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friends away the whole time (Rachel working at a summer camp in Tahoe, Tara in Barcelona with her cousins)—was closing in on me. It was like a creeping fog. So much heaviness. “What do you need?” Jessica asked me. Even she wouldn’t be here for me over the summer break, and my weekly visits to her office had become the best part of school. I was going to miss the way she touched her fingertips together when she asked me questions, and her plants by her window, and even her tissue box, perched next to me like a suggestion to cry. I told her I didn’t know what I needed.
    And then I said, “Actually, maybe I need summer school. A reason to get out of the house every day. Homework, so I can stay in my room whenever I’m home.”
    â€œI don’t know what we’re offering this summer…” she said, opening her laptop and pulling up the schedule. “Too bad there isn’t art or theater.”
    â€œWhat about geometry?” I asked.
    She cocked her head. “Aren’t you in trig?”
    â€œMaybe I could audit.”
    Her fingers tapped the keyboard. “Tim—Mr. Trout—he’s teaching it on the Potrero campus.”
    I smiled. Even better. He was my teacher the first time I took it, my freshman year. He’s the one who first talked about axes and symmetry.
    â€œPerfect,” I said, and she enrolled me right then. She made it so easy, even though it wouldn’t have made sense to any other adult.
    I finish passing out the books, and Mr. Trout and I make small talk for a few minutes, until he tells me, “Okay, go take a lap. I need a few minutes to plan the first lesson.”
    I leave my backpack on a front row desk and head to the corridor. For a week or two, when I was a freshman, I rode the bus here after school to hang out in the front quad with Blake. He liked to stand with his arm around me. I liked being mysterious, the girl from Baker High. All these random kids would come up to me and ask if I knew their cousins or exes or friends, and I would say yes and yes and yes, and Blake’s arm would be there around my waist the whole time, and I usually liked having it there.
    I never got past the front quad then, so I give myself a tour now. The main buildings are squat, a faded blue, and behind them are rolling hills, golden with summer. I trace the campus’s edges, along the basketball court and the pool and the administration wing, and the morning is so bright, and I’m glad to be here, about to learn something I already know. I reach the parking lot. Heading toward the stairs to the campus entrance is a group of three kids, and my breath catches.
    They’re taller now. A little wilder. Louder.
    Travis stops walking and squints at me.
    â€œHey,” Mimi says. Her hair is the same length as it was then, but now part of one side is buzzed short. Her cutoff overalls are only clasped on the right, the left buckle dangling. I feel my face get hot at the sight of her. “It’s you. Blake’s ex-girlfriend.”
    I force a laugh. “I didn’t realize that month of my life would define me forever.”
    Hope, still kind, says, “Our long lost Flora!”
    â€œHi, you guys,” I say.
    â€œPlease tell us you’re here for geometry,” Travis says.
    I nod because I can’t speak. Sharing a class with them was the furthest thing from what I imagined when I thought about what summer school would offer me. When I chose this class, I was choosing shapes and logic, angles and numbers, strangers and anonymity. Not this gang of three who I never thought I’d see again. Not this girl whose presence makes my head tingle and my hands shake. Even though I’m trying to look anywhere else, I can’t help but stare at the bare skin of Mimi’s hip, between where her overalls end and her tank top begins, as I follow the three of them up the stairs.
    When I was a freshman and stood in this same