Imagine getting your yearbook and being the only one to notice an obvious mistake. At first you try looking through your friends’ books to compare, and while you find the same issue over and over again, they can’t figure out what has you so worked up.
“There’s no picture for him!” You point to the blank space above the name Robbie Goodfell. “He did skip a lot this year, but they book retakes for anyone. I mean look—they included his friend Megan and she’s going to boarding school now. That’s kind of weird, right?”
Again, your friends shake their heads, this time looking a bit more worried. They rationalize Megan’s photo—she had actually been a student at the school. If anything, the mistake isn’t the missing photo for Robbie, it’s that his name is there in the first place.
By the last day of school, you’ve stopped bringing up the weird photo mistake. None of the teacher supervisors were able to give you any answers since they couldn’t remember who you were talking about. At first, they thought it was a prank, but you realized if you asked anyone else they’d probably ship you off to a therapist. There hasn’t been a chance to ask Robbie about it either—you’ve only seen him a couple times since he started coming to school again, and it’s not like you share a class with him. Besides, with all the pre-summer goodbyes and yearbook signings, Robbie and Megan have slipped your mind.
You make your way to the bus stop with a group of friends, each one buzzing about summer plans—short-term jobs, tropical vacations, visiting family. You’re happy to listen and nod along, making your own plans mentally. Out of the corner of your eye you spot something back at the school grounds. When you turn, Robbie is hopping onto one of the low half-walls surrounding campus, looking through his own yearbook. The scene looks incomplete without Megan beside him. It hits you that you’ve never seen Robbie without Megan, or even with anyone else for that matter.
Robbie doesn’t seem to notice you approach, but as you get closer he yawns and wipes his face with the sleeve of his green sweater. It doesn’t make his eyes any less puffy or red, but you ignore that and hop onto the wall beside him.
“Next year they should hire a new yearbook company,” you say, looking at his open page—the page with his name. “Or at least get a new page editor.”
“Hard to add a picture when one wasn’t taken.”
“Robbie? Camera shy?” You put your hand over your heart. “Why, I would have never thought you’d be afraid of a little camera.”
He offers a small smirk and looks back to his page. You feel the conversation slipping, so you drag out your own yearbook and swap it for his. Robbie looks as though he’s about to protest, but when he sees you offering him a pen he just raises an eyebrow.
“I’ll sign yours if you sign mine?
Robbie grabs the pen and actually cracks a small smile. “Deal.”
You turn to the back of his book, keeping tabs of the page without his picture, only to find several blank empty pages waiting for you. Trying to play off your surprise—no one signed his book? At all?—you bring out another pen and get to work. You don’t know him that well, so you give him a somewhat generic signature with a small surprise at the end—your cell number. Stomach twisting, you flip back to the page with his empty space and attempt to draw him in the blank space. ‘Draw’ is more of an exaggeration here, as your picture pretty much resembles a stick figure with a fantastic head of messy hair.
When you make a move to exchange yearbooks, you look up to find Robbie looking between you and his book, his face a mix of emotions. You look away from his gaze and swap yearbooks again.
Hopping off the wall, you give him a smile before running off to catch your bus. “Don’t feel pressured to send a text or call if you don’t want to, I just thought it might help since…”
Robbie nods and shoves his book in his bag. “No need to explain. Don’t be surprised if you start getting texts at 4 am, though.”
He laughs. You turn around, and as you walk away from the slouched over boy you swear you can hear a faint thank you.
