"It's simple, Celery. You cannot get rid of us," Jacob said, leaning back in his seat at the back of our English class, where it was natural to ignore the teacher.

Spring break had slipped through my fingers before I could hold on to it. The deadlines for my essays and projects were approaching and I had not written more than a hundred words the last time I tried.

"Yeah, no way we're not having a birthday party," Matthew said, then he snorted at the nickname, "Celery... I could get used to that."

"Don't," I said and he held his hands up in defense with a sheepish grin.

Ever since Jacob mentioned that my birthday was coming up, no one ever dropped it. Between mumbled schemes in class and rumors of surprise parties, I didn't know where to bang my head next.

Because our birth dates were so close, Riley and I often celebrated our birthdays on the same day. It was usually a simple hang out with Dad, Jake, and Avan. Dad and Avan would nod along to a horrible country song and Jake, Riley, and I would mock their taste in music.

It became one of the most constant things in my life. Same day. Same time. Same people. I lived for constants, but this birthday would be a far cry from it because the one person I wanted to share it with would be missing.

"18," Matthew mumbled in a wistful tone. "Brings back memories of the old days."

"Dude, you're not even 19 yet," Bradley told him, turning around in his seat, and Matthew grimaced.

Matthew and some of the other boys on the team still hadn't gotten over their silly competition with Bradley. And as they loved to remind me, it had nothing to do with the fact that a scout had offered him a full-ride scholarship for football last September.

"Sure, but it definitely feels like I've been 18 forever," Matthew replied, nodding to acknowledge Bradley. "Do you guys ever feel 90 at heart?"

I shook my head. Matthew had some of the most ridiculous questions I had ever heard and I wished I knew where they came from. But Jacob and Bradley seemed to genuinely consider the question as if it was a perfectly normal thought.

"Interesting conversation," Jayce said, a mocking expression on her face. "You know what else is interesting?" The boys laughed as if they already knew what she was going to say. "The lecture—which you would know if you hadn't started talking ever since class started. Are you all trying to fail?"

Matthew laughed, holding on to his stomach and briefly attracting the teacher's attention who shot him a stern look before carrying on with what she was saying.

"I never try to," he said when he finally stopped laughing. "It just happens."

"Yeah, no. I'm not staying here any longer than I need to." Jacob straightened his chair to fully face Mrs. Meyers.

The daunting pile of homework on my nightstand, increasing at an alarming rate, screamed that it agreed with Jayce and I knew I needed to stop tuning out my teachers.

My mind hadn't fully adapted to being in school again. I missed sleeping late, waking up late, and staying in my pajamas all day. Even now, as I watched Mrs. Meyers's hands and her mouth moved as she spoke, my mind could not register the meaning behind the unconnected snippets of words I heard.

My brain was nowhere to be found, useless as usual, drifting aimlessly. Of course, I couldn't catch up. I powerlessly trailed behind.

Fingers snapped in front of my eyes and I jumped in my seat, startled.

"Are you planning on staying here forever?" Matthew asked, slightly leaning over my desk.

"Huh?" I looked around and realized everyone was leaving the class. "Oh."

He extended his hand to me and I examined it for a while before taking it. We left the classroom and headed out to the halls. I was disoriented, even though I had walked down these very same hallways every day.

Concerned that he could feel my palms sweating, I let go of his hand and brushed my hair as subtly as I could so that he wouldn't understand.

Students glanced at the striking colors of Matthew's sweater as they walked past us.

We exchanged knowing smiles and I was glad that he had opened up to me. Not only because of the selfishly pleasant feeling of knowing something others didn't but mostly because we now understood each other without saying a word. He knew his easygoing smiles didn't fool me, and he knew about my intrusive thoughts and memories.

But above all else, we knew that we couldn't force each other out of the masks we both wore.

He nudged my shoulder with his. "You're going to need to stop smiling like that; it's freaking me out."

But him pointing it out only widened my grin and he rolled his eyes, scoffing.

"You're insane," he told me, but then again, so was he. And if anyone found our little group of friends, we would all be shipped to a psychiatric hospital.

"Have you met yourself?" I asked and he shook his head, visibly amused.

"I have to go." He patted my shoulder as we stopped in front of the gymnasium. "My heart has another love."

He walked into the gym for the team's after-school practice before the semi-finals later today. I hesitated before following him inside. Watching basketball practice was a drag, but I liked the company of my friends better than that of my head.

