My enhanced sense class is on the furthest side of the school, in a large room divided into two sections. One half is covered in a black-and-white swirl carpeting, and five desks are lined up in front of a white board. The teacher's desk is to the left of the board. On the opposite side, there's green flooring and what appears to be a jungle-like setup, filled in with cardboard props that resemble plants and foliage.

I slide into the wooden chair on the edge, again taking the one closest to the door. I sit beside Kayla, our backs to the weird jungle landscape. Her dark-brown cheeks beam, creating a dimple on either cheek.

"Hey, it's good to see you," she greets.

"You too. Did I miss much?" I already know the answer, but I sick of the awkward, one-sided conversations people have tried to engage me in all day. Besides, Kayla's cool, and we got along well last year. I think she genuinely wants to talk to me and isn't just making small talk because she feels sorry for me.

"Just some drills. I'm sure Mr. Henderson sent you the lecture material already."

Kayla is correct. Even though Mr. Henderson seems old school in the classroom, refusing to use projectors, slides, or even a desktop. The kind old man was able to record every lecture I missed during class and send it to me. I watched them all over the weekend to catch up. Glancing around, I wonder how he set up the video camera.

"Mr. Henderson really doesn't strike me as the tech type," I say.

"No," Kayla laughs. "Jason had to help him set up a tripod behind us."

"Seriously?" I chuckle. "That's so, like, 1990s."

"I know." Kayla lowers her voice. "Though honestly, aren't we more surprised that he even knows what a tripod is?" I snicker. Of course, we all like Mr. Henderson. His teaching style is just a little... dated, quite the contrast with Miss Laybrook.

A pang of sorrow fills my chest, followed by curiosity.

"Hey, do you ever know what happened with Miss Laybrook?" I ask.

Kayla shakes her head, then pauses, chewing on the edge of her apple pen. "Well, nothing concrete anyway. But I think she was dismissed."

"Dismissed?" Alyssa, a senior with long brown curls and a full face of makeup, dumps her stuff on the floor beside the middle desk. "That's an awfully diplomatic way of putting it. I heard she was fired."

Surprise widens Kayla's eyes. "Why?"

"First of all," Alyssa sighs. "Why do you seem so surprised? Aren't dismissed and fired the same thing?"

"No," Kayla says in a clipped tone. "One implies she was lacking in some respects. Maybe there were budget cuts, and the school couldn't afford to keep her on staff. The other means she did something wrong."

Alyssa thinks for a moment. "Okay, fair point. But really, she was fired."

"Why?" I ask.

Alyssa shrugs. "I heard something about there being an issue with one of the students. She had difficulty working with one of them, and they ended up firing her as a result."

"That's pretty watered down," Kayla says.

"You really think the school would release that information?"

Kayla crosses her arms, leaning against the tiny backing of the chair. "I'm just saying that it doesn't explain much."

Thoughts swirl in my head. There was trouble with another student? Could that student have been me?

Could I be the reason Miss Laybrook lost her job?

She is one of the only teachers at the school who knew specifics about my anxiety disorder. Several times, she and I worked one on one after school to try to help with my anxiety related to sensing people around me. Unfortunately, so many sessions felt totally futile, and given Miss Laybrook's tight smile and tense, "let's try again next week," maybe she was more irritated by me than she let on. I always thought she was just tired, but maybe what she was really tired of was me.

Did she go to the school administration with an ultimatum, asking that I leave? Would the school really fire her instead of kicking me out of their program?

"What about the other students?"

Kayla and Alyssa's heads whip toward me. My cheeks burn as I realize they were in the middle of talking.

"What students?" Alyssa says after clearing her throat.

"Jamie and Drake," I say slowly, curling in on myself with embarrassment. "They're not here anymore, either."

"Don't know," Alyssa shrugs. Kayla shakes her head.

I swallow. "I mean, were they..."

"Expelled?" Alyssa finishes. "Maybe. Like I said, I never really kept up with the first and second year students or Miss Laybrook once I moved to Mr. Henderson's class."

Essentially, her senior status puts her above us low-level students.

I let Alyssa and Kayla continue their conversation while my mind drifts back to Miss Laybrook. I wonder if she'd be happy, or annoyed, to see me again should I want to talk to her.

***

After school, my mom pours me a glass of milk while I help myself to the freshly-baked corn muffins on the counter.

"Tis the season to do baking," Mom says, opening the fridge and tossing a log of homemade honey butter onto the counter. It rolls toward me, and I catch it before it falls onto the floor. Grabbing a spoon from the drawer, I use it to cut a round of butter off and place it atop the muffin. Still warm from the oven, the steaming pastry melts the butter so little streams trickle down the sides onto the wrapper.

I sit down at the table, biting into the muffin. Little crumbs fall onto the red tablecloth. "Thanks, Mom."

"Of course, dear." Mom sits across from me, scrolling through her phone. She then turns it off and places it screen-side down on the table. "I have to leave for work in about fifteen minutes. Do you think you'll be okay by yourself for the next few hours? I have clients until seven."

Mom has taken off the past two weeks from work due to what happened. But now that I'm going back to school, she's trying to ease back into her schedule. I know she wishes she could be here for me all the time, but as a single parent running her own salon business, she has to work to keep up with the bills and my tuition. Honestly, I don't know how she manages the finances. I guess the one upside to being her own boss is that she can set her hours. Her business is pretty well established in our town, too, so she has a solid clientbase who understands when she needs to close up shop temporarily. But it also means that she has to pay for extra things to run her own business.

"I won't be alone," I say. "Zoe's coming over."

"Oh, really? I didn't know that." She looks at me like she wants to say more, but bites her tongue.

"Don't worry, I'll get my schoolwork done. I'm actually ahead in some classes since my teachers sent me readings and assignments in advance while I was at home."

"That's good." Mom glances at her shiny, black phone case, then back at me. "I, uh, wanted to talk to you really quickly about something."

"What's that?"

"The conference."

The bite of corn muffin in my mouth turns to sand. It feels like a lump when I try to swallow it, lodging in my esophagus.

"The one where you'd speak on that murder case," I choke out. The Old Oak Bridge Murder, wasn't it?

"Yes." Mom shifts in her seat. "I won't be attending it."

"Oh. A-are you okay with that?"

"Yes!" I jump at the intensity in Mom's voice. She swallows as if sensing the extremity of her response. "I mean, I want what's best for you. Speaking at that conference is not what's best for you."

I nod absently. The doorbell rings, and I glance up at Mom, who offers a small smile.

"I hope you have fun. I'm heading out now. If you want to pop a pizza in the oven for dinner, I have one already prepared in the freezer."

Mom quickly leaves the room, leaving me to answer the door. I hurry to the front entrance, twist the lock, and let Zoe inside.

"Come on in," I say. "We have a lot to discuss."