The Possibility of Somewhere Possibility... · 2 Julia Day Her smile wobbled. ... She didn’t look up from her computer. ... welcoming remarks she had for us. They would be on her

St. Martin’s Griffin

New York

ThePossibility

of Somewhere✦

JULIA DAY

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✦ 1 ✦

An Exercise in Probabilities

My normal dress code was designed to keep me invisible, but today I made an exception. I wore a teal shirt (stolen

from my dad) over jeans that had only been owned by me. I fi n-ished off with my best sneakers, freshly bleached.

After yanking my hair into a ponytail, I grabbed my back-pack, charged out of my bedroom, and screeched to a halt in the den. The trailer smelled like toast and bacon. Why?

I crossed to the table and stared down at the plate of food wait-ing there.

My stepmom came out of the kitchen, holding two mugs of coffee. She offered one to me.

I took it as my backpack slid to the fl oor with a thud. “You made me breakfast?”

She laughed. “I’ve done this before.”“When I was nine, maybe.” The bacon looked like it had been

fried to crispy perfection. I parked my butt on the chair and snagged a slice. “What’s the occasion?”

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2 ✦ Julia Day

Her smile wobbled. “It’s the fi rst day of your last year of high school.”

Oh, damn. She was going to get emotional on me. This day must remind her that I’d be gone in a few months. It wouldn’t be a good idea to act all happy about escaping town soon. Better change the mood fast. “Breakfast is amazing. You can repeat it whenever you want.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She set her mug on the table and pointed at my ponytail. “Can I do something special with your hair?”

Clearly she wanted to, so sure. “That’d be great.”While I fi nished my toast, she twisted my hair into a thick

French braid. It took only a couple of minutes before she pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “ There you are, sweetie. Now go on, or you’ll miss the bus.”

“Okay.” I stood, gave her a quick hug, and slung my backpack over one shoulder. “Thanks, Marnie. For every thing.”

The bus dropped us off fi fteen minutes early, something that would never happen again. I went straight to my fi rst- period class. AP En glish Lit with my favorite teacher.

“Morning, Ms. Barrie,” I said.She didn’t look up from her computer. “Hello, Eden.”I slipped into a desk in the back row and watched as my class-

mates trickled in.My next class would be statistics, although it had been a re-

cent change. I’d realized in middle school that college was my best route out of Heron, and I wouldn’t get to college without serious scholarships. So I’d mapped out my high school curriculum in


The Possibility of Somewhere ✦ 3

seventh grade, picking each course to maximize my GPA. Every-thing had gone according to plan until three weeks ago, when I’d switched to a dif fer ent math class and elective. The decision had seemed bold at the time. Now, it felt crazy.

After English, I dropped by my locker and arrived late for second period. With ner vous anticipation, I smiled at my statis-tics teacher and turned toward the back.

“Wait, Eden. Sit there.” Mrs. Menzies gestured at an empty seat on the front row.

I paused, looking from the desk to her. She eyed me steadily, a challenge in her expression.

Did she expect me to argue with her? I certainly wanted to.Swallowing hard, I took my seat.“All right, every one. I’m glad that you’ve chosen to take

Advanced Placement Statistics . . .”I tuned out what she said, too annoyed to listen to what ever

welcoming remarks she had for us. They would be on her sylla-bus anyway. I was consumed with shrugging off how much it bothered me to sit in the front with a dozen pairs of eyes behind me. Were they watching me? Prob ably not, but I didn’t like that it was a possibility.

Even deep breaths betrayed me, because they fi lled my head with the soapy- clean, spicy- cologne scent of Ash Gupta. Why did Mrs. Menzies have me sitting next to him?

“. . . you’ll have one group proj ect and one individual assign-ment due each week . . .”

I glanced at her. Group proj ects already? Was that why we had assigned seats?

“. . . that’s it for now. Form into your teams. I’ll hand out your fi rst proj ect.”


4 ✦ Julia Day

The sounds of dragging chairs and laughing voices fi lled the room. I checked around. Was I the only one who didn’t know what to do?

Ash was looking at me, pained resignation on his face. “ You’re with us, Eden.”

I dragged my desk into the circle beside him. There were fi ve of us in the group. Upala and Dev were Ash’s friends. A built-in alliance. They would vote as a bloc even if I could get the last guy on my side.

The next few minutes blurred into the rhythms of a proj ect team pretending to become cohesive. I didn’t join in, listening instead to Ash control the discussion and watching as Mrs. Men-zies went from group to group, dropping off a large bag of M&Ms, several paper bowls, and the proj ect sheet. When she fi nally arrived at our circle, she described what she wanted and then gave me a hard stare.

