Monday — "The List" (≈2,100)
I count the stairs to the third floor even though I know there are fourteen. One, two, three—my foot hits the fourth and the rubber tread squeaks the way it always does when it's humid. Four, five, six, and I'm passing the dent in the railing where Jared rammed his backpack freshman year trying to make Maya laugh. Seven, eight, nine, and the light from the stairwell window catches the dust in a way that makes it look like snow. Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen. The last step lands me on the third-floor landing exactly as the first bell shudders through the speakers.
It doesn't sound right. It crackles at the edges, three long buzzes that seem to run out of breath halfway through, and for a half-second the hallway freezes—lockers half-open, a sneaker squeak, a laugh cut off mid-syllable. Then everyone moves again, faster than usual, like we're trying to outrun the echo.
"Ella!" Maya's voice finds me before I see her. She's on the landing with two paper coffee cups balanced on a stack of flyers for the senior sunset thing on Friday. Her hair is pulled up in the same messy knot she's worn since sophomore year, and there's Sharpie on her forearm already: Jared's signature, lopsided and huge, a tiny basketball next to it, and a phone number that's missing a digit.
"You're late," she says.
"I'm early," I say, which is true. She knows it's true. We have this argument every morning because it's easier than saying anything real.
She hands me the cup with the chipped lid. It's lukewarm and too sweet, the way the cafeteria makes it when they're running low on the good syrup. "For luck," she whispers, and taps the side of her cup against mine. The flyers in her other hand flutter. SENIOR SUNSET — FIELD — 7PM — BRING BLANKETS. Someone has drawn a terrible sun with sunglasses in the corner.
We walk. The hallway on the third floor smells like floor wax and dry-erase markers and something faintly metallic, like the radiators are thinking about turning on even though it's May. The lion statue at the top of the main staircase is already surrounded. It's a dumb tradition—tap the chipped ear twice on your way in during finals week—but by Wednesday of last week everyone started doing it every day, just in case. The stone is warm from the sun coming through the front doors. I tap it twice. Maya taps it twice. Jared, coming up behind us with his backpack half-zipped and a granola bar hanging out of the side pocket, taps it three times for luck and then pretends he didn't.
"Three's cheating," Maya says.
"Three's insurance," Jared says. He's got ink on his thumb. He shows us: someone wrote J + M 4ever in a heart on the back of his hand. The M could be Maya, could be Mia from chem, could be his mom. He doesn't say.
Room 12B is open and Mr. Alvarez is inside taping up a banner that reads CONGRATS GRADS in letters cut from last year's prom programs. You can still see the glitter on the back of the G. He's given up on attendance. On the whiteboard he's written the date—May 27—in his careful block letters and then, underneath, Be good humans. The chalk dust hangs in the air.
I spend the first ten minutes of class watching the clock. It ticks louder than it should. Freshman year I was convinced the clocks in this building were set to different times on purpose, like a test. Now I know they're just old. I think about how many minutes I've spent in this room—Algebra I with Mr. Alvarez when I didn't know how to solve for x without panicking, then again senior year when I finally got it. The room smells the same, chalk and dry-erase markers and the faint metallic tang of the heaters. I write that down because I'm scared I'll forget.
Third period is English. Ms. Patel isn't teaching. She's sitting at her desk with a stack of our final essays and a pad of yellow Post-its. When she calls your name you go up and she hands you the essay with a note stuck to the front. Keep writing. —P is what most of them say. Mine says Keep writing, even when you think no one's reading. It's in her quick, slanted hand, the P underlined twice. I fold the Post-it and slide it into the front pocket of my notebook, next to the bus ticket stub from the field trip to the art museum sophomore year and the photo-booth strip where Maya and I are both blinking.
"Ella?" Ms. Patel says as I turn to go. "You're going to be fine, you know."
I nod because I don't trust my voice. I don't know if she means college or life or just getting through Friday without crying in the bathroom. It doesn't matter. I fold the essay into my bag and sit down at my desk, which has my initials carved into the corner from the first week of freshman year when I thought that kind of thing was permanent.
In the margin of my essay she's written a tiny note in pencil: This part—about the hallway? That's the good stuff. Stay there longer. It's next to a paragraph where I described the third-floor hallway in winter, how the radiators clanged and how you could tell who was coming by the sound of their shoes.
At lunch we sit at our table by the windows—the one with the wobbly leg and the view of the parking lot and the far edge of the track. The sun is high and the glass is warm against my shoulder. Jared spreads out his lunch—an apple, a bag of pretzels, and the granola bar from his backpack, which is now in three pieces—and announces his plan.
"We steal the lion," he says.
Maya snorts into her water. "Absolutely not."
"I'm serious," Jared says, which is how you know he isn't. "One night. We borrow it. We take a photo. We put it back before anyone notices. It's symbolic."
"Stealing the lion is not symbolic," I say. "It's heavy."
