So Much Closer Read Free Page B

I’d had something anyway.
    I sneak another glance around the auditorium. This is the senior assembly, so if Scott goes to this school he has to be somewhere in here right now. Every time I look around, kids stare back at me. I force myself to quit looking. I don’t want to get an instant reputation as a staring freak.
    I took a risk by bringing my phone. If it gets confiscated, I can always say I didn’t know the rules. I reach into my bag and check my messages. Still nothing from Candice.
    In a lot of ways, it seems like every other first day of school. Everyone’s wearing their best new clothes. Students are nervous. Teachers are handing out class contracts that will soon be forgotten. It’s all new pencils and telling how your summer was and mourning the kind of freedom you won’t have again until June. But in other ways, it’s seriously different. The classrooms are relatively pristine. The teachers look and sound more professional. There’s even a real discipline code. I was shocked to discover that there are actually consequences for not following the rules. My old school was huge, so you could totally get away with anything because no one even knew who you were. I get the feeling things don’t work that way here.
    By fifth period, I still haven’t seen Scott anywhere. I’m beginning to think he doesn’t go here. It’s the only high school for kids who live in this school zone, but schools work differently here. You don’t have to go to the school closest to where you live. Scott could go to some random school in Brooklyn for all I know.
    Finding him is the only thing I care about. I didn’t come here to make new friends. I already have April and Candice. Leaving them was really hard, but we’ll talk all the time. And visiting will be easy—the train runs all day between here and there. Who needs more than two good friends? And what’s the point of making new friends anyway? We’re all going our separate ways at the end of the year. Eventually, everyone leaves. The closer you get to someone, the more it hurts after they’re gone.
    So yeah. I’m not exactly joining the pep squad.
    Right before eighth period when I’m assuming that I’ll never see Scott again for the rest of my life, I careen around a corner desperately searching for a room that apparently doesn’t exist. The bell rings. I search my bag for my schedule to double-check the room number.
    “Lost?” someone says.
    “Sort of. Well, yeah, I can’t find room two thirty-eight. Do you—”
    I look up.
    And there he is.
    Scott Abrams.
    “Hey,” he goes. “I know you.”
    “Hilarious,” I say. Because of course he knows me. He said we should have talked more. He said he loves my origami.
    Except he’s not smiling or anything.
    Then Scott says, “How do I know you?”
    World.
    Shattering.
    Apart.
    “Um. I’m Brooke Greene. We went to—”
    “Right! Sorry, I’m spaced. Trying to find two thirty-eight.”
    “Same here.”
    “Do you think it’s a conspiracy?”
    “All I know is, two thirty-eight should be somewhere between two thirty-six and two forty and it’s not.”
    Note to self: do not burst into tears.
    I would put this in the Of Course file if it weren’t so tragic. My mental Of Course file is jammed full of stuff like this. As in, Of course I moved all the way to New York for a boy who doesn’t know I exist.
    But then there’s The Knowing. I know that I belong with Scott. I know that I belong here.
    “Should we ask in the main office?” I suggest.
    “Good idea.”
    We get halfway down the hall before Scott goes, “Wait. Why are you here?”
    “I go here.”
    “That’s so weird!”
    “I know.”
    “When did you move?”
    “A few days ago.”
    “Why?”
    There’s no way I’m going to admit why. At least, not yet.
    “Oh, because ...”
    Then again, if I just come right out and tell him he’ll finally know. Isn’t that why I came here? To make him understand that we belong together? The problem is, I