The art room is empty when I walk in, except for Ms. Kinsey. She’s standing on a stool, hanging some art piece made out of wire and ribbon from a ceiling hook.
“Chelsea!” She sees me and smiles, one part pleased, one part concerned. “We missed you yesterday.”
“Sorry I bailed,” I say, and she freezes.
“And she speaks!” Great deduction there, I think, and then tell my brain to stop being rude. Ms. Kinsey doesn’t deserve that.
She steps down from the stool and puts her hands on her hips. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday.” I pause. “Um. It’s kind of a long story.” I remember what I came for, and hunt through my bag for the whiteboard. “I wanted to give this back to you.”
“Chelsea.” She doesn’t move to take the board from me, so I’m left holding it out there between us. “I’m very sorry for what happened yesterday.”
“Why? It’s not like it’s your fault.”
“No, it isn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact.”
I get that. It’s like how I told Andy I was sorry for what happened to Noah, even though I knew by then I wasn’t really the one to blame. Sometimes you just have to apologize anyway.
“I want you to know, I’ve graded you on the project,” Ms. Kinsey says. “I thought I’d seen enough beforehand to give a fair evaluation.”
This surprises me. “Oh?”
“Yes. And I think you and Sam will be very happy with it.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
She eyes me curiously. “So tell me, did you learn anything from this period of silence? Spiritually?”
I don’t know if I learned anything spiritually. I’m still not exactly sure what that means. I mean, I didn’t spend any of the time thinking about God or faith or whatever. I spent it thinking about how much I hate myself, mostly. Maybe that makes me a major narcissist, I don’t know. A self-loathing narcissist, is that even possible?