The Last Day of Seventh Grade
I jump away from Grace like she’s a frying pan on fire.
I want to say, It’s not what you think. Or Mack, can you freaking knock for once? But my voice is peanut butter in my throat. It’s been like this all day. The last day of seventh grade. The day I have to tell her.
“Ah, sorry,” Mack says, and steps back into the hallway, her dark bangs falling over her eyes. “I thought you had my phone charger.”
I do have it, I think. In my backpack. But Mack doesn’t wait to see. She pulls the door shut, and we’re alone again.
Grace scoots closer to me. Her eyebrows knit together, making her tortoiseshell glasses slip down her nose. She pushes them back up. There’s a thin line of dirt under each of her fingernails.
“Lacey, I—” she starts.
“Wait.”
Stones skip across my chest. Whatever she’s going to say, it won’t matter after I tell her. Nothing here in Austin will matter, not whatever Mack saw or the time our bacon pan caught fire because Grace got distracted by a butterfly or how my fingernails used to have dirt underneath them too. I asked Mack for nail polish last Hanukkah, around the time it was official. I should have told Grace right then.
Say it, I beg myself. Our theater director used to say the first word or note is always the hardest. Once you say it, the rest will fall like dominoes. But Grace’s eyes are glassy and wide, like she thinks I’m going to say something good. We’re sitting on the yellow rug I’ve had since I was a baby. Dad said it was too ragged to give away. I could either keep it or trash it. I didn’t think twice, ordering a new pink, shaggy one yesterday. But it hurts now, seeing them together—Grace and my yellow rug. Knowing how different things will be once I . . .
Say it.
I breathe in. The words fall out: “We’re moving to Rhode Island. We leave in August.”
My news sits like a heavy storm cloud. Grace doesn’t say anything. Her expression doesn’t change. She stays perfectly still.
“My dad got a job as head baker at this place called the Nosh Café,” I say, to fill the silence. “My new school is called Brook Street Middle, and look—” I pull up the school’s website and put my phone in her hand. The home page has a picture of a theater with thick, red curtains and semicircle seats. “The reviews say it’s an unofficial theater magnet school.”
Grace scrolls down, her thumb unsteady. She reads the afterschool activities out loud. “Eighth-Grade Musical. Costume Design. One-Act Play. Co‑Ed Soccer.” She smiles a shaky, don’t cry smile. “No football team?”
“Nope.” I have the website practically memorized.
“That’s amazing!” Grace says, her voice steadying. “Instead of wearing jerseys to school on game days, people will be wearing costumes. And instead of every social studies teacher being a football coach, they’ll be, like, playwrights! I wish I could come with you.” Grace sounds like her normal, hundred-miles-per-hour self. But her eyes are sad.
“I wish you could come too,” I say.
She scoots over and hugs me so tight I stop breathing for a second. And for the first time, it feels real. Me, going to Brook Street Middle. Grace being two thousand miles away.
I can’t say this. I shouldn’t even think it. When you’re thirteen you’re supposed to scream and slam doors when your parents force you to move, especially if you’ve had the same best friend since you were two months old. But if I had a choice, I’d go. And I think I’d go on my own.
Copyright © 2026 by Rebecca Bendheim. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