Henry was sitting at our usual spot on the stadium seats, so deep inside the story he was reading that he didn't notice that I sat beside him.

He had this silly habit of reading sentences under his breath, possibly to make sense of the confusing sentences Dumas wrote, but I found it entertaining.

"Interesting," I said at his most recent mumbles.

He jumped and the book snapped shut in his hands. I would have been irritated at whoever made me lose the page I was reading. But Henry was not me.

"Oh, it's you, Avery," he said as he calmly searched for the page he had reached.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were disappointed. Are you expecting someone else?"

"No, of course not," he said and as he flipped through the pages of his book, I caught glimpses of handwritten notes in them.

"Are these your notes?" I asked, and he closed the book again after he found where he'd stopped before.

"My grandmother's. This one was her copy. She loved writing in her books."

I caught the past tense in his sentence and his guarded expression. I understood he didn't want to elaborate and I didn't want to pry.

Silence, as it often did, detected the awkwardness that settled between us and filled the empty spot where there once was a conversation until Jayce and Brooklyn joined us.

"You have got to check these out, Henry," Jayce said, as soon as she sat down, showing him the heavy textbooks she was cradling in her arms. "Mrs. Rivers recommended these for extensive research on existentialism. I thought you might find them interesting too."

"Right," Brooklyn said with a mocking smile. "Can't think of anything more interesting to do after school."

"I agree," Henry chimed in, completely missing the sarcasm.

I did my best to stay focused on the team's practice, occasionally exchanging comments with Brooklyn about the difficulty of the drills.

When practice finally ended, Arson walked up to our row. "Brooklyn," he greeted her, and fist-bumped Jayce and Henry before turning to me. "Hey, do you want a ride home?"

I nodded, mostly because as Avan and I walked back home after our stroll last week, I had caught a glimpse of the shadow that had been haunting me.

And the weird look Avan shot me made me believe that I hadn't imagined it. He had seen it too. It vanished just as quickly as it appeared, but now I knew for sure that it had been there.

"Okay. I'll be back," Arson said to me, before jogging to his teammates to give them tips and congratulate them on the new tricks they learned.

Soon, the room emptied as the players headed to the locker room to change for the game. Only Brooklyn and I remained, watching Arson awkwardly dribble with his left hand.

He then attempted to take a shot but missed the hoop by several inches.

I felt quite nostalgic as I watched him try it again and fail every single time. A determined look was plastered on his face as if he had something to prove to himself.

While I didn't know what to do, especially since he seemed to have forgotten that I was still there, waiting, Brooklyn didn't stay put. She stood up from the bleachers and walked across the court to him. She easily robbed the ball from him and held the orange nightmare in her hands.

"What are you doing?" I heard him ask, in between gasps, struggling to breathe after pushing his own limits to exhaustion.

"Can you keep up?" she asked with a wink, clumsily dribbling the ball through her legs, barely catching it.

He chuckled as he jogged behind her without much effort, as she merely walked, occasionally tapping the ball on the court.

"Lyn, you don't know the first thing about basketball."

She gasped dramatically as she held the ball against her chest. "What? How could you? And here I thought that sitting through your long hours of practice would do the trick. The things I do for you," she said, then seemed to have registered her own sentence and bit her lip in embarrassment.

His eyebrows rose slightly. "I assumed you came to watch Bradley." He gently smacked the ball out of her light grip, passed by her, and didn't look back as he added, "He's doing great. He's almost as good at basketball as he is at football."

She jogged after him and bumped into his back when he suddenly slowed down.

"Careful," he said, turning to her with a mocking smile. "That's a foul." He hid the ball behind his back when she tried to reach for it.

"You can't do that," she protested. "He can't do that, right?" she asked me, and I raised my hands to indicate that I wouldn't know.

"Come on." The grin on his face widened as he ran away from her. "Come and get it."

She sprinted behind him and he held up the ball over his head. When she jumped up to reach it, she leaned in a little too much and knocked him down. He tried to hold on to her and they tumbled down together onto the floor.

I winced, worried that he may have hurt his injured hand. But he looked fine. Better than fine, in fact. Instead of attempting to stand up, he tucked his arm under his head to get comfortable.

I rolled my eyes and yelled from the stadium seats, "I'd like to get home before Christmas, please!"