Sophomore

Author's Preface

I woke up Monday morning before my alarm.

For a few blissful seconds, I forgot.

Then I opened my eyes to my childhood bedroom and remembered exactly where I was.

A groan escaped before I could stop it.

School.

I threw the blanket over my face and debated pretending to be sick. Surely there had to be some loophole in all of this. Maybe Francisco’s mother had forgotten to mention a rule about skipping the first day of sophomore year.

No such luck.

With another dramatic sigh, I dragged myself out of bed and walked over to my closet. The navy plaid skirt hanging neatly beside my white button-down shirt looked exactly the way I remembered it.

I had forgotten how ugly our uniforms were.

One by one, I laid everything across my bed.

The button-down dress shirt.

The navy cross tie.

The plaid knee-length skirt.

Pantyhose.

Black dress shoes.

I stared at the pantyhose longer than everything else.

“Oh, seriously?”

I picked them up between two fingers like they were evidence in a crime scene.

How had I forgotten these?

They were itchy, impossible to put on without twisting them three different ways, and somehow always managed to snag on absolutely nothing. I couldn’t remember what I had for breakfast two weeks ago at thirty-one years old, but I could still remember the feeling of these stupid things scratching my legs halfway through first period.

A laugh escaped me.

Junior year.

Dress check.

Every morning the teachers would line us up before first period to make sure our uniforms met the handbook. Shirt tucked in. Tie straight. Skirt the right length. Pantyhose on.

On one particularly hot day, I’d made it exactly ten minutes after dress check before peeling the pantyhose off in the girls’ bathroom.

I thought I was a genius.

Mrs. Laura caught me before lunch.

I’d argued they’d already checked them that morning.

She’d argued that wasn’t the point.

Detention.

Over pantyhose.

Sixteen years later, I still thought she was ridiculous.

I smiled to myself as I finally wrestled the pantyhose on and reached for the rest of my uniform.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

By the time I made my way downstairs, my brothers were already halfway through breakfast and Eliza was struggling to braid her own hair while balancing a piece of toast between her teeth. Mom stood at the kitchen counter with a travel mug in one hand and her purse slung over her shoulder, looking exactly like she did every weekday morning, tired before the day had even begun.

“Hurry up,” she called without looking at any of us. “If we’re late because somebody decides they want to brush their teeth for twenty minutes, you’re explaining it to the principal, not me.”

Nobody answered.

Nobody had to.

We’d heard some version of this speech every morning for years.

A few minutes later, we piled into the van, and just like clockwork, Mom let out an exaggerated sigh as she backed out of the driveway.

“I swear,” she muttered, “I spend half my life being everybody’s chauffeur.”

Teenage me used to roll my eyes every time she said it.

Thirty-one-year-old me heard something different.

There wasn’t a bus to our school. It was a tiny private school nearly thirty minutes from home, so every weekday my mom drove an hour just getting us there and another hour bringing us home that afternoon. Looking back, I could finally appreciate how much of her day revolved around taking care of us. Gas wasn’t cheap. Time wasn’t either. She carried more than I ever realized.

But another part of me, the fifteen-year-old sitting in this passenger seat, still remembered the guilt.

Every time she called herself our chauffeur or sighed about another trip to school, I’d quietly wonder if we’d made her life harder. I remembered promising myself that when I grew up, my own kids would never feel responsible for the sacrifices I made for them.

Now that I was a mother myself, I understood something I couldn’t have understood then.

Both things were true.

She was overwhelmed.

And I was just a kid.

I knew exactly how exhausting motherhood could be. There were days I wanted nothing more than five minutes of silence. Days when I questioned whether I had anything left to give. But never, not once, did I want my children to carry the weight of those feelings. They didn’t ask to be here. I chose motherhood. They shouldn’t have to feel guilty because I was tired.

For the first time, I wasn’t angry with my mom.

I just wished she’d known that both of us deserved a little more grace than we gave each other.

Mom glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

“You awful quiet today.”

I looked out the window before answering.

“Just tired.”

“Hm.”

She took another sip of her coffee.

“Well, wake up. It’s the first day of school.”

If only she knew.

I rested my forehead against the cool window and watched the familiar roads disappear beneath us, realizing there were some memories you didn’t appreciate until you were given the impossible chance to live them twice.

The familiar brick building came into view just as Mom pulled into the parking lot.

“I’ll be here at three,” she said before putting the van in park. “Don’t make me wait.”

“I won’t.”

She looked at me for a second, almost like she could tell something was different, then nodded toward the door.

“Have a good first day.”

The parking lot buzzed with the kind of energy only the first day of school could bring. Parents unloaded backpacks, teachers stood near the entrance greeting students, and clusters of friends reunited after an entire summer apart. The second I stepped out of the van, the smell hit me.