"It's a metaphor," Jared says. "We're leaving, the lion stays. Or the lion leaves, and we stay. Either way it's art."
Maya is already drawing on a napkin. It's a terrible map: a rectangle labeled SCHOOL, a blob labeled LION, an arrow that goes around the side and then stops at a question mark. She writes rope? and underlines it three times.
I should tell them I don't want to steal the lion. I should tell them I'm scared that if we do something big and stupid, it will be the only thing I remember, and I want to remember other things—like the way the third-floor hallway sounds when it's empty, or the specific shade of yellow Ms. Patel uses for her Post-its, or the fact that Maya always taps her cup twice against mine before she drinks. Instead I say, "If we get caught, I'm blaming both of you."
"Noted," Jared says. He leans back in his chair, which creaks. The wobbly leg of the table shifts. Outside, a junior is trying to parallel park in the student lot and failing spectacularly. A group of sophomores walks past the window and one of them waves at us like we're already ghosts.
The bell rings. Three buzzes, tired and loud. There's that pause again—the breath everyone takes before they move. I count it in my head: one, two, three. Then the hallway fills.
In my notebook, under today's date, I start a list. I don't label it. I just write:
Thank Mr. Alvarez for the banner.Sit on the roof at least once.Find the photo-booth strip from freshman year and give Maya her half.Tell Maya the thing I've been holding.Learn the trumpet kid's name.
I close the notebook before anyone can see. The list feels like a promise and also like a threat. I don't know which yet.
After school I walk home the long way, past the field where they're setting up the risers for graduation. The metal frames are stacked like a skeleton. The grass smells like it's been cut too short. Someone has left a single blue graduation gown on a bench; it flutters when the wind picks up. I think about how this week is going to be made of last times and first times, and how I'm not going to be very good at telling them apart.
The elementary school lets out earlier than we do. The little kids spill onto the sidewalk in a wave of neon backpacks and untied shoes. A girl with a missing front tooth is dragging a jacket that's three sizes too big. She looks up at me like she recognizes me from somewhere—maybe because I used to be her, same jacket, same walk, same feeling that the day was too long and too short at the same time.
My house is the third on the left, with the mailbox that sticks. Mom's car is already in the driveway, which means she got off early or she's working from the kitchen table again. The screen door squeaks. Inside, the house smells like garlic and toast. Mom is at the table with her laptop open and a stack of mail she's been using as a coaster.
"You're home early," she says without looking up.
"School's half fake this week," I say. I drop my bag by the door. It slumps against the wall like it's tired too.
She finally looks. "How was the last first day?"
"It was fine. Ms. Patel gave me a Post-it." I don't show it to her. I'm not ready for it to become a thing she puts on the fridge.
"Famous last words?" she asks.
"Something like that."
Dinner is spaghetti because it's Monday and we always have spaghetti on Monday, even when there's nothing else that feels normal. Mom talks about her boss, about the neighbor's dog, about the fact that the grocery store moved the cereal again. I push noodles around my plate and think about my list. Thank Mr. Alvarez for the banner. That one will be easy. Sit on the roof at least once. That one might get me in trouble. Tell Maya the thing I've been holding. That one is stuck somewhere between my throat and my stomach.
After dinner I go up to my room and dump my bag onto the bed. The essay slides out, the Post-it still stuck to the front. Keep writing, even when you think no one's reading. I open my notebook to the list. The lines I wrote at lunch look too neat, like they belong to someone who has a plan. I add another one, smaller, in the corner: Figure out what I'm actually scared of. I stare at it until the letters stop looking like words.
My phone buzzes. It's the group chat.
Jared: research update: lion is bolted down lol
Maya: we need a wrench
Jared: or a forklift
Maya: or we just take a photo WITH it like normal people
Jared: where's the fun in that
I type we are not stealing the lion and delete it. I type maybe we just tap it twice and call it a day and delete that too. Finally I send: bring snacks tomorrow. Maya sends a thumbs-up. Jared sends a photo of the lion from a weird angle that makes it look like it's judging him. I laugh, and it surprises me.
Later, when the house is quiet, I sit on the floor by my window and look out at the street. The streetlight buzzes. A car passes and throws light across my ceiling. I think about how tomorrow is Tuesday and how that used to mean nothing, and now it means one day closer to the end. I think about the trumpet kid in the band room—I still don't know his name—and the way he misses the same note every time, like he's leaving a space for something.
I write in my notebook until my hand cramps, not the list, just the day, exactly as it happened, because Ms. Patel said stay there longer. I write about the squeak on the fourth stair and the way the dust looked like snow and the exact shade of yellow on the Post-it. I write until I'm not scared that I'll forget, and then I keep writing anyway.
The fan Mom brought in rattles against the dresser. The curtains move. I fall asleep with the notebook open on my chest and the streetlight making stripes on the wall.