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Description
The Gypsy’s Niece
CHAPTER 10
It is Monday. Lovely Monday in lovely Study Hall. School is actually kind of relaxing for me now.
A chair squeaks across the linoleum floor, closer to me. I wince at the sound and look up from my Algebra notes to Harper sitting across from me at my table. Instead of giving her the courtesy of eye contact, I study her nails. Each has vertical pattern of dark red, blue, and black. I wonder how long this took her, and also wonder(like I have with every other person I pass by or have had a conversation with) if she can read a “NOT A VIRGIN” sign on my forehead. I feel it, it’s as obvious to me as a red traffic light, so it surprises me that no one else can.
The thirty-ish librarian(who seems to be in a rush to get to her fifties, as she’s wearing an unflattering granny sweater) stares us down, her eyes flickering to the “NO TALKING” poster.
She should chill out. I’m not about to get all buddy-buddy here.
I start reading my Algebra notes again, ignoring her. A flash of multicolored nails and a mostly blank face-open notebook appears.
I read the big, loopy writing in glittery ink.

“Look, I’m really sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

Sorry? How can she be sorry? She has not idea how it felt to lose a potential friend in a mass of girls I just don’t understand.
I languidly write a frosty response with my no-nonsense black ballpoint pen.

“Huh. Do you always say things you don’t mean? Do you always say hurtful things to sound cool in front of your friends?
I accept your apology.”

I push it towards her and switch to my vocab words.

1.)milieu: an environment or setting one is influenced by

Here comes the glittery ink.

“Well, yeah. Geez, Nadya, EVERYONE does that.
And thank you. I think.”

2.)prevalent: powerful, dominant

“Who do you mean by ’everyone’? Because last time I checked, ’everyone’ meant the some-billion people in the world, not the majority of the apathetic, spoon-fed population of CFH.
You’re welcome. I think.”

3.)feint: a mock blow on or toward something, usually done to distract attention from the point that is wanted to be attacked.

“If it makes you feel any better, I felt like total crap afterwards.”
It does, a little. But I’m not about to confess that.

“It really makes no difference to me.”

4.)prevaricate: to deviate from the truth

“Oh. Okay.”

“WHY are you doing this?”

“Because I wanted to apologize. Also, I just…need to talk to someone.”

5.)effigy: an image or representation, usually of a person

“Then why don’t you wait to talk to Jen?”

“She doesn’t listen. Or, she pretends to, but doesn’t do a very good job of acting.”

“No shit.”

“Nope.”

6.)literally: in a literal sense; actually

“What makes you think I’m a good listener?”

“I don’t know…okay, this is embarrassing…but on the first day of school I remember it felt like I knew you from somewhere. Like I could talk to you.”

7.)empathy: the action of understanding

“I sort of got that vibe, too.”

“Really? That’s cool. God, I wish I hadn’t said that. I never wanted to, you know.”

“Okay.”

“Nadya…I’m so screwed up right now. I’m being selfish, I know, but…like I said, I need to talk to someone.”

For the first time since she sat down, I look up at her: blue eyes pooling with tears, biting a shiny lower-lip, left hand clasped around her right arm.
“Just a sec. I know what to do.”
No way in hell am I going to ask the librarian for a late pass. I scope the room for a male teacher, and see one I don’t know in glasses, helping some guy with some book.
I tap him on the shoulder. “Excuse me? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure. You can do this without me for a moment, can’t you, Chris?” he asks, not actually waiting for Chris to respond. The kid rolls his eyes, and anonymous-teacher-dude doesn’t even notice.
I feel his pain. Honestly. Teachers can be so clueless sometimes.
“How can I help you?” he asks. He seems like a nice enough guy. Sorta makes me feel bad about what I’m about to do.
“You see my friend over there?” I ask, lowering my voice and jerking my head towards Harper. Thank God she looks sad enough for my planned fib. Or, at least I think it’s a fib. I don’t really know if she is or not…
“Yes?”
“Well-she’s having-” I clear my throat in such a delicate, ladylike way I almost burst into giggles, but I contain myself. “Woman problems.”
“ ‘Woman problems’…?”
“She’s on her period.”
It’s the funniest thing: men, I have noticed, especially teachers, seem to think they’re so capable and mature and blahblahblah, but mention menstrual cycles and their face turns as red as the aforementioned blood.
“Really…what’ s your name?”
“Mr. Coner.”
I can easily imagine the nicknames his students come up with for him when they hate him(can you say erection?).
“Mr. Coner…I really think what she needs most is some-” I do the ladylike thing again, I have GOT to tell Consta about this, it is fantastic, “female companionship from me, and a nice, hot pad from the nurse to soothe her cramps.”
“Um.”
This would put Harper in a better mood, if she was over here to see its hilarity.
“So could we please each have a pass?”
I demurely blink.
“Sure. Absolutely. I can’t see why not,” he fumbles for a pen and paper,” I mean, it’s a health thing, but also, um, emotional, I suppose…”
Poor guy.
“What names should I put down?”
“Harper Lowell and Nadya Bashalde.”
Hastily, he scrawls two notes and hands them to me.
“There you go. I hope your friend feels better.”
“Oh, so do I! And Mr. Coner?’
I mischievously relish this getaway trick.
“Yes?”
“Thank you so very much.”
Harper is abandoned; on the edge of the world, alone at that table. I pull her from the edge and back to safe land.
She jerkily gets up.
“What?”
“Look at these,” I wave the two notes in the air. “Look at them very carefully, because they are our tickets to freedom.”
Impatiently, she grabs the notes from my hand. “How did you DO that?”
“I got moves.”

