Carter
I can’t find Bodhi Chang.
I’m not even convinced he’s a real person.
It seems like something I would do, messing with myself by making up some random name and sending me on a pointless search
for nobody. I can be a dick like that sometimes.
Otherwise, as predicted, school still sucks. Doesn’t really matter how open my mind is, the facts remain the same: I’m stepping
into a life that is technically mine but doesn’t feel like it at all.
I asked a few people in my homeroom if they knew Bodhi, and all of them gave me that same pitying look and smile, like they
wanted to be really nice to me since I’m the pathetic sick kid.
“He’s a freshman, right?” asked the girl at the desk next to me who always wears jumpsuits.
“No, he’s a junior. Supposedly.” I hated Past Me right then.
“I don’t think I know who that is,” she said, shrugging apologetically as if now I might keel over and die from disappointment,
falling onto my back with my legs in the air like a cockroach.
I did not die, but I did decide to retain my dignity and stop asking other students about Bodhi. Instead, I wait until four
periods later, when I’m walking to the cafeteria and pass Mrs. Destin in the hallway.
“Hey, Mrs. D,” I say, jumping into her path. “Is there a person at this school named Bodhi Chang?”
She smiles and laughs a little. “Indeed there is. You sat together in my class last year. Couldn’t get the two of you to shut up, in fact.”
“Oh, wow, he’s real?”
“As far as I know,” Mrs. Destin says. “There he goes now.”
She points to a short Asian kid wearing a backward baseball cap walking in the opposite direction. He’s in between two other
kids, both taller than him.
He and I make eye contact, and after a flash of deer-in-headlights terror, Bodhi gives me a huge smile. “Carter! Yo! Walk
with us.”
Mrs. Destin releases me with a knowing nod, and I walk with Bodhi and his crew, away from the cafeteria.
“What’s good, man?” Bodhi says, putting out a fist to dap.
“I mean, nothing?” I say as I touch my fist to his.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
“Dude, I don’t remember anybody.”
“Heh, I know,” Bodhi says. “But I’m super memorable. Thought I might’ve cut through.”
“I wish.”
“Well, I’m Bodhi. And you probably don’t remember these guys either.” He gestures to his friends.
“No, them I remember,” I say, completely serious. “Jake and Dino, right?”
“Uh,” Bodhi says, trying to suppress a laugh as the friends give me the same pitying looks that Jumpsuit Girl gave me this
morning. “Unfortunately that’s incorrect, dude.”
“I’m kidding,” I say. “I don’t know these people.”
The three of them burst into laughter, I think mostly from relief.
“I’m Robbie,” the kid with glasses and bangs says.
“I’m Amir,” the tall, chubby kid says.
“Sweet, I’m Carter. As you know. Were we all friends?”
“Yeah, man!” Bodhi says. “For sure. We have good times.”
Robbie and Amir nod, only a little awkwardly.
“Then, uh, no offense,” I say, “but why didn’t you introduce yourself during that last week of school? When I first, you know,
forgot everything.”
“I knew you were going to ask that!” Bodhi says. He puts his face into his hand and shakes his head. “I’m sorry about that, man, I
really am. I chickened out! I didn’t want to mess it up somehow. Or make you feel weird. But I’m happy you found me now! I
figured we’d reconnect at yearbook anyway. You’re coming today, right?”
Oh geez. Again with the goddamn yearbook.
“I didn’t know there was a meeting,” I say. “I mean, my parents were telling me I did that now, but—”
“You gotta come! Did they also tell you how sick a photographer you are?”
Robbie and Amir again nod awkwardly in support. The hall is nearly empty. Fifth period is gonna start any second now.
“They tried to,” I say, “but—”
“Well, you are,” Bodhi says. “Come to the meeting. We’re in Ms. Himberton’s room. One eighteen. At least let me show you some
of your photos.”
I don’t know what to say to that. He’s gonna show me my own photos? This is so stupid.
“Yeah, maybe,” I say as the tone sounds for the new period.
“Not maybe!” Bodhi insists as Robbie and Amir disappear into a classroom. “Come see what a genius you are,” he adds, in a whisper, pointing at me before following them inside.
I turn around and walk down the hall to lunch, my footsteps echoing in a way that sounds like they’re making fun of me.
“Carter Cohen!” a woman shouts a few hours later as soon as I walk through the door to her classroom. She’s a new teacher
(to me at least), with short light purple hair, who seems like she’s in her mid-twenties but is brimming with the energy and
excitement of a teenager.
“You!” I shout back because I’ve forgotten what Bodhi said her name was. It gets a laugh from various kids in the room, including
Bodhi, and, surprisingly, from the teacher too.
“So glad you’re here,” she says, “and even gladder to see that you still have your sense of humor. I’m Ms. Himberton. I supervise
yearbook, and I have been thrilled by and grateful for your magical abilities with a camera over the past year.”
