Aftershock

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

Aftershock — page 5 — at the southern end of the park Harper photographed the action for a while Then she’d called I’ll be right back gonna grab some more photos of the hotel in this light About fifteen minutes later they’d wrapped up their game and walked to Drew’s house a few blocks away Drew had a huge backyard with a fire pit And excellent speakers And a wide range of beverages Flash forward half an hour to Ray looking down at his phone By then he had eight missed calls seventeen texts and two Snapchat messages from Harper Liam’s and Sasha’s phones told similar stories They’d forgotten about Harper They’d left her at the park Ray called her back immediately He even put her on speakerphone so Liam and Sasha could apologize with him We’re at Drew’s We thought you were with us We just didn’t realize with the big group But Harper hung up on them and never showed up at Drew’s Now more than two days later Ray had run out of ways to apologize 5

Aftershock — page 6 — But Harper hadn’t run out of reasons to be angry The damage is done she was saying now She sounded close to tears but her expression was pure anger And I lost the keychain that night too The keychain was probably Harper’s most prized possession She kept it clipped to her camera case It had belonged to her mom who died when Harper was four The keychain was nothing special to look at a flat circle of metal shaped like a compass rose with the four cardinal directions marked N S E W But Harper loved it more than she loved the camera Oh man Harper Ray said quietly I’m sorry Maybe it’s still there I went back Saturday and looked for it I couldn’t find it But that’s not even what upsets me most What really hurts is that you guys forgot about me Harper it was a mistake said Liam We weren’t like purposely ditching you And it’s not like we’ve ever lost track of you like that 6

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