Free Notes on a Near-Life Experience by Olivia Birdsall Page A

broke my femur in a freak trampoline accident. The bathroom goes silent except for my wailing. I imagine the girls looking at each other, trying to figure out who's in here, what's going on. The second-period “bell” sounds, an unnatural electronic buzz.
    “Shit. If I'm marked late again, they'll call my house.”
    I wait in the stall until I hear them leave. When everything is quiet, I unlatch the door and walk over to the sink. I've started to wash my hands, just because it seems gross to leave a bathroom without washing your hands, when I hear a retching sound. Someone is throwing up. I freeze. The toilet flushes and I hear the sound of a door being unlatched. Without thinking, I turn around to look at the puker. It's Kiki Nordgren. She doesn't belong in this bathroom. And she doesn't look sick, the way you should if you've just thrown up.
    I realize I'm staring. I push down the handle of the towel machine and the grating sound reverberates through the bathroom. I dry my hands, looking back once more before I push through the door; she is watching me.
    After school I see Kiki walking to her car with a few of her bratty friends. She looks perfectly healthy. So if she wasn't throwing up because she was sick…
    So even Kiki…
    It seems impossible.

H E CALLS ME UP, WHISPERING , “O KAY, HE'S HERE, AND I' M going to tell him, but I wanted to tell you first… that I am going to tell him…so that you know.”
    “Who is this?” I ask.
    “Cute. Very cute,” Julian is still whispering.
    “Why are you whispering?” I yell into the phone. I get giddy like this whenever we interact now; I start acting crazy and silly, and I instinctively start bouncing on the balls of my feet. I am trying to learn to rein it in. Usually it takes a good three to five minutes for me to be able to act and communicate like a normal person. Julian is surprisingly normal about my weirdness. But now that I think about it, he usually seems kind of nervous, too, so maybe he doesn't notice how weird I act.
    He begins to speak in his regular tone of voice. “Allen is here and I'm going to tell him that I asked you….”
    “Is it really that big a deal?” I whisper, trying to throw him off.
    “I don't know,” he starts to whisper again, but catches himself. “Quit doing that—the loud and then the whispering. Listen, I just wanted to warn you in case he freaks out and we have to…flee…or something.”
    “Flee? Did you just say ‘flee’? Why are you talking like a spy? And where would we go?…We can't flee….”
    I hear Allen's voice in the background.
    “Who are you talking to? Are you
whispering
?”
    “Listen,” Julian says, “I gotta go. Bye.” He hangs up the phone.
    I call him right back. He answers on the first ring.
    “What,” he says, “you think I shouldn't tell him?”
    “The marshmallow floats at midnight,” I whisper, and hang up.
    Allen walks through the door twenty minutes later. “Has he, like, ummm, touched you or anything?” he asks.
    “I wish,” I tell him.
    “Gross,” he says. “At least it's not Kiki, though. I told Julian, 'Mia's weird and whatever, but at least she's not all
intense
like Kiki.' ”
    “Thanks for your support.”
    I find myself humming Broadway show tunes and making up lyrics in my head about how the world knows I'm in love and my brother doesn't think I'm too intense.

“W HAT ARE WE GOING TO EAT TONIGHT ?” K EATIE ASKS .“I T'S
    date night. I want Chinese.”
    “Date night?”
    I'm confused for a moment about who she's referring to, what she means, and I remember. She thinks my parents are going out like they used to, even though Dad moved out.
    “I don't think they're going on dates anymore, Keat.”
    “Why? They especially need dates now so that they can see each other and fall in love.”
    Well, anyway, Dad's in Peru. I can't figure out if Keatie is trying to change what has happened or if she just can't see what has changed.

O N THE DAYS WHEN I DON'T HAVE DANCE