“I want collaboration from every one.”Message received— although it was unnecessary. I participated

when it mattered. Reaching for the M&M bag, I fi lled a bowl and began separating the candies by color. An exercise in probabilities.

“Before we go any further,” Ash was saying, “we should pick a leader for the team. How do we want to choose?”

“Might as well cut the bullshit, Ash,” I said without looking up. “You want the job. No one’s going to fi ght you. Just take it by acclamation.”

Silence greeted my speech. I glanced at him. His gaze held mine for a second before he frowned at his notebook, picked up a pen, and began drawing tiny perfect squares, one after the other. I looked at the rest of the team. Upala and Dev glared at me but didn’t disagree with my suggestion. Prob ably hated that it had come from me, though.



The fi nal guy shrugged.I resumed separating the candies. “See. Done.”

All se niors had lunch immediately following second period. I stopped briefl y at my locker before heading toward the cafeteria. Ash fell into step beside me, his entourage of Indian friends trail-ing behind.

“Eden? Can I ask you something?”I halted, shocked that he wanted to speak with me outside of

a classroom. “Sure.”His dark eyes bored into mine. “It’s the fi rst day of school. Did

you have to take me on already?”“Take you on?” Was he talking about our exchange in statis-

tics? It had been pretty tame. I was mildly insulted. “If I’d wanted to come after you, I would’ve done a better job than that.”

“Then what was the point?”“You were wasting my time on fake modesty. And while I

don’t care what you think, I would like to make a good grade in statistics.”

His jaw fl exed, but he remained silent. I could almost read his thoughts, like captions scrolling across his face. I was the girl he couldn’t explain, the girl who looked like she was one bad day away from living in a homeless shelter. Yet I had a perfect GPA. His gaze swept slowly down me, taking in the golden braid, the lack of makeup, the mouth that cussed, the thrift- store clothes.

“Ash? Are you done?”Faint color rose up his neck as his gaze returned to mine. “If

you don’t mind, I’d like us to call a truce.”“Why? We’re not at war.”“It feels like it. You fi ght me every chance you get.”


6 ✦ Julia Day

His accusation baffl ed me. In three years of high school, we’d only talked to each other when an assignment required it. And although it was true that I could get stubborn about ideas, it was only because I believed I was right. It had never been anything personal against him. “I don’t fi ght you.”

His eyebrow arched skeptically.Okay, I was curious now. “Like when?”“You rewrote every one of our lab reports in freshman biol-

ogy.”“You had just moved here and didn’t know how to impress

Mr. Tuttle. I did.”“On our proj ect team in US history, you vetoed every sugges-

tion I made.”An exaggeration. Mostly. “We were capable of more. You never

took chances.”He fl inched and cut a glance at his friends. They hovered

nearby, staring with open animosity. He shifted a step closer to me, his body blocking them from view, and lowered his voice. “You propose insane ideas just to stir things up.”

“Not the point at all.” He must be determined to misread me. The obvious motives were actually the correct ones. “An idea has to be insane to make an A- plus.”

“Insane is more likely to crash and burn.”“Students like us do not crash and burn, Ash. You play it too

safe.”“Easy for you to say. You’ve got valedictorian in the bag.”What?It stunned me that he would allude to such a thing. Did being

valedictorian matter to him? It never really had to me. As long as colleges threw buckets of money at me, they could call me any-



thing they wanted. “I don’t care about being valedictorian. Do you?”

“My parents—” His lips clamped shut.Whoa. His parents must be harassing him about being ranked

number two, especially behind someone like Eden Moore. Pity stirred within me, laced with a decent amount of envy. My parents didn’t have a clue about what I did at school. And if my dad could have his way, my grades would suck so that I would never leave home.

I looked around us. The hallway had grown quiet. My precious break was ticking away while I wondered how to respond to Ash. I would not call a truce. That would be confessing to something I hadn’t done, but I also didn’t want him to think I fought him for no reason. “Why is this so impor tant to you?”

“I’m not sure. Why did you punt control of the proj ect to me?”“You were the best person for the job.” I held his gaze, oddly

anxious for him to believe me.“Wow. That was not what I expected you to say.” His expres-

sion softened from pissed to puzzled. “Thanks. I think.”I smiled, which was more like a happy twitching of the mouth.

He must’ve recognized it, though, because his lips twitched, too.With a relieved nod, I brushed past him and continued to the

cafeteria. Although I hadn’t enjoyed that little confrontation, the way it ended gave me hope that this year might be bearable.


