Free Swansong by Rose Christo Page B

only interest is cacti; and Sarah doesn’t know how to answer a question without a non sequitur.
    I look at them, Sarah with her widow’s peak and her flyaway hair, Monica with her sparkly barrettes and her vacant gaze.  They’re nothing like us; but still, I think of Joss and me, how we went everywhere together, how we spent all our nights on the phone with each other until one of our moms invariably yelled at us to hang up.
    “We’re sorry for your loss,” Sarah says.  She sounds like a newborn fawn.
    “Joss was really nice,” Monica chimes in, scratching nervously at her neck.
    Joss wasn’t really nice.  Joss was flighty—and flakey—practically the official synonym for high maintenance.  If you took her someplace she’d never been before, she lost her head.  If you invited her to a party, she called a miniature press conference beforehand just to make sure no one else was wearing her outfit.
    She was Joss.  Now she’s gone.
    I smile through a surge of pain.  “Thanks.”
    Sarah and Monica traipse away.  Monica takes Sarah’s arm.  Just watching them—it hurts.
    I should probably go look for Kory.
    I stand up.  I run my hand over my hair.  It’s so short, it doesn’t feel like it’s mine.
    The charm bracelet doesn’t jingle next to my ear.  My wrist is uncomfortably light.
    Horrified, I drop my hand, the hand that should be burned, the hand that should be wearing a swan.  The burn is gone.  The charm bracelet is gone.  I crouch on the pavement and search under the bench.  I pat the grass with my palms.  Panicking, I stand.
    Okay.  Okay, that’s—I was still wearing it when I entered the canteen.  It has to be here somewhere.  It can only be in the courtyard or the canteen.
    I flit back across the pavement, running.  I run through the swinging brown door.
    My classmates are still at their tables, snacking on fruit cups and sipping their smoothies.  Only a few heads turn my way this time.  I scan the floor.  I don’t dare to blink.  Gleaming caramel tiles stare back at me, yieldless, disdainful.  My bracelet isn’t here.
    It’s childish of me.  It’s just a bracelet.  I know that.  I’m lucky to have my life.  I don’t feel lucky, but I am.
    It’s not just a bracelet.  It’s the last present my best friend will ever give to me.  It’s the sole relic left from my past life.  It’s the only way I can hold onto those better days.
    I turn around.  I race back out into the courtyard.  Maybe it’s lying on the ground somewhere, maybe I missed it—
    It’s not.  I didn’t.  I know it.
    I sit down on the plastic white bench.  Shoulders shaking, I bury my face in my hands.  I can feel the tears warming my fingers, the breath catching in the back of my throat.  I’m such an idiot.
    A hand touches my arm.
    It’s the girl who was watering the Black-Eyed Susans.  Her watering can is nowhere in sight.  Her hair’s pinned behind her head in curls reminiscent of the 1950s, a red so faint it’s almost blonde.  Her eyes—sleepy, gentle—don’t match her face—youthful, delicate.
    I wipe the tears from my face with my knuckles.  My knuckles graze the scar on my cheek.
    “Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?” the girl asks.
    “S-Sorry—”
    “Don’t be sorry.”
    I tell her about the charm bracelet.  The words tremble out of my mouth, unbidden.  The girl listens quietly, never interrupting.  Just looking at her sleepy eyes, I feel kind of sleepy myself.  Her presence is as calming as Buddha’s, her curls rippling under gray sunlight.  A single azure ribbon dangles next to her ear.
    She stands, once I’ve worn myself out.  She brushes off her pleated skirt with the palms of her hands; I don’t know why, because it doesn’t look dirty.  It’s a soothing shade of turquoise, held shut with a black-and-silver belt.
    “Why don’t we go to the lost-and-found?” she suggests.
    If somebody already picked it up—if they don’t want to give it