We go up the stairwell that leads to the roof. The door’s unlocked.
Tip number 1 for high school employees: unless you actually WANT kids to skip class, don’t offer them a view.
No that I mind their ignorance, it’s proving useful, actually.
I sit on the dead cement tiles and play with the dead grass in between them. Harper follows suit, and opens up.
“You know how you said I could become my poem if I wanted to?”
“Yeah.”
“Well…the truth is I don’t want to. I actually hate being that. But I am.”
“Then why are you?”
“Honestly, Nadya, it’s not really a choice. I guess technically it is, but…it’s mainly my Mom. Maybe if I screamed ‘I DON’T WANT TO’ and kicked she couldn’t force me to go. But I have kicked and screamed in my own way, not literally, but…I have. Loudly. It would take a totally clueless person to not get what I’m saying to her, and she’s not clueless. She just ignores it.”
“I, also, have tried my own methods of kicking and screaming. I know what you mean: you can’t really do the literal after the age of six.”
She laughs.
“Right. Well, my Mom drags me to all the stuff apparently she got a kick out of at my age, and thinks I should to. Debutante balls and coming of age parties and charm school and mother-daughter teas and ‘Daughters of the Revolution’ beauty pageants.”
I wince.
“I KNOW. So basically I have to wear dresses I hate, they make me look like a cake with a bow on the back. I have to get my hair done and everything else at snobby salon places before hand, where the workers glare at you if you so much as dare to sneeze, which I also hate. I have to dance with guys that I hate, who try to feel me up, and whenever I’ve tried telling my Mom she doesn’t believe me, because they come from ‘good families’. This only stopped when I started dating Heath, then he was my only dance partner, so that when away for a while…”she rubs her eyes. “But then he started doing it too, said it was ‘his right’ since he was my boyfriend. I only recently got him to stop.”
“You can’t get out,” I say softly.
“No, I can’t.”
For a while, the only sound is cars rushing by. The people in them probably don’t think there are two very different, very alike teenage girls, on the top of their high school roof, listening and watching them. They probably never will.
The light September chills touches through my long sleeved shirt, so I pull on the sweatshirt tied around my waist.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask her.
“Shoot.”
“Do you…actually like Heath?”
She looks down at her shoulder.
“I don’t want to answer that.”
“Okay.”
That pretty much tells me the answer.
As if she’s heard my last thought, her head snaps up.
“That doesn’t mean no,” she snaps.
“Okay.”
Harper sighs, and buries her head in her hands.
I hear a muffled, “I think I like the idea of Heath.”

