three of us use the same pens, there's no way we don't get into Stirling together."

Her smile was bright enough to pass for real, and looking at the case in her hand, I found it almost funny.

Three of us, three pencil cases, identical on the outside. Only I knew that two of them were wrong, or maybe that only one was clean.

The three cases sat in a row on the shoe cabinet, clear plastic, black pens, all the same.

Alex picked up the one on the far left, unzipped it, checked it, resealed it, and handed it to me.

He said, "Sophie, this one's yours. Check it and make sure nothing's missing."

"It's fine," I said.

I pushed the case into the outer zip pocket of my backpack.

Alex put his hand out. "Let me see."

"I said it's fine." My voice came out harder than I meant it to.

His hand stopped in the air. Madison's eyes went back and forth between us, and she laughed. "Alex, you're way too wound up. When has Sophie ever messed anything up?"

Alex pulled his hand back and said nothing more. Madison took my arm on the way downstairs and talked the whole time about where we should go after the exam.

She went back and forth on whether the graduation trip should be Willow County or Harbor City, and she kept saying we would live together in college.

Her eyes were bright while she talked, and every sentence had a we in it.

Madison said, "Sophie, do you think we'll always be this close?"

She stopped suddenly and looked at me, serious.

"Yes," I heard myself say. "As long as you want to be."

She smiled, her eyes curving, showing the two small pointed teeth.

I had known that smile for twelve years, and it had always felt warm. That one time, it felt cold.