Aftershock

Aftershock — page 1 — 1 Ray The day of the disaster everyone knew Harper was still furious She hadn’t spoken to Ray Liam or Sasha since Friday night Hadn’t returned messages hadn’t accepted apologies Now it was Monday lunchtime And Ray knew things were about to get ugly Maybe she won’t even sit here said Sasha as she parked her wheelchair at the end of their table Maybe she’ll sit with Nina and Kailee today And miss a chance to give us a hard time scoffed Ray Not likely You know Harper 1

Aftershock — page 2 — They all knew Harper Since elementary school the four of them had stuck together They all had other friends even Harper kind of But who else knew that Liam had been in love with Tina Choi for three years Who else could Ray talk to about his parents daily arguments Who else had camped out in Sasha’s hospital room after the accident two years ago Nobody Each of them knew the others in ways no one else did Just like they all knew Harper had a limited capacity for silent sulking Pretty soon she was going to explode At them Sure enough by the time Ray had popped open his bottle of water Harper showed up Ray had left plenty of room for her but she didn’t take her seat She just stood there holding her lunch tray and glaring at her three closest friends Are you still mad about Friday asked Liam He’d never had any problem stating the obvious After Sasha’s accident two years ago he’d literally said Guess it’ll be awhile before you can walk huh 2

Aftershock — page 3 — Of course I’m still mad about Friday She bit off the words in angry chunks What you thought I’d be over it Ray held up his hands in a surrender pose Look Harper we’re really sorry seriously And we’ve all said so like eighty times What do you want us to do If there’s a way for us to make it up to you tell us The way Ray remembered it it had happened like this Friday had been a warm day even for the middle of May in central California So after school they’d all gone to Neptune Park with a few other people Sasha’s friend Chloe was there And Drew the guy Ray was sort of seeing Drew had brought along Elissa and Max Ray was pretty sure Liam’s neighbor Justin had been there for a while too Anyway a big group of them had been hanging out at the park Sasha and Harper had brought their cameras the fancy cameras with shutter speeds and film and whatever They had a photography class together and they were taking pictures for an assignment The park was a good place 3

Aftershock — page 4 — for this because according to Harper it had texture Ray had seen her snap pictures of the swing set the links of the fence around the basketball court the sand in the volleyball pit Plus there were trees surrounding the park on three sides and the Prospect Hotel stood at the northwest corner The hotel had been abandoned and condemned for years which meant people spent way more time there now than when it was open for business It had been built back in the 1850s during the Gold Rush so it had that old-timey elegant architecture two floors a wrap-around balcony on the second floor a wide porch at ground level lots of pillars And these days lots of dirt and mold and cobwebs and other things that qualified as good texture for photos On Friday Harper and Sasha had taken some photos while the rest of them played volleyball Then Sasha started a rival game of basketball since the sand in the volleyball pit could damage her wheelchair Soon everyone had abandoned the sand for the asphalt court 4

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