Free Relativity by Lauren Dodd Page A

school today? Because if you are, I thought maybe we could grab lunch together off-campus.”
    Dad gave me a pass on school, telling me it was the last day I was allowed to blow it off. I was really looking forward to sleeping the day away but something in Tate’s voice makes me realize that this call isn’t just to be polite. He really does want to see me. I glance at the clock and realize that school starts in thirty minutes and I look and smell like a homeless person.
    “I’m going to be a little late, but I’ll be there by lunch,” I say.
    “Cool, let’s meet by the front door at 11:30.”
    “Okay, cool,” I agree, numbly. Is Tate really asking me out after all this time? Something resembling excitement starts to rumble in my belly.
    “See ya,” he says and clicks off.
    I pop out of bed and race into the bathroom, glancing into my parent’s bedroom, or I guess I should say Dad’s bedroom, to see that he is already gone for work. I spend an exorbitant amount of time in the shower making sure that I am squeaky clean for my lunch date with Tate. After applying my makeup perfectly and blow-drying and straightening my hair, I realize that I look a little too perfect for a casual lunch date. Nothing that can’t be fixed with my driver’s side window partially cracked on the way to school.
    I pull on my favorite jeans and a V-neck turquoise T-shirt then layer it with my gray cashmere hoodie. I clasp the gold locket Mom gave me for my sixteenth birthday around my neck and slip my feet into a pair of lace-less sneakers. I grab my purse and phone and head downstairs.
    I reach for my keys off the decorative hook on the wall that Mom installed and realize they are missing. It hits me for the first time that Mom was driving my car when she got into the accident and it was totaled. How could I have forgotten that?
    She asked me the afternoon before the accident if I would mind switching her cars. Natalie and I laughed our butts off the entire way to the movie theatre that night driving Mom’s mini-van. I never did ask her why she needed my smaller Chevy Cobalt. I nearly drop to my knees as I am struck with the thought that if Mom would have been in her bigger mini-van, she may have lived through the accident. I steady myself against the wall and try not to throw up. All I can think about is crawling back into bed. But that won’t make any of this go away.
    I can’t keep doing this to myself. Mom doesn’t get a do-over on being dead. I palm her keys, the photograph of the three of us on her keychain smiling back at me, and head toward her mini-van in the garage. Once there, I open her driver side door and slide inside, her scent enveloping me. I want to sob uncontrollably but I hit the garage door opener instead. The door slides open and I start the car, slowly backing down the drive.
    As I make my way toward the school, I can’t get over how normal everything looks. People are walking their dogs and jogging. Mothers are pulling their toddlers in wagons. Nobody even cares that Connie Edgecombe doesn’t exist anymore.
    I see a blue Toyota coming toward me and the driver is waving like crazy then, as she passes me, a look of utter devastation crosses her face. I recognize her from our library. I don’t even know her name but she and Mom loved to trade book recommendations. She must have forgotten, for just a split second, that Mom was dead then it all came crashing back to her. For some reason, this makes me feel good. Like Dad and I aren’t the only ones who miss her.
    I slow down and turn into the parking lot of Jasper High. It is a fifty-year-old nondescript, brick building that taxpayers have repeatedly voted down a tax increase to renovate even though we still don’t have air conditioning like all the other area schools. Luckily, I won’t have to suffer through any more of those sweltering August days.
    I pull in to park next to a brand-new Charger and rusted-out Ford pickup with a home spray-paint job.