Gabby thought about that for a second. “I don’t think you’re a clown,” she finally told him, gazing out at the highway.
“Sure you do,” Ryan said. “It’s fine.”
“I don’t, actually,” Gabby said. “I think you’re smart and fun and nice and a good friend, which is why it pissed me off to hear somebody shit-talking you, even if that person was your dad.” She dragged in a ragged, gasping breath. “And you’re right, I don’t know anything about your family or your relationship with him, so maybe you’re used to it, maybe none of it even registers. But that’s what I was trying to tell you back there on the bus, okay? That stuff he said wasn’t true.”
Ryan huffed a breath out, looked down at his busted-up knuckles. “Okay,” he finally said. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Gabby ordered. “I’m just being your friend.”
The replacement bus rumbled up not long after that, its headlights like twin beacons in the dark. Looking at it, Gabby thought she might cry from relief. Instead she and Ryan shuffled aboard amid assorted groans and grumbles, the two of them finding a pair of seats near the back. This time when he offered her his jacket she took it, draping it over herself like a blanket and curling up into a ball underneath.
“Wake me up when we get home,” she said, and Ryan nodded. The sound of his steady breathing was the last thing Gabby heard before she fell asleep.
NUMBER 6
THE REunion
JUNIOR YEAR, SPRING
GABBY
Gabby was camped out in the computer lab after school on Thursday putting the finishing touches on a photo series she was working on for the spring art show. It was of all the women in her family, and she was oddly pleased with the shots she’d gotten: a close-up of the nape of Celia’s neck, the fall of her long yellow braid over her shoulder; one of her mom and her aunt Liz from back at Christmas reading magazines side by side on the living room sofa, their faces tilted at the exact same angle; Kristina standing up on her bike in an oversized hoodie, laughing at something Gabby had said. Since everything that had happened with Ryan back in the winter, her life was extra girl-heavy lately, a blur of pore strips and fleece-lined leggings and Sandra Bullock movies on cable. Gabby told herself she didn’t miss him at all.
She chewed her bottom lip now, twirling the ends of her ponytail around two fingers as she concentrated. She loved photography: the chance to frame a shot exactly how you wanted, to crop out what didn’t belong. To keep on clicking over and over until you got things right, subject and light and composition. She wished actual life was more like that.
“Oh!” said Mr. Chan, coming into the lab with his jacket slung over his arm, messenger bag hanging off one shoulder. “You’re still here.”
Gabby looked up. “Sorry,” she said. “I can leave if you need to lock up. I’m just finishing.”
“Take your time,” he said, coming into the lab and peering over her shoulder for a moment. “Looking good.”
“Thanks.” Gabby felt herself grin. She liked Mr. Chan, who taught web design and ran the yearbook: he was cool in that he was interesting and knew stuff, but not in that I too am a young person! way she found so grating in some of her other teachers. He had a four-year-old son named Garth who he was always talking about.
“Oh, hey, Gabby, while I have you here.” Mr. Chan set his bag down on a chair and rummaged through it for a moment before coming up with a wrinkled computer printout and handing it over. “I wanted you to take a look at this. They emailed it to me and I thought of you.”
Gabby was surprised. She’d never been the kind of student teachers saw things and thought of; she was smart enough and quiet enough, and she never got in trouble, and that was it. “Thanks,” she said slowly, scanning the page: UCLA Summer Program for Young Photographers. Six Weeks. California. “What is it?” she asked, a little shiver of anxiety already zinging through her. “Like, a summer camp?”
“It’s a summer intensive,” Mr. Chan explained. “You’d be working with professional photographers, getting feedback, workshopping in a group.”
“Workshopping?” Gabby repeated.
“Yeah, showing your work to your peers and getting critiques.”
“That sounds horrible,” Gabby blurted, then cringed.
But Mr. Chan grinned. “That’s how you get better,” he pointed out. “You’re talented, Gabby. You have a great eye. And if you think you might like to pursue photography after high school, this is a great place to get started.”