This is What Goodbye Looks Like Read Free

sort of special using the handicapped spot,” he says, shooting me a smile. “It’s like front row seats or something.”
    “Yeah,” I say. “It can be convenient occasionally.”
    Sometimes parking up close will save me a full three minutes of travel. Still doesn’t make up for the past eight months of surgeries, medications, and physical therapy. Not to mention the constant pain and limp that might not ever completely go away. Speaking of which...
    “Can you help me get my bags out of the back?” I ask. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to fall on my butt if I try to juggle them all.”
    Nathan salutes me dramatically. “Righto, ma’am.”
    I think he’s trying to imitate a London cabbie, but it sounds more like a Southern cowboy with a lisp. Nathan jumps out of the idling taxi and strides around to the trunk, and I shove open my door. Icy air rushes into the car, stealing away every speck of warmth, along with the breath in my lungs. Goosebumps prickle all over me, although my left leg hardly even feels the chill. The surgeons were able to save most of the motion in my leg, but a lot of my nerves are still screwy. They sense pain and not much else.
    When I first woke up after the accident, the doctors made this big fuss about how lucky I was to have escaped more serious injuries. It’s been eight months, and I still haven’t figured out how a word like “luck” plays into this situation at all.
    Nathan bangs around as he tries to get my bags out from where he tucked them in the trunk. Apparently, they’re stuck, because he’s rapidly switching between cussing at them and cajoling them to behave. I rub my freezing lips, half to check they’re still there, and half to check that I’m not smiling at his antics. It’s become a habit since the accident to make sure I never look too happy. Looking happy makes other people act happy, which leads to them treating me nice, which leads to me feeling the sort of gut-wrenching guilt that makes me want to vomit.
    Once Camille wakes up, I’ll let myself smile again. Hell, I’ll smile so much, I’ll probably break my face. But, until then, it’s just not right to be happy when my little sister is stuck in the horrifying oblivion of a coma.
    Nathan finally manages to get the bags unstuck, and just as he releases a whoop of triumph, I hear footsteps coming toward us. A girl jogs across the campus courtyard toward the taxi, throwing out her arms as she tries to keep her footing on the slippery cement. She skids to a stop, barely managing to avoid barreling into Nathan as he brings my two luggage bags around the side of the car.
    “You must be Lea!” She clasps her hands together and smiles, exposing perfect white teeth. Actually, pretty much everything about her is perfect, from her heart-shaped face covered in pristine makeup to her wavy blond hair.
    I offer a hesitant smile in return. I have no idea what’s got this chick so happy, since I’m the last thing she should get excited about.
    “Hey,” I say. It comes out sounding more like a cough, my vocal cords stuttering with a mix of anxiety and damaged nerves. I clear my throat a bit and add, “Yeah, I’m Lea.”
    “Oh my god, we’ve been waiting forever for you to get here. I mean, we’re all just bored out of our brains waiting for the semester to start, and the snow is driving everyone totally insane, and then we hear there’s a new senior coming! And that’s totally cool, because people never transfer senior year, so yeah, this is making everything better.”
    Her obvious California accent is strangely reassuring, and the way she chatters so quickly brings comforting memories of Camille. I ended up with a sort of vague, nondescript West Coast accent, probably because I spent too much time as a kid with my nose in books. But Camille was always the definition of a social butterfly, and my little sister talks almost exactly like this girl.
    “Glad I can be a source of entertainment,” I say. But then