“Look, I’m not going to be one of those adults who comes in and tries to tell you your problems are small, or that they’ll go away, or that I can solve them for you,” said Alicia. “You want to talk about it?”Īlicia sat down on a chair in the counselor’s waiting room and gestured for Emily to sit with her. I’ve been looking for you, actually.”Įmily wiped at her eyes, hoping she wasn’t tearing up. She was half contemplating dialing up a random stranger to talk to when she felt a tap on her shoulder and looked around to see Alicia. She didn’t even know Kimi’s number-she’d always counted on her cell to remember it for her. “Why should I keep trying when you won’t?”įor a while, Emily just sat in the empty counselor’s office, looking at the keypad, wondering if there was anyone she could possibly call. “I figured if neither of us wanted to be there, what’s the point,” he said at the other end of the line. “Dad, what’s going on? I’m here waiting for you.” She dialed her dad’s cell before remembering that he’d destroyed it jumping into the pool to save her. When fifteen minutes passed and he still hadn’t shown, she walked down to the counselor’s office and asked if she could use the phone. It read:Įmily stood looking at it as she waited for her father to show up for her individual coaching session. Some friend she’d turned out to be.īy the time the end of the day arrived, Emily’s father had already printed out a new placard and placed it on the Twin Branches High leaderboard on the wall above the pool. And worst of all, Emily wasn’t even there to comfort her. Yeah, Kimi had messed up, but this was way worse than she deserved. Suddenly, Kimi’s problems didn’t seem so trivial, and Emily felt a strange mixture of guilt and anger. Several had written their own pro/con sheets about Kimi, none of which were very nice.Įmily closed the window. She found a page featuring a picture of Kimi with devil horns Photoshopped onto her forehead and a wall of posts, most of which were by angry guys upset about the ratings Kimi had given them. She logged on to one of the computers to check her e-mail and Facebook for the first time in days and found an invitation to a group called I Bet I Can Find 500 Twin Branches Students Who Don’t Like Kimi Chen.
The next Monday at school, Emily ate her lunch as fast as possible outside the cafeteria, then ran straight for the library, where no one would bother her. They drove the rest of the way home in total silence. She let herself sag against the side of the car and felt the cold of the window glass against her cheek as her last hopes of going to homecoming died. She would have cried, but she was just too tired, too beaten down to even react. Just to let her know he was in charge of her life. But her dad asked them to choose that one. Heats for the various matches took place all day Saturday and Sunday, and the organizers could have scheduled her for any block of time.