Sam was absent from school pretty often, and when he was there, I avoided him. Soon he stopped trying so hard to talk to me or to get me to forgive him. I think he knew it wasn’t going to happen.In English class, where he and I usually partnered up, he began working on projects with Matt Alexander, and I started working with Gillian Zucker. We had two Tuesday meetings of our group—one at McDonald’s (where we all got Happy Meals and giggled our way through playing with the toys like little kids) and one at the ice rink again—and I don’t think I was the only one who felt Sam’s absence.Sunday, November fifteenth dawned gray and bleak, which seemed fitting. It was officially the anniversary. It had been an entire year. Today we’d begin a whole new year of days my father would never get to live, things he’d never get to see. But saying it, admitting it had been nearly a year already, was more difficult than it should have been.It had been fifty-two Saturdays since I’d taken my sweet time in the bathroom and cheerfully headed out the door for the five-minute car ride that would change our lives.
