“Tonight?” I asked.
“The party. The one you’ve talked about—”
“Oh, right, I forgot,” I said. The party, whatever that meant. I’d checked the calendar. It wasn’t my birthday, so I wasn’t quite sure why we were having a party that I’d apparently been insisting upon since I was six. But again, if my parents were involved, I’d so be there.
* * *
Riley High looked exactly as it always had. It was a relatively new school, only a couple of years old, but it was exactly as I remembered it. I liked school about as much as I liked working in my grandparents’ store. I was always ready and willing to put the work in, but at the same time, I could think of a thousand things I’d rather be doing.
Dad dropped me off up front, then waited as I walked through the front doors. The gesture was endearing. Was he worried I’d be abducted in so short a span? And in heaven? Did people get abducted in heaven?
I strode through the front doors and sampled the air. It smelled the same. It looked the same. Everything was the same. I just really thought heaven would look a lot different from Riley’s Switch, New Mexico. If anything, I thought it would resemble Hawaii a little more.
But maybe this was my heaven. Did each of us have our own version of heaven? Admittedly, in my perfect world, heaven consisted of what I already had with a couple of parents thrown in for good measure. I’d wanted only them. Nothing more. Nothing less.
Brooklyn was walking toward me, a wide smile on her face, and my heart soared. She was here. We’d be in heaven together. I started to wave until I realized she wasn’t smiling at me, but just past me.
Turning, I saw Ashlee and Sydnee Southern walk in. Brooke hurried to them, and they instantly formed a huddle, clearly sharing some juicy tidbit of information. I heard whispers of a new guy, a hot new guy that Brooke would not believe.
“Brooklyn?” I said.
She turned to me. “Oh, hi. What’s up?”
She acted like she barely knew me. Like we hadn’t been best friends since the third grade.
“Nothing, I just—I wanted to see how you were doing.”
Ashlee and Sydnee offered me a congenial smile, waiting patiently for me to give them back their friend. Their friend.
“Oh.” Brooklyn frowned, confused. “I’m okay, Lorelei. It is Lorelei, right?”
I blinked and fought the sting in the back of my eyes. “Yes. It’s Lorelei.”
“Hey, we have to get to Mr. Burke’s class early to turn in our late papers,” Ashlee said. Or possibly Sydnee. I had no idea, actually. I never could tell them apart. “Find us after third.”
“Will do,” Brooke said before turning back to me. She giggled. “They’re always turning in homework late.”
“Right.” I pressed my mouth together, becoming confused and discombobulated. “I’ll just get to class, then.”
Just as I stepped past her, she touched my arm. “Are you okay, Lorelei?”
Lorelei. Not Lor. Not Squeegee like she’d called me in grade school, but Lorelei. “Yes. I’m fine.”
I was trying to get away from her again when she said, “I’m sorry about that.”
“About what?” I asked.
“About your name. I knew it was Lorelei. Or, well, I was pretty sure it was Lorelei. I didn’t mean to … I mean, it’s just that being the newish girl in school, I had to learn so many names at once, I kind of get confused.” She laughed. “Who am I kidding, I get confused anyway. Being semi-new is just a good excuse, you know what I mean?”
“New?” I asked. Weren’t we both new? Wasn’t pretty much everyone in school new? “What do you mean?”
“Now who’s confused?” she said. “Let’s walk to science together.”
Okay, we still had first hour together, so that hadn’t changed.
“You’d think after being here for two months, I’d at least know the names of all the kids in my classes.”
I bowed my head. Maybe time was different here. Brooke had died before me. Maybe in heaven time, that few minutes was more like two months.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and I think there’s a couple I still don’t know. Is that awful?”
She laughed and wrapped an arm in mine. I wanted to throw mine around her, but she might find that odd.
“I like you,” she said. “I have to be honest, I kind of felt this instant connection to you when I started school, but that could be because we’re the same height. Five-foot-short.”
I wanted to laugh at her joke, but I spotted my archnemesis headed toward us, a frown on her face.
“Lorelei,” Tabitha said, her brows drawn sharply, “I’ve been trying to call you all morning. What am I going to wear?”
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Brooklyn said. She stepped away before I could clutch on to her arm and beg her to save me.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Tabitha, more than a little shocked that she was talking to me as opposed to, say, humiliating me mercilessly in front of the entire school.
“Tonight,” she replied, her tone one of utter frustration. “The big party. Holy cow, you’ve been harping about it since … forever. But I don’t know what to wear.”
She started back down the hall, winding around a group of skaters like I was supposed to follow. So I did.
“I mean, how formal are we talking? I know they’re cooking outside on the grill, but will we be eating outside? I’m not really fond of bugs in my food.”