Free A Sense of the Infinite by Hilary T. Smith

“Three weeks!”
    Joyous squealing. The plan had clearly been brewing since at least Sunday.
    I could imagine them talking about it on the drive home from the Gym Expo, everyone crammed into the car with all their new loot.
    Don’t panic , I thought to myself. Don’t panic.
    I started to wrap my sandwich in a napkin.
    “What’s Annabeth doing?” Kaylee said.
    The gym girls had long since given up on trying to get me to talk and taken to asking Noe instead. The truth is, I preferred this arrangement. Noe was so much better at explaining me than I was.
    “Annabeth’s spirit animal is a squirrel,” Noe said. “She hates throwing things out.”
    “I’m saving it for later,” I protested, folding the napkins around the remains of my food so that it formed a tidy white package. I tucked the packet into my backpack and zipped it up, blushing slightly under Kaylee’s gaze. I didn’t like to have my rituals watched. Noe was used to them, others not so much. For this reason, I avoided eating lunch with new people.
    “She’s so cute,” Kaylee said, and everyone laughed.
    I tried to catch Noe’s eye again— You’re just having fun with the Sphinx Lacoeur thing, right? —but a couple of freshmen from the choir came up to ask her a question, and then the bell rang for our next class.

26
    I SPENT MY NEXT TWO CLASSES trying not to fall apart.
    Outside the window, the first flurries of winter were falling. I watched the flakes dust the soccer field, a thin, fuzzy layer of white like a consolation prize for actual snow.
    “Ms. Schultz,” roared Mr. Genanotron. “Will you please read the next paragraph out loud?”
    Suddenly, I was in ninth grade again, too small and too quiet and afraid of everything, my heart beating like a rabbit’s every time anyone looked at me, certain that everyone could tell; that they could look at me and see all the slimy things crawling around in there like worms inside a compost bin.Dead inside and coming to life only in the moments that Noe alighted beside me, like a bike light that lights up and flashes only when someone is turning the pedals, like a radio that fritzes and statics unless calmed by the right hand.
    Mr. Genanotron was staring at me, and people were starting to snicker.
    Oh, to be a snowflake, a blade of grass, a bird, a chunk of concrete. Anything but what I was: half human, half disease. Half things that yearned to grow and live, half thing that craved to die.
    Gailer College wouldn’t be so bad , I thought to myself. It wouldn’t be so bad .
    “I don’t know where we are,” I said.
    “Speak up,” Mr. Genanotron barked.
    “I don’t know where we are.”

27
    “ARE YOU COMING TO GAILER FOR campus visits?” said Noe. “Kaylee needs to let her brother know how many tickets to get for the tiki party.”
    She was in full Noe planning mode, making lists in her notebook, sorting out carpools and other logistics. Her day planner was splayed open on the table. On the days in which I’d mentally inserted our road trip to Northern University, she’d penned in a meeting with Sphinx Lacoeur, a Gailer College River Rats hockey game, and an orange bikini–shopping expedition at the mall.
    I had been planning this whole confrontation— What about Northern? What about our dorm room? What about Paris? —but as I watched her scribble another item onto heragenda, the indignation drained out of me. It was dangerous to accuse Noe of anything. What do you mean? she would say, her voice sharpening. I never agreed to anything. Even worse was the creeping suspicion I had that she’d be right. I’d extrapolated a few fun conversations into a full-blown plan. It was wishful thinking, and sort of pathetic. Still, it hurt that she wouldn’t even acknowledge my disappointment.
    “Probably,” I said. “I’m probably coming.”
    “Good girl,” said Noe, and wrote my name down on her list.
    I hesitated. “What are you doing after this? Want to come over?”
    “I can’t,” Noe