✦ 2 ✦

The Tackle or the Save

When I got off the bus on Wednesday, I saw my stepmom— still in her work uniform— standing with my dad in our

carport. His truck was parked there. Her car was missing. Not a good sign.

As I walked up the driveway, I could hear them arguing. At the crunch of my shoes on the gravel, they stopped abruptly and faced me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.Marnie chewed on a ragged thumbnail. “My car had a fl at.”“Where?”“On the highway, not far from the nursing home.”“Can you use the spare?”“I was driving on the spare.” She looked like she was about

to cry.My parents couldn’t afford what ever it would take to replace

a tire. The three drivers in our family were down to Dad’s truck. That was bad on many levels. “I’ll pay for it.”



She squeezed her eyes shut.Dad shook his head. “It gets worse.”“How?”“A sheriff’s deputy pulled over to help her. He noticed that the

car wasn’t registered.”I groaned. “What did he do?”“Gave her a warning, and told her not to let him see the car

on the road again until that was taken care of.”I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Why did you let

the registration lapse?”Her eyes fl uttered open. “The car can’t pass inspection.”“What’s wrong with it?”“The main prob lem is the tires. They don’t have enough tread

left.”Marnie was driving on bald tires? “All of them?”She nodded, her face a mask of anguish.I made a worst- case calculation in my head and . . . holy shit.Dad cleared his throat. “Eden—”“No, Byron. Stop,” Marnie hissed.He shrugged and looked away. Here was the part where I should offer to cover all costs, but

the thought of it made me dizzy. My savings account was the closest thing I had to a college fund. I’d worked my ass off for every penny. I had big plans for that account. A road trip or two to visit college campuses. Food and textbooks next year. If I fi xed my stepmom’s car, the balance would drop by a third or more.

That option was likely what they had been arguing about ear-lier. Dad would take my money. Marnie wouldn’t. “Is your car still parked on the highway?”

“Yes.” She sounded defeated.I couldn’t let this slide. I met my dad’s gaze and nodded.


10 ✦ Julia Day

“Are you baby sitting the Fremonts to night?” he asked.“Yeah.”“I’ll drive, if you want.”Choking on a sob, Marnie spun around and ran up the front

porch steps and into the house.I was tired of bailing my parents out, but what choice did I

have? I couldn’t let her drive like that, and Dad didn’t have a so-lution. He hadn’t been steadily employed since he was laid off from the power plant two years ago. He’d scrounged up a job as the caretaker of this mobile- home community, although it had never been clear to me how they paid him. Our trailer appeared to be rent- free, but there never seemed to be anything in the way of actual cash. We’d be on food stamps without Marnie’s job, and she couldn’t hold onto it without a dependable car.

Why was I even bothering to debate this? I had no choice. “Let’s leave soon, Dad. We have to make a stop at the bank.”

He gave me a quick, one- armed hug. “Thanks, baby girl.”

My arrangement with the Fremonts was dif fer ent from most baby sitting jobs. I slept over in their guest room several nights each week, taking care of two little kids while their mom worked a shift at a hospital down the Carolina coast in Wilmington.

This eve ning’s bedtime routine was not going well.Kurt was in a particularly bad mood after his third day as a

fi rst- grader, and he was taking it out on me. Every thing got to him. He complained about washing his hair. Loudly. Then I put too much toothpaste on his toothbrush. He splashed water on his pajamas— not much, but enough that he wouldn’t go to bed in them. Since they were his favorite pajamas this week, he wasn’t sleeping in anything else.



Into the dryer went the Spider- Man pajamas. After they cooled down to room temperature, he put them on, slid into bed, and dropped off within three minutes.

My teachers had loaded me down with homework to night, so it sucked that I lost a half hour trying to get Kurt in bed. But I knew he hadn’t done it on purpose. Sometimes, bad days happened.

While I was reviewing my chemistry notes, small feet padded across the den and stopped at the entrance to the kitchen. I could practically feel eyes focusing on my head.

I shifted in my chair. Marta stared at me, her face solemn, her thin body enveloped from neck to knees in a Carolina Panthers football jersey.

“Hey, Marta. What’s up?”“I’m ready for bed.”“Did you have a good day at school?”“Yes.”“Do you have any homework?”“I won’t have any this week.”“ Great,” I said with a smile. “I guess I’ll see you in the morn-

ing, then.”She didn’t move.It was hard to tell what went on behind those big dark eyes,

but it did seem like she was waiting on me. I nodded with encouragement. “Is there something else?”

“Can we talk?”Not now pressed against my lips, but I swallowed the words.

