The Anchor Point

On a Greyhound bus bound for her ten-year high school reunion, Maya tells a stranger she graduated from Lincoln High in 2016. The elderly passengers around her go pale: they insist Lincoln High burned down that year, killing every teacher, and the man beside her claims his son, Mr. Miller, died in the fire. Maya refuses to accept it. Her class president Ben has just called to say Mr. Miller is waiting at the reunion, right across from the old campus.

Accused of mocking a grieving father, Maya invites the old man to come and see Mr. Miller alive for himself. He nearly strikes her instead. When the bus reaches the station, her accusers step off and their fury simply vanishes, leaving her alone with a story no one will believe.

A taxi driver laughs off any talk of a fire, and at the Tex-Mex grill Mr. Miller is there, alive and laughing with her old classmates. Yet the campus they walk afterward is exactly as she remembers it.