Sophie's Different

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Book excerpt

Prologue

Three years ago

SOPHIE

I scanned the bus, looking for Kelsey as soon as I stepped on. When I finally located her, I knew something was very, very wrong.

She was sitting all the way in the back, which I’d never seen her do. And she was crying, which was something else I’d never seen her do. Well, actually, this was the second time.

My mind raced. I thought of Kelsey Callahan as a good friend, even though she was three years older than me. I’d gotten to know her pretty well over the last couple of months, as she would always talk to me and my sister Kirsten, who was in the sixth grade, as we rode the bus to and from school. She was one of the toughest people I’d ever met, and it took a lot to make her cry.

She took a big hit, as did I, a few weeks ago. I remembered the day she told me she was interested in a boy named Ethan Zimmer, a new classmate she knew nothing about. She asked me to find out what I could about him by getting to know his little brother Logan, who just happened to be in my Math class.

It wasn’t easy getting to know Logan. Fifth-grade boys were normally not all that talkative around girls; they usually chose to swap booger or fart jokes in between games of kickball on the playground. Logan was different. It was such a strange sight: a ten-year-old boy with spiky hair, wearing black jeans and a Van Halen T-shirt, sitting on the bleachers on the corner of the playground, drawing in his sketchbook. Almost every day at recess, there he was.

The first couple of times I spoke to him, I couldn’t get more than a “hi” out of him, and it was so uncomfortable and awkward, I ended up walking away. Eventually, though, he did let me sit next to him, and not long after, he started talking. When he looked me in the eyes for the first time, I could see how sad he was, deep down. He was hurting, big time.

I tried to get to know him, but I wasn’t really able to get any information out of him that Kelsey would’ve found useful. I talked, he responded, and he drew. And that was it. Eventually, we became friends. The whole situation was really weird, and a lot of my classmates made fun of us for it, but I didn’t care. The only person’s opinion that mattered to me was my best friend Marissa, who I’d known forever.

Two and a half weeks ago, though, Logan was pulled out of school, and I had no idea why. That is, until Kelsey told me. She’d really fallen hard for Ethan. I could tell she was leaving a few details out, but she told me enough for me to understand. Ethan and Logan, it turned out, were not their real names. They were hiding from some bad people who wanted to find them because their dad was about to testify in court against the man who killed their mother. And now that the trial was over, the government had taken them away to start a new life somewhere else.

Knowing the truth about Logan didn’t make it hurt any less, though. I’d had a lot of friends over the last few years: some I stayed close to, some just drifted away. But I’d never had a friend, a close friend, just … leave.

At first I was angry at him for lying to me. I knew he was in a terrible situation. He’d just lost his mom. He’d probably been forbidden to talk about what was going on with his family. But still … how could he not tell ME about all that? I was his friend! I spent hours on the bleachers with him! He could have trusted me …

Why didn’t you trust me, Logan?

For the last two weeks, Kelsey and I sat close to each other every day on the bus. She explained what had happened at the dance that ended with police crawling all over the school and one of her best friends being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. After a while, I realized none of Logan’s situation was his fault. He was only doing what he’d been told to do. The anger I felt was gone now, replaced by sadness. It made my heart ache that I never got to tell Logan what a good friend he was, and it hurt even worse when I realized I’d probably never get that chance. Ever.

Kelsey and I cried a lot that day. It was the first time I’d ever seen her cry. Today was the second.

Sitting down next to her, I gently asked, “Kelsey, what’s wrong?”

She turned to look at me. Her chestnut-colored hair was a mess, and there were tear stains streaking down her freckly face. “I saw Mark today.”

I gasped. Mark was Ethan’s real name. What? He came back?! I thought he was gone! I wonder if … “Was Logan …?”

She shook her head. “No, just Mark. My dad brought him to school so he could say goodbye to me.”

“How … how was he?”

She sniffed. “He was … amazing. He told me he loved me.”

My eyes widened. “Wow,” is all I could say.

She faced me full-on. “He tried to tell me once before, but I wouldn’t let him.” I could see more tears trying to claw their way to the surface.

“Why not?”

She looked around the bus, making sure the rest of the passengers weren’t eavesdropping before turning to face me again. “I was … afraid, Soph. I didn’t want to admit that I felt the same way, because I knew he was going to leave.” She lowered her head. “But I do love him. I love him so much. I didn’t realize just how much until I saw him standing there, waiting for me.” She sighed heavily. “And now he’s gone. I’ll probably never see him again.”

Oh, my God. Poor Kelsey. One of the most awesome people I know, and her heart is totally broken now. Ethan’s gone. So is Logan. Maybe forever. And just like that, I could feel a tear forming at the corner of my own eye. “Did he … say anything about Logan?”

She nodded, reaching down and unzipping the backpack at her feet, pulling out a medium-sized book with a black cover and handing it to me. I recognized it instantly: Logan’s sketchbook. My breath caught in my throat. “Mark gave me this. I promised I’d give it to you.”

I took the sketchbook, utterly shocked that Logan had given it to me. Then I looked up at Kelsey’s face, and she was crying again. I placed the sketchbook on the seat next to me, leaned over and hugged her, which she returned. I felt her tears on the back of my neck. I didn’t even care if the other kids were watching.

✻✻✻

I walked home very slowly, almost zombie-like, ignoring the heavy wind that had picked up in the last few minutes. I shuffled along, my eyes transfixed on the sketchbook in my hands. I turned to the first page, which featured a selection of small doodles. The second page bore a picture of a very pretty older woman with straight, shoulder-length hair that I guessed was Logan’s mother. And on the third page was a drawing of … me. There I was, with my blonde ponytail and my wire-framed glasses, staring up at me from the paper. My breath started to quicken.

I flipped through the rest of the pages, finding drawing after drawing of my face. Some were big, some were small. He’d used regular pencils, colored pencils, pastels, even fine-tip markers, but they were all undoubtedly of me. My heart fluttered with each image I saw. They were beautiful, not sloppy and messy like most kids’ art projects. Logan had real talent, and I was holding a month’s worth of drawings in my hands, nearly all of which were of my face. I did, however, notice that one page had been torn out. He’d obviously kept one for himself.

My concentration was broken when two boys on bikes whizzed by me on both sides, making me jump and causing me to drop the sketchbook. I looked up, and I saw their faces curl into childish smiles as they rode away. Idiots.