Harper’s house is also close, and she’s invited me over there. The sidewalk is littered with the first sign of leaves, in bright, waxy, fresh hues of red, orange, and yellow-green.
Her house is a huge three-story, bigger than mine. There is also a wraparound porch, and it’s Victorian, but looks new and refurbished. Too polished for the old style of the house. Even the gray, wrought fence in the front is clean, no sign of Victorian-old dust. No sign of ivy twirling up.
I’m afraid of touching anything and getting it dirty.
“Um…just so you know…my parents…they’re not really that…”
Her voice is tangled and hopeless. She’ll end up choking is she can’t get out what she obviously, desperately wants to say.
“Tell me.”
It’s not a request.
“They’ll ask you where your from…”
Ah.
“And?”
“I don’t know. They don’t like immigrants…Never mind. This was a bad idea. Can we go to your house instead?”
Oh, please. Does she honestly think I can’t handle it?
“Harper, I’ve had more than my fair share of people telling me- directly or otherwise- to ‘go back where I came from’. I doubt your parents will be direct about it.”
Hesitant, she opens the gate, then the front door. I follow her into a kitchen with stainless steel décor and stools with plushy white seats. A woman is sitting in one of them. The cup of tea in her hand reminds me of Bibio, but the similarities stop there.
Her face has a touch of make-up, a little blush, peach colored lipstick, and brown mascara that matches her hair. She’s very subtle about it, I’m probably one of the only people who have noticed, just because I have an eye for detail.
Curling at the ends, her hair is tawny with lowlights and highlights. Expensively done hair.
She looks up, then looks me over, shock outlined in her features.
“Is this your friend?” she asks, but her gaze never leaves me, making me feel like the question is bizarrely intended for me.
“Yes, Mom. She’s the one that had the drawing by the poem.”
Her brow furrows in confusion. Did she not see the art magazine? I’d think it would’ve been sent to them…
“For the school art magazine? Ms. Carey’s class?” Harper prompts.
“Oh, well that’s nice,” her mother replies breezily, and something about that fact seems to show me that she still has no idea what Harper is talking about.
A man walks in, dressed in a shirt and blue tie, smirking, screaming “White Office Man“. He has a square jaw, mischievous dark eyes, and long lashes. Maybe the lashes are why Harper’s mother married him. He’s somewhat tall, no remarkable weight. Something about his stance seems almost predatory…but what do I know? Maybe this is how all fathers are: intimidating and a little all-consuming. Still, I put my defenses up.
“I didn’t hear about this.”

“Oh, it’s amazing. She’s a really good writer. You must be proud.”
I feel a gentle pinch on the back of my arm. Is it Harper’s way of thanking me for “saving” her?
He leans on the doorway.
“ I would’ve rather had a picture of her on the track team. Which she QUIT.”
Harper blushes, and I feel sorry for her.
Harper’s mom’s hand flutters to the hollow of her throat.
“Martin. Please.”
“You’re right, though- what’s your name?”
I defiantly refuse to look up to him, so somehow I manage to level my gaze so I can still look him in the eye.
“Nadya.”
“Yeah, I should be SO proud. What was the poem about, anyway?”
Harper doesn’t make a move to answer, so I answer for her.
“Sort of about how debutantes were trapped by the misogynistic times they were in.”
Harper’s mom stiffens, and she says icily, “Oh really. I had no idea you hated it so much…you could’ve told me, you know.”
I remember what Harper told me about kicking and screaming in her own way. Something inside her explodes. She bursts out of the kitchen, definitely not caring about carefully closing doors behind her. I stand there awkwardly.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that, Nadya,” says her Dad. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”
“You shouldn’t have given her such a hard time,” I say, not caring if he doesn’t care. I need to say what I need to say.
“Excuse me?”
“So she quit the track team? She’s a bright, cool girl, from what I’ve gathered. She’s still going to make it big without competing in the track.”
“And YOU,” I look Harper’s furious mother dead-straight in the eye, “need to wake up and smell the non-debutante coffee: she doesn’t like that stuff and she never did and you know what? I think she HAS tried to tell you, you just didn’t listen, because you wanted to live through her. Good-bye.”
And I do what I do best: running off after a word-sparring.

I discover Harper sitting on the sidewalk, tears streaming down her face and going drip, drip, drip. I engulf her in a hug and say, “It’ll be okay. You’re going to be okay?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if I’m sure, than it will be.”
Even I don’t get what I just said until I’ve said it.
She shakes her head.
I get a flash of my train ride here. A new change, a new recognition, even a new day, can be really hard.
“There’s this Romany saying that my aunt told me: ‘To those who will see, the world waits. Do you understand what that means?”
I didn’t even need to ask if she understands: she’s been waiting for something her whole life. We all have. Sometimes we can’t see that the world is also waiting for us to make our next step.
I pull her up from the sidewalk, and she treats me to milkshakes.
I’m grateful for just milkshakes. You just drink them and hope for the best. Because really, what else can you do?