“Sure.”She slipped her hand into mine and tugged. “We should check

on Kurt.”“Okay.” This was in ter est ing. There was no need to check on


12 ✦ Julia Day

him. He always fell into a dead sleep once his head touched the pillow. “Your brother was a little poopy to night.”

“He was a lot poopy to night.”We pushed open his bedroom door, sending a narrow beam

of light cutting through the darkness. Kurt was motionless, his lips pursed in a little rosebud.

She snuggled against my side, warm and smelling of Dove soap and citrus toothpaste. “ Will he ever get better?”

A shudder rippled through me. She looked up, eyes narrow-ing with concern. I slid an arm around her bony shoulders and hugged her close.

Why had she picked today to ask me about Kurt’s disabilities?Okay, why not today?I’d dreaded this question from the moment I was hired. I’d

often wondered when it might show up and hoped it was some-thing she would only ask her mom, because there was no safe answer. It was hard to predict what would happen to a kid like Kurt. I had no idea what to say—no one did— but I don’t know wasn’t good enough.

What did I want the answer to be? “I think Kurt will surprise us all.”

Her mouth wanted to smile but was afraid to. “You think so?”“I do.” I nudged her the two steps to her bedroom.She ran in, took a fl ying leap, and landed in the middle of her

purple comforter. “My friend Missy says he won’t gradu ate from high school. Is that true, Eden?”

Her friend Missy needed to butt out. “I think he absolutely will.”

“What about college?”“Kurt is smart. He’ll go to college if he wants to.” I snapped

out the lights and stepped into the hall.



“ Will I always have to take care of him?”The question whispered down my spine, stopping me in

my tracks. What a thing to won der about at age ten. I ached to be optimistic, but who knew what might happen? “It’s what sisters do.”

“Yeah.” She gave me a small smile before rolling to her side, her back to me.

I closed her door and wandered to the kitchen, but I couldn’t concentrate on chemistry, my mind turning over Marta’s ques-tions. How long had they bothered her? And if I knew Marta, she wasn’t through. There would be more questions, and I ought to have better answers.

In the months since I’d been working for the Fremonts, I’d made it a habit to search the Internet for high- functioning au-tism. It had only been a couple of weeks since my last try, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to look again to night and add the string college.

There were hundreds of hits, and I had homework waiting on me. I shouldn’t be sitting here clicking on links, but I was hooked.

When I’d agreed to babysit Kurt and Marta, it had been for two reasons. They had high- speed Internet (while my house had none) and the money was great. I had to sleep anyway. I might as well be paid to do it.

So, yes, I’d accepted the job since it was a good deal, and any-way, how hard could it be? All I had to do was get two kids to take a bath, brush their teeth, and climb into bed.

It hadn’t worked out the way I expected. I’d become a mem-ber of the family. I adored Marta—my big, brave fi fth- grader who was too busy worrying about her brother to be a little girl. I ad-mired Mrs. Fremont, working twelve- hour shifts at a hospital, catching a long nap in the morning, and being the best mom she


14 ✦ Julia Day

could be on adrenaline and coffee— all because her jerk of an ex- husband freaked out when his son failed to live up to his stan-dards of perfection.

And fi nally, there was Kurt. Funny, sweet, tough, magical Kurt. I’d witnessed the intelligence shimmering behind his eyes, the confusion when his words didn’t communicate, and the frustration when autism caged him in.

I wanted to learn all I could about unlocking that cage.For years, I’d been so set on escaping Heron that it hadn’t mat-

tered what college major I pursued. I’d fi gured I could pick something related to computers. Writing software was fun, and I could make good money at it.

Then I met Kurt Fremont. He fi lled me with purpose. His issues had pointed me in a completely dif fer ent direction than I would’ve ever imagined. I would seek a major in special educa-tion, and I wouldn’t have far to go. UNC– Chapel Hill had an internationally recognized program in autism research. Caro-lina had rocketed to the top of my college list, and I would bust my butt to get there.

I ran all the way from the carpool lane to my locker, later than I liked since it was Mrs. Fremont driving me to school today. As I rounded the corner onto the se nior hallway, I skidded to avoid several members of the football team who were playing a pickup game with a Nerf ball. Not that I minded. Our team had their fi rst game tomorrow night and, with them, it could never hurt to practice. It just would’ve been safer for every one if they’d taken it outside.

Maneuvering to my locker, I unzipped my backpack, which promptly intercepted a pass. This struck me as awesome until the



intended receiver failed to stop. Two hundred pounds of hairy muscle tripped over my feet, sending us both to the concrete fl oor.