“Oh,” I say, surprised that even she has this opinion of my photography skills. “I don’t actually, um . . . I don’t really
know how to use a camera.”
“You’ll learn,” she says without missing a beat. “Now, since this is all weird for you, to say the least, Bodhi’s said he’s
down to ease you in, tell you what we do, show you some of your past work.”
“Word, bird,” Bodhi says, gesturing for me to join him at the other side of the room near a laptop.
“That okay?” Ms. Himberton asks.
“Uh, sure, yeah,” I say, walking toward Bodhi. “Thanks.”
I’m relieved to hear Ms. Himberton pick back up with whatever she’d been saying before I walked in, the intense glare of the
spotlight finally off me.
“Glad you made it,” Bodhi says, putting an arm around my shoulders. “Otherwise I would’ve had to come to your house and drag you here at knifepoint.”
“That’s a fun image.”
“Okay, let’s get you up to speed, then.” Bodhi clicks around on the laptop, opening different folders. “So, for starters,
this is yearbook. Do you know what a yearbook is?”
I stare at him. “I lost years of memories, not basic concepts of existence.”
“Well, I don’t know!” Bodhi holds on to the backward bill of his cap. “This is my first time experiencing one of your loop-backs,
I’m just trying to make this easy for you!”
“Okay, thank you,” I say. “I know what a yearbook is.”
“Great. And this thing is called a laptop.”
“Yeah, I—”
“That was a joke,” Bodhi says. “All right, so . . . here we go! Exhibit A.” He turns the screen toward me. “Proof that you’ve
done yearbook and, more important, proof that we’re friends.” It’s the group photo for the yearbook committee—Bodhi and I
are standing next to each other smiling.
“I mean, technically that just proves we were standing next to each other,” I say.
“Dude!” Bodhi says. “I swear we’re friends, I swear on my life. I swear on my dog’s life!”
“I’m just messing with you, man.”
“Oh, all right.” Bodhi is back to clicking through folders. “That’s fair. You deserve to have some fun. Ah, check this out!
Here’s one of your pics.”
It’s a tennis match, this kid’s face contorted as his racket connects with the ball. You can feel the energy of the moment, see the sweat on the guy’s forehead.
“I took that?”
“Yeah. It’s unreal, right?”
I have memories of occasionally messing around with the camera on my phone, but I never produced anything like this. This
picture is legit.
“Let me find another one,” Bodhi says. “You’re always really picky about what you show other people, so there aren’t a ton.
Oh, this is one. From Fall Fest.”
It’s a couple of Ridgedale High students behind a table, selling apple cider and hot chocolate. Yet somehow it’s a gorgeous
photo, the trees behind them in soft focus, an autumnal smear of orange, yellow, and red.
“This is so good,” I say.
“I know, right? That’s why we need you to join again.” Bodhi continues his scroll.
“Yeah, but how do I even—”
“Oh, this is another one!” Bodhi stops on a picture of runners. “No, wait, never mind.” He keeps scrolling.
“Was that not one I took?”
“I’m not really sure,” Bodhi says. “I thought it was, but now I don’t think so.”
“Can you scroll back anyway? I want to see something.”
“Um, maybe. I don’t know if I can find it again.”
“Just scroll back. It’s right there.”
“Yeah, oh, is it? I guess you’re right.” He’s being very weird.
The pic is up on the screen again, what I can now see is a girls’ cross-country meet. One girl is crossing the finish line with two others just behind her, friends and family cheering on the sideline. It’s a cool action shot.
But that’s not why I wanted to look at it.
When the photo initially blurred by, I thought I saw . . .
Yes. It’s her.
The second girl in the photo—not the one crossing the finish line but the one right behind her—is the crying girl from my
first day back at school. I’ve passed her in the hallway a few times since then. She even looked at me once, just for a second.
“Who is that?” I ask, pointing at the screen.
“Uh, who?”
“This girl my finger is literally touching.”
“Oh, her. I think, um . . . Maggie something? Or maybe it’s Lindsey. Yeah, I think it’s . . . Lindsey. Or something.”
“Why are you being weird?”
“Me? I’m not. This is how I always am. And also I don’t really pay attention to the cross-country team. Boys or girls. They’re
not, like, on my radar. So that’s why.”
“Okay.” I don’t believe him, but at least now I know her name is Lindsey. Or Maggie. When she first walked by me, all I took
in was that she was crying and tall, almost awkwardly so, but now I see she’s also really pretty. Her dark brown hair is in
a ponytail, and her cheeks are flushed, and her legs are long.
“Anyway,” Bodhi says, scrolling onward and stopping at a new pic. “Check this out. My crowning achievement. I wrestled the
Ridgedale Colt.” It’s a photo of him on the ground with his arms around someone wearing a horse costume.