Freshly cut grass.

Hot asphalt.

And that unmistakable scent of old school buildings that somehow never changed.

I smiled despite myself.

Some memories lived in places, not people.

I adjusted my backpack on my shoulder and walked toward the front doors, instinctively weaving through the crowd exactly the way I always had. My feet remembered the route long before my mind did.

Inside, everything looked smaller.

The lockers I’d once thought stretched forever now barely seemed to reach my shoulders. The hallways that had felt enormous at fifteen suddenly looked narrow enough to cross in a few steps. Even the trophy cases I’d spent years walking past looked less impressive than I remembered.

Funny how growing up changed your perspective without moving a single wall.

As I rounded the corner toward my locker, I caught sight of a familiar face walking down the hallway with a stack of history textbooks balanced against his hip.

Mr. Andrew.

He couldn’t have been older than twenty.

He still had that same easy smile, his tie already slightly crooked even though the day hadn’t officially started. Students called his name as they passed, and he answered every single one of them.

“Morning, guys.”

“Good to see you.”

“How was your summer?”

I couldn’t help but smile.

He was still exactly the teacher I remembered.

Then a strange realization hit me.

At thirty-one, I was older than he was.

For sixteen years, I’d remembered him as one of the adults who helped shape my childhood. Standing here now, I realized he was just a young man trying to figure life out himself.

It was funny how time could change a person without changing them at all.

“Well, look who finally decided to show up.”

I turned toward the voice, already knowing exactly who it belonged to.

Mrs. Laura stood at the end of the hallway, arms crossed, watching students trickle into the building.

Some things, apparently, never changed.

I had barely finished spinning the combination on my locker when someone slammed theirs shut a few doors down.

“There you are!”

Before I could even turn around, arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind.

Lyla.

I laughed as she squeezed me.

“Well, good morning to you too.”

She finally let go and stepped in front of me, smiling the same smile I’d seen a thousand times over the years. She still wore her freshman uniform with sleeves that looked just a little too long, and her backpack seemed almost as big as she was.

God.

She looked so young.

“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Nothing.”

“No, that’s the face you make when you’re judging me.”

I laughed.

“I wasn’t judging you.”

“You totally were.”

“I was just thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Still hilarious, I see.”

“I had all summer to practice.”

She smiled proudly before leaning against the lockers.

“So… tell me everything.”

I blinked.

“Everything?”

“Obviously.”

She gestured dramatically between us.

“We haven’t seen each other in, like, three whole months.”

Three months.

To her, it had been the longest summer ever.

To me…

It had been sixteen years.

I smiled despite the ache in my chest.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

She bumped my shoulder.

“Start with whether you survived summer.”

“I think I’m still deciding.”

“Fair enough.”

She laughed, and I found myself listening to it longer than I normally would’ve.

I’d forgotten how contagious it was.

No.

Not forgotten.

Taken for granted.

There would come a time when life got busy. We’d both grow up, get jobs, fall in love, start families, and some weeks we’d go days without talking. But every time we finally called each other, it was like no time had passed at all.

Standing here now, I realized I had been given something most people never get.

The chance to appreciate a friendship before knowing how much it would someday mean to me.

“You okay?” Lyla asked.

I hadn’t realized I’d been staring at her.

I smiled.

“I’m really glad you’re here.”

She grinned.

“Well… I’d be a pretty terrible best friend if I skipped the first day of school.”

I shook my head, smiling to myself.

If only she knew how right she was.

The warning bell rang, sending students spilling into their classrooms. Lyla gave me one last hug before disappearing down the freshman hallway while I made my way upstairs toward homeroom.

Nothing had changed.

Room 204.

Second door on the left.

Third row.

The desk beside the window.

My feet found it before my brain had the chance to remember.

The classroom buzzed with first-day excitement. Everyone talked over one another, trying to squeeze an entire summer’s worth of stories into the ten minutes before class started. Some of the faces I’d completely forgotten. Others I’d recognize anywhere.

Then I saw her.

MaryAnn.

Long blonde hair fell perfectly over one shoulder, not a strand out of place. Her uniform looked like it’d just been ironed, and she wore the same bright smile that seemed to convince every adult she met that she was the sweetest girl in the room.

She caught me looking and smiled even wider.

“Hey! How was your summer?”

There wasn’t an ounce of sarcasm in her voice.

That was the thing about MaryAnn.

She wasn’t mean.

Not in the way people usually think.

She never called me names.

Never shoved me into lockers.

Never spread rumors.

If you’d asked any teacher what they thought of her, they would’ve told you she was polite, responsible, and a pleasure to have in class.

If you’d asked fifteen-year-old me, I would’ve said she made me feel invisible.

At thirty-one, I understood it a little differently.