“Sorry. Didn’t see you,” he said.“No shit.” His body lay half over me, my nose awkwardly

lodged in the sweaty cave of his armpit. I drank in a shallow breath and then wished I hadn’t. “You can get up now.”

“Oh, right.” He jumped gracefully to his feet, prob ably because he was used to untangling from piles of people. Since I didn’t get tackled all that often, remaining motionless seemed like the next best option.

I made some in ter est ing discoveries while lying there in a crumpled heap. Like how cold the fl oor was against my skin where my cami and shirt had ridden up. Or how much unmen-tionable debris had accumulated beneath the lockers. Or how shortsighted it had been to leave the zippers open on my back-pack.

Every thing ached. My head. My hip. My dignity.A new pair of Nikes squeaked to a stop a few inches from my

face. Someone held out a hand— a guy’s hand, with a light crescent- shaped scar marring an other wise smooth, brown thumb.

“ Here, Eden. Let me help you up.”Ash? That made the second time this week he’d acknowledged

me outside of a classroom. This had to be a rec ord.I closed my fi n gers around his.He pulled me gently to my feet, but the movement left my head

spinning anyway. When I wavered, his other hand dropped to my waist to steady me, his fi ngertips brushing the exposed skin below my cami.

I jerked away from his touch, my gaze locking with his. Some-thing odd fl ashed in his eyes, hot and aware.


16 ✦ Julia Day

No, wait. I knew that couldn’t be right.“Ash?” one of his friends called.“Just a second.” Dragging his gaze from mine, he knelt to

scoop my stuff into the backpack. Then he rose and handed it over.

“Thanks,” I said, looking away. Gratitude made me uncom-fortable.

“No prob lem.” He nodded at his circle of friends and took off down the hall. They fell into step behind him.

Whoa. Not sure which bothered me more, the tackle or the save. I turned and fumbled with my locker. As I reached for an old paperback copy of Pride and Prejudice, another wave of diz-ziness hit me. I leaned my forehead against the cool metal door to catch my breath.

“Are you all right?” a girl asked from beside me, her tone soft with concern.

“I’m fi ne.”“You don’t look fi ne.” The locker next to mine clanged open.

Objects thudded into it rhythmically. “I’ll stick around until you’re okay.”

I refocused my scattered thoughts on this new puzzle. Beside me stood a girl whose voice I didn’t recognize. She was shoving her belongings into a formerly empty locker. Those clues would suggest a new student. I shifted to see her better.

Wherever she came from, it couldn’t be coastal North Caro-lina. Her skin was too pale to have spent any time at the beach this summer, and her clothes looked like they would fi t in better in a big city. Her white dress could’ve been a retro nurse’s uni-form, sleeveless and hemmed at the knees, and she wore white fl ats covered in sunfl owers, hand- painted by a budding Van Gogh.

She faced me. “Maybe you should sit down.”



Damn, she could be a cover model for Teen Vogue. “Thanks, but I’ll make it to class.”

“Fair enough.” She searched my face with blatant curiosity. “I’m Mundy Cruz.”

“Eden Moore.”“I’m new here.”As if we wouldn’t notice. “I’m not.” A smile tugged at my lips.“ We’re being stared at.”I stopped fi ghting the smile. New and oblivious. “You are

being stared at.”“You don’t get many transfers here?”“No.” She would be the only one since Heron High got six new

students my freshman year. The other seventy kids in our grad-uating class had been together since elementary school. There wasn’t enough happening in this part of the world to make any-one else want to move here.

The bell rang.“Well, good luck today. Do you know where your fi rst class is?”“Room 123? En glish with Ms. Barrie?”I blinked with surprise. Mundy was taking an AP course from

the hardest teacher in the school, and she’d missed three days of the semester. That was impressive. “Follow me.”

As I led the way, my smile widened. I would’ve expected a transfer student to be hesitant and ner vous. The new girl was none of those things. She walked beside me, asking questions, eager and confi dent. It would be a lot of fun to see how the se nior class reacted to Mundy Cruz.


This is a work of fi ction. All of the characters, organ izations, and events portrayed in this

novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fi ctitiously.

the possibility of somewhere. Copyright © 2016 by Elizabeth Langston. All

rights reserved. Printed in the United States of Amer i ca. For information,

address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave nue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www . stmartins . com

The Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-1-250-09735-4 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-250-09736-1 (e- book)

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First Edition: September 2016

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The Possibility of Somewhere Possibility... · 2 Julia Day Her smile wobbled. ... She didn’t look up from her computer. ... welcoming remarks she had for us. They would be on her

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