Description
The Gypsy’s Niece
CHAPTER 10
It is Monday. Lovely Monday in lovely Study Hall. School is actually kind of relaxing for me now.
A chair squeaks across the linoleum floor, closer to me. I wince at the sound and look up from my Algebra notes to Harper sitting across from me at my table. Instead of giving her the courtesy of eye contact, I study her nails. Each has vertical pattern of dark red, blue, and black. I wonder how long this took her, and also wonder(like I have with every other person I pass by or have had a conversation with) if she can read a “NOT A VIRGIN” sign on my forehead. I feel it, it’s as obvious to me as a red traffic light, so it surprises me that no one else can.
The thirty-ish librarian(who seems to be in a rush to get to her fifties, as she’s wearing an unflattering granny sweater) stares us down, her eyes flickering to the “NO TALKING” poster.
She should chill out. I’m not about to get all buddy-buddy here.
I start reading my Algebra notes again, ignoring her. A flash of multicolored nails and a mostly blank face-open notebook appears.
I read the big, loopy writing in glittery ink.

“Look, I’m really sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it.”

Sorry? How can she be sorry? She has not idea how it felt to lose a potential friend in a mass of girls I just don’t understand.
I languidly write a frosty response with my no-nonsense black ballpoint pen.

“Huh. Do you always say things you don’t mean? Do you always say hurtful things to sound cool in front of your friends?
I accept your apology.”

I push it towards her and switch to my vocab words.

1.)milieu: an environment or setting one is influenced by

Here comes the glittery ink.

“Well, yeah. Geez, Nadya, EVERYONE does that.
And thank you. I think.”

2.)prevalent: powerful, dominant

“Who do you mean by ’everyone’? Because last time I checked, ’everyone’ meant the some-billion people in the world, not the majority of the apathetic, spoon-fed population of CFH.
You’re welcome. I think.”

3.)feint: a mock blow on or toward something, usually done to distract attention from the point that is wanted to be attacked.

“If it makes you feel any better, I felt like total crap afterwards.”
It does, a little. But I’m not about to confess that.

“It really makes no difference to me.”

4.)prevaricate: to deviate from the truth

“Oh. Okay.”

“WHY are you doing this?”

“Because I wanted to apologize. Also, I just…need to talk to someone.”

5.)effigy: an image or representation, usually of a person

“Then why don’t you wait to talk to Jen?”

“She doesn’t listen. Or, she pretends to, but doesn’t do a very good job of acting.”

“No shit.”

“Nope.”

6.)literally: in a literal sense; actually

“What makes you think I’m a good listener?”

“I don’t know…okay, this is embarrassing…but on the first day of school I remember it felt like I knew you from somewhere. Like I could talk to you.”

7.)empathy: the action of understanding

“I sort of got that vibe, too.”

“Really? That’s cool. God, I wish I hadn’t said that. I never wanted to, you know.”

“Okay.”

“Nadya…I’m so screwed up right now. I’m being selfish, I know, but…like I said, I need to talk to someone.”

For the first time since she sat down, I look up at her: blue eyes pooling with tears, biting a shiny lower-lip, left hand clasped around her right arm.
“Just a sec. I know what to do.”
No way in hell am I going to ask the librarian for a late pass. I scope the room for a male teacher, and see one I don’t know in glasses, helping some guy with some book.
I tap him on the shoulder. “Excuse me? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Sure. You can do this without me for a moment, can’t you, Chris?” he asks, not actually waiting for Chris to respond. The kid rolls his eyes, and anonymous-teacher-dude doesn’t even notice.
I feel his pain. Honestly. Teachers can be so clueless sometimes.
“How can I help you?” he asks. He seems like a nice enough guy. Sorta makes me feel bad about what I’m about to do.
“You see my friend over there?” I ask, lowering my voice and jerking my head towards Harper. Thank God she looks sad enough for my planned fib. Or, at least I think it’s a fib. I don’t really know if she is or not…
“Yes?”
“Well-she’s having-” I clear my throat in such a delicate, ladylike way I almost burst into giggles, but I contain myself. “Woman problems.”
“ ‘Woman problems’…?”
“She’s on her period.”
It’s the funniest thing: men, I have noticed, especially teachers, seem to think they’re so capable and mature and blahblahblah, but mention menstrual cycles and their face turns as red as the aforementioned blood.
“Really…what’ s your name?”
“Mr. Coner.”
I can easily imagine the nicknames his students come up with for him when they hate him(can you say erection?).
“Mr. Coner…I really think what she needs most is some-” I do the ladylike thing again, I have GOT to tell Consta about this, it is fantastic, “female companionship from me, and a nice, hot pad from the nurse to soothe her cramps.”
“Um.”
This would put Harper in a better mood, if she was over here to see its hilarity.
“So could we please each have a pass?”
I demurely blink.
“Sure. Absolutely. I can’t see why not,” he fumbles for a pen and paper,” I mean, it’s a health thing, but also, um, emotional, I suppose…”
Poor guy.
“What names should I put down?”
“Harper Lowell and Nadya Bashalde.”
Hastily, he scrawls two notes and hands them to me.
“There you go. I hope your friend feels better.”
“Oh, so do I! And Mr. Coner?’
I mischievously relish this getaway trick.
“Yes?”
“Thank you so very much.”
Harper is abandoned; on the edge of the world, alone at that table. I pull her from the edge and back to safe land.
She jerkily gets up.
“What?”
“Look at these,” I wave the two notes in the air. “Look at them very carefully, because they are our tickets to freedom.”
Impatiently, she grabs the notes from my hand. “How did you DO that?”
“I got moves.”

