Then there were geodes. My grandpa, way back when I was a kid, had bought me one once. He cracked it sharply on the step in front of our house, and the dull smooth exterior revealed something fantastic inside, a sparkling burst of colored crystal — the opposite of what it had once appeared to be. I immediately ran to Corabelle’s to give her half, leaving my grandpa behind to laugh at my surprise.

Life had turned out exactly the opposite of that rock. What once had been so bright and full of promise had gotten buried in the dull grays of the daily grind. I still had that geode, though, and it had inspired me to get my high school diploma squared away and take up geology at UCSD. Pick a new dream, as far from my old life as possible.

I wiped the sweat off my neck, glad for a hat as the sun was more like summer than fall. Honest work, my mother would have said. I should call her. I hadn’t spoken to her, hell, since Christmas. I yanked open the back door, feeling guilt but pushing it back. I knew why I didn’t call. Dad would jerk the phone from her hand, start yelling about when I was going to pay him back for that semester he covered when I took off. Four years and he wouldn’t let it go. He never let anything go.

I decided to roll the next tire, and chose one so bald it showed the tread ghosts. Still, I wasn’t seeing the rubber or the stack, but Corabelle’s face, not the features of a girl any longer, but sharper and more defined. I’d looked into that face more than anyone’s, even my mother’s, from the time we could walk. We lived back to back across an alley, and the path from my house to hers was one I could do in the pitch black, the driving rain of a monsoon, sick, angry, lost, or desperate.

I smashed through the door, already tired of rolling. Corabelle had been my whole life for eighteen years. The last four without her had been nothing. I hadn’t seen it until I looked up from that piece of paper listing her name, and there she was.

Right now, it was her choice to reject me and that had to feel good to her. She was getting me back for leaving and for all the things she didn’t even know.

Maybe I shouldn’t quit. Maybe I should keep letting her throw punches at me. If she gave a good hard shove that truly and finally hurt, maybe I’d finally stop wanting her back. 

The strap to my backpack was going to break clean off if I jerked on it any more. I sat across from my counselor, who looked frazzled from dealing with first-day mishaps. Folders and loose pages covered her enormous desk. The office was small and hot, and a rivulet of sweat trickled from her hairline down her temple as she typed.

“Corabelle, you have three choices. Pick a different time slot for a class. Drop below a full load for the quarter.” She glanced up at me. “Or stay in astronomy.”

My fingers tightened on the strap again. “I have to ask my manager if I can change my hours. He has to work around all our schedules.”

“Well, I can’t help you if I don’t know any other times. There’s nothing else useful to you on Mondays at 9 a.m. unless you want another PE-type credit. I can get you into interpretive dance or weight lifting.”

I groaned.

“Enrollment is way up this year and classes have started. Pickings are slim.” She tapped more keys. “I’ve got seven students hoping you’ll drop astronomy. It’s a popular class.”

“How long is the waiting list for the speech class, or what was the other?”

“Ancient Rome. Too long. Those are small classes and I don’t think enough could possibly drop.” She swiveled in her chair. “Corabelle, if you want to graduate on time, you should just take this class. I don’t understand why you’re suddenly so opposed.”

I couldn’t tell her it was about a boy. “It’s got too much extra work for an elective.”

“The star parties are what make the class. You knew that going in.”

I swallowed. “I have to get out.”

She pushed a folder aside. “Let me pull up your actual records rather than this printed overview. We can take a good hard look at your transfer history and see if maybe we can wiggle some class over to cover this one.”

I slammed my hand on the desk. “No!”

She looked up, startled.

I forced myself to relax. “I mean, no, it’s fine.”

She turned from the keyboard to study me. “I’m just trying to see where you might switch something around. Maybe there’s an online course.”

My face burned. I’d gone this far without anyone finding out what happened in New Mexico. I couldn’t risk the consequences if that professor had saved any note in the system. “I’ll stay in astronomy.”

The woman nodded. “That’s a good choice. You’ll find the star parties fantastic.” She closed my folder full of official printouts I painstakingly kept, all bearing seals and formal letters, anything I could do to avoid people digging too deeply into my electronic past. So far, I had been able to count on people being busy or lazy.

“Thank you. Sorry for wasting your time.”

She waved me away. “It’s all right. See you at the end of the quarter so we can establish your final coursework.”

I slung the backpack over my shoulder and opened the door, stepping over the line of students sitting along the wall, waiting to get in.

My head buzzed as I stormed through the building. Maybe I could switch TAs. Yes, if I told them I had a permanent conflict with Thursdays, it would make more sense to switch study groups now than to constantly do makeups. Gavin would be in the classroom, but I could avoid him. As long as we were at different star parties, it would be okay.

The day was still bright and colorful outside, making it difficult to stay upset with a world full of birdsong and eucalyptus. I was back on track, in school again, and the last thing I needed was to let Gavin Mays derail my life a second time.

Jenny caught up with me at the quad, her pink ponytail as vivid as a blossom. “You ran out of class. And that hunkalicious man-meat followed you. What was that all about?”

“Someone I used to know.”

“Ahhhh! Someone you used to bang!” She grabbed my arm and stopped me from walking. “Is this the boy who chilled off Frozen Latte? Tell! Tell! Tell!”

“He’s from my hometown.”

“And…”

“We dated.”

“And…”

“I just can’t be in his study group.”

Jenny plunked down in the grass, setting her messenger bag beside her. “I can get that. I don’t have a single ex I want to see again unless it’s in a body bag.”

I sat next to her. “I tried to drop just now, but the counselor couldn’t get me anything but interpretive dance.”

“Really?” Jenny jumped back up and held out her arms in a ballet pose, spinning neatly in a circle. Just as I wondered what the heck she was doing, she dramatically dropped her head and shoulders, like a puppet whose strings had just broken.

“What are you doing?”

She peered up at me. “What, you don’t like my interpretation of a flower in the rain?”

“Seriously? You took dance?”

She plopped back into the grass, lying down with her head on her bag and her black leggings crossed at the knee. “The teacher was so freaking hot.”

I had an idea. “Hey, you wanted lumberjack boy, right? The other TA?”

“Yeah, sure.” She tugged on her orange miniskirt and straightened the crop top, like she was arranging herself for display. Jenny always looked like she had stepped out of the shop window of a trendy store.

“Why don’t we switch? Then you could do the star parties with lumberjack boy, and I wouldn’t have to be in the same group as Gavin.”

She lifted her sunglasses to peer at me. “Gavin. Is that hunk boy?”

Surely she wouldn’t go for him. The thought of her fawning on Gavin made me feel sick.

“Don’t look all distressed.” She took my hand and crossed an “x” on my palm. “Girlfriends don’t date girlfriends’ exes. Period.”