Chapter 2: Second Chances and Old Habits

“Caleb, your English teacher’s looking for you.”

My deskmate nudged my arm, his voice muffled by the hoodie he always wore, even when the school’s ancient radiators were blasting.

Following his gaze, I saw Natalie standing at the classroom door, beaming as she waved at me. She had that big, all-teeth smile that could light up the whole hallway, the one that always made the freshmen look twice.

I stared blankly, suddenly realizing I’d been given a second chance—back to my senior year of high school. My heart thudded. It was all here again: the brown linoleum floors, the scuffed lockers, the air faintly tinged with bleach and anxiety.

Seeing my confusion, Natalie walked into the classroom and, just like before, affectionately ruffled my hair. Her nails were painted a chipped shade of sky blue, and I caught a faint whiff of vanilla body spray.

"Earth to Caleb. You planning on moving, or are you glued to that seat for life?" she teased, voice warm and a little too loud for the quiet room.

Natalie was my neighbor’s older sister and a well-known figure at our school. Everybody knew her—she was the girl who got the lead in the spring musical and somehow talked her way out of every tardy slip.

At the Christmas talent show, she performed a classical dance. She moved across the stage like she owned it, every guy in the front row holding his breath. The auditorium was dead silent that night, except for the click of someone recording on their phone and the creak of those ancient stage curtains.

It was just a shame her grades weren’t great. After bombing the SATs last year, she chose to repeat her senior year. Gossip moved fast—everyone knew, but nobody said it out loud.

The repeat class was right above ours. Every day after school, Natalie would come find me so we could walk home together. Usually, we’d stop at the corner store for Cokes and Twizzlers, sharing stories about teachers and pretending we didn’t notice the way our moms peeked through the blinds as we came up the walk.

I was good at math but terrible at English. She was good at English but struggled with math. It was the classic odd-couple study buddy thing—her flashcards covered in doodles, my spiral notebook full of equations and half-finished doodles of her name.

We often studied together on weekends, helping each other with our weak subjects. Sometimes, we’d sprawl out on my porch with textbooks and iced coffee from the gas station down the block, the kind that tasted like melted ice cream, arguing about comma splices and algebra until the cicadas drowned us out.

She was gentle and patient. With her help, my English improved quickly. She’d correct my essays with those silly little cat stickers she collected and insist on reading my book reports out loud in a fake British accent.

Our classmates often joked that she was my English tutor. Someone even drew a cartoon on the whiteboard once: Natalie with a graduation cap, me stuck under a pile of books.

Seeing I wasn’t moving, Natalie deftly started packing my backpack for me, scolding, “Seriously, you’d forget your head if it wasn’t attached. What would you do without me, huh?” She zipped it up with a flourish and tossed it at me, just missing my foot.

Her teasing made the whole class burst into laughter. Even Mr. Jacobs, our grumpy substitute, cracked a rare smile from behind his copy of The Catcher in the Rye.

Before, I would have blushed and obediently followed her out. But now, all I wanted was to keep my distance from her. The past and present clashed in my chest, making it hard to breathe.