We go up the stairwell that leads to the roof. The door’s unlocked.
Tip number 1 for high school employees: unless you actually WANT kids to skip class, don’t offer them a view.
No that I mind their ignorance, it’s proving useful, actually.
I sit on the dead cement tiles and play with the dead grass in between them. Harper follows suit, and opens up.
“You know how you said I could become my poem if I wanted to?”
“Yeah.”
“Well…the truth is I don’t want to. I actually hate being that. But I am.”
“Then why are you?”
“Honestly, Nadya, it’s not really a choice. I guess technically it is, but…it’s mainly my Mom. Maybe if I screamed ‘I DON’T WANT TO’ and kicked she couldn’t force me to go. But I have kicked and screamed in my own way, not literally, but…I have. Loudly. It would take a totally clueless person to not get what I’m saying to her, and she’s not clueless. She just ignores it.”
“I, also, have tried my own methods of kicking and screaming. I know what you mean: you can’t really do the literal after the age of six.”
She laughs.
“Right. Well, my Mom drags me to all the stuff apparently she got a kick out of at my age, and thinks I should to. Debutante balls and coming of age parties and charm school and mother-daughter teas and ‘Daughters of the Revolution’ beauty pageants.”
I wince.
“I KNOW. So basically I have to wear dresses I hate, they make me look like a cake with a bow on the back. I have to get my hair done and everything else at snobby salon places before hand, where the workers glare at you if you so much as dare to sneeze, which I also hate. I have to dance with guys that I hate, who try to feel me up, and whenever I’ve tried telling my Mom she doesn’t believe me, because they come from ‘good families’. This only stopped when I started dating Heath, then he was my only dance partner, so that when away for a while…”she rubs her eyes. “But then he started doing it too, said it was ‘his right’ since he was my boyfriend. I only recently got him to stop.”
“You can’t get out,” I say softly.
“No, I can’t.”
For a while, the only sound is cars rushing by. The people in them probably don’t think there are two very different, very alike teenage girls, on the top of their high school roof, listening and watching them. They probably never will.
The light September chills touches through my long sleeved shirt, so I pull on the sweatshirt tied around my waist.
“Can I ask you a question?” I ask her.
“Shoot.”
“Do you…actually like Heath?”
She looks down at her shoulder.
“I don’t want to answer that.”
“Okay.”
That pretty much tells me the answer.
As if she’s heard my last thought, her head snaps up.
“That doesn’t mean no,” she snaps.
“Okay.”
Harper sighs, and buries her head in her hands.
I hear a muffled, “I think I like the idea of Heath.”

Harper’s house is also close, and she’s invited me over there. The sidewalk is littered with the first sign of leaves, in bright, waxy, fresh hues of red, orange, and yellow-green.
Her house is a huge three-story, bigger than mine. There is also a wraparound porch, and it’s Victorian, but looks new and refurbished. Too polished for the old style of the house. Even the gray, wrought fence in the front is clean, no sign of Victorian-old dust. No sign of ivy twirling up.
I’m afraid of touching anything and getting it dirty.
“Um…just so you know…my parents…they’re not really that…”
Her voice is tangled and hopeless. She’ll end up choking is she can’t get out what she obviously, desperately wants to say.
“Tell me.”
It’s not a request.
“They’ll ask you where your from…”
Ah.
“And?”
“I don’t know. They don’t like immigrants…Never mind. This was a bad idea. Can we go to your house instead?”
Oh, please. Does she honestly think I can’t handle it?
“Harper, I’ve had more than my fair share of people telling me- directly or otherwise- to ‘go back where I came from’. I doubt your parents will be direct about it.”
Hesitant, she opens the gate, then the front door. I follow her into a kitchen with stainless steel décor and stools with plushy white seats. A woman is sitting in one of them. The cup of tea in her hand reminds me of Bibio, but the similarities stop there.
Her face has a touch of make-up, a little blush, peach colored lipstick, and brown mascara that matches her hair. She’s very subtle about it, I’m probably one of the only people who have noticed, just because I have an eye for detail.
Curling at the ends, her hair is tawny with lowlights and highlights. Expensively done hair.
She looks up, then looks me over, shock outlined in her features.
“Is this your friend?” she asks, but her gaze never leaves me, making me feel like the question is bizarrely intended for me.
“Yes, Mom. She’s the one that had the drawing by the poem.”
Her brow furrows in confusion. Did she not see the art magazine? I’d think it would’ve been sent to them…
“For the school art magazine? Ms. Carey’s class?” Harper prompts.
“Oh, well that’s nice,” her mother replies breezily, and something about that fact seems to show me that she still has no idea what Harper is talking about.
A man walks in, dressed in a shirt and blue tie, smirking, screaming “White Office Man“. He has a square jaw, mischievous dark eyes, and long lashes. Maybe the lashes are why Harper’s mother married him. He’s somewhat tall, no remarkable weight. Something about his stance seems almost predatory…but what do I know? Maybe this is how all fathers are: intimidating and a little all-consuming. Still, I put my defenses up.
“I didn’t hear about this.”

“Oh, it’s amazing. She’s a really good writer. You must be proud.”
I feel a gentle pinch on the back of my arm. Is it Harper’s way of thanking me for “saving” her?
He leans on the doorway.
“ I would’ve rather had a picture of her on the track team. Which she QUIT.”
Harper blushes, and I feel sorry for her.
Harper’s mom’s hand flutters to the hollow of her throat.
“Martin. Please.”
“You’re right, though- what’s your name?”
I defiantly refuse to look up to him, so somehow I manage to level my gaze so I can still look him in the eye.
“Nadya.”
“Yeah, I should be SO proud. What was the poem about, anyway?”
Harper doesn’t make a move to answer, so I answer for her.
“Sort of about how debutantes were trapped by the misogynistic times they were in.”
Harper’s mom stiffens, and she says icily, “Oh really. I had no idea you hated it so much…you could’ve told me, you know.”
I remember what Harper told me about kicking and screaming in her own way. Something inside her explodes. She bursts out of the kitchen, definitely not caring about carefully closing doors behind her. I stand there awkwardly.
“I’m sorry you had to witness that, Nadya,” says her Dad. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”
“You shouldn’t have given her such a hard time,” I say, not caring if he doesn’t care. I need to say what I need to say.
“Excuse me?”
“So she quit the track team? She’s a bright, cool girl, from what I’ve gathered. She’s still going to make it big without competing in the track.”
“And YOU,” I look Harper’s furious mother dead-straight in the eye, “need to wake up and smell the non-debutante coffee: she doesn’t like that stuff and she never did and you know what? I think she HAS tried to tell you, you just didn’t listen, because you wanted to live through her. Good-bye.”
And I do what I do best: running off after a word-sparring.

I discover Harper sitting on the sidewalk, tears streaming down her face and going drip, drip, drip. I engulf her in a hug and say, “It’ll be okay. You’re going to be okay?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because if I’m sure, than it will be.”
Even I don’t get what I just said until I’ve said it.
She shakes her head.
I get a flash of my train ride here. A new change, a new recognition, even a new day, can be really hard.
“There’s this Romany saying that my aunt told me: ‘To those who will see, the world waits. Do you understand what that means?”
I didn’t even need to ask if she understands: she’s been waiting for something her whole life. We all have. Sometimes we can’t see that the world is also waiting for us to make our next step.
I pull her up from the sidewalk, and she treats me to milkshakes.
I’m grateful for just milkshakes. You just drink them and hope for the best. Because really, what else can you do?