Chapter 1The Anchor Point

As the Greyhound bus neared the station, my high school class president, Ben, suddenly called.

"Maya! Tonight's the ten-year high school reunion. We're at that Tex-Mex place right across from the old campus. Mr. Miller is already here too."

I smiled and agreed to come. After hanging up, the elderly man sitting next to me on the bus casually asked, "Hey kid, where'd you graduate from?"

Without thinking, I answered, "Lincoln High. Class of 2016."

Suddenly, several older passengers in the surrounding seats snapped their heads around to stare at me.

"Class of 2016? Lincoln High burned to the ground in a massive fire in 2016. Every single teacher died. That school has been boarded up for a decade."

I assumed they were just misremembering and couldn't help but argue back: "That's impossible. I was a senior in 2016. There was never any fire at our school."

The old man next to me suddenly stood up, his face pale. "That senior class only had two homerooms. The lead teacher was Mr. Miller. Is that right?"

Mr. Miller was my homeroom teacher!

Before I could even process what was happening, tears began streaming down the old man's face.

"He was my son. He burned to death ten years ago!"

The moment those words left his mouth, my phone rang again.

It was Ben. I could hear the loud, raucous laughter of a party in the background.

"How far away are you? Mr. Miller was just asking about you again. You were always his favorite student!"

* * *

"Alright, hurry up! See you soon!"

Before I could ask him to clarify anything, Ben cheerfully hung up the phone.

Listening to the dead dial tone, I felt a bizarre mix of confusion and amusement.

I tried to call him back, but the automated voice kicked in: "The number you have dialed is temporarily unavailable."

Probably just spotty cell service in this rural county, I thought, slipping my phone back into my pocket.

The old man next to me was still glaring at me with an intense, scrutinizing gaze. His wife gently patted his back to calm him down.

"Miss... you... you must be remembering wrong. After all, it's been so many years..."

The other older passengers in the bus chimed in, echoing her sentiment.

"Yeah, everyone in a fifty-mile radius knows about the Lincoln High fire."

"It was a complete tragedy. All those poor kids and teachers..."

I took a deep breath, trying to keep my voice as calm and steady as possible.

"Sir, I promise you, I'm not misremembering. David Miller, Mr. Miller, was my homeroom teacher. During my senior year, he had just gotten married, and his wife even came to our classroom to hand out wedding favors."

"The call I just took was from my high school class president. He literally just told me that Mr. Miller is at our reunion right now, waiting for me to get there."

Hearing this, the man claiming to be Mr. Miller's father completely lost control.

He lunged forward, his gnarled finger pointing inches from my face.

"You little brat! Are you still talking?! Are you still running your mouth?!"

"What reunion?! What Mr. Miller waiting for you?! My son is dead!"

He was shaking violently, his voice cracking into a devastated, guttural roar.

"Thanksgiving week, 2016! The school caught fire! My boy... he was trapped inside!"

"It was me! I was the one who had to go to the morgue and identify his charred body!"

The old man's legs gave out. He collapsed back into his seat, sobbing uncontrollably.

The atmosphere in the bus instantly plunged to absolute zero.

"Young lady, you are completely out of line!"

"Seriously! Joking about something like this? Do you have no conscience?"

"Ripping open a grieving father's wounds and pouring salt on them! You're sick!"

In an instant, the glaring, judgmental stares of everyone on the bus pierced into me like daggers.

I was completely defenseless against the mob. I felt an intense, suffocating mix of panic and frustration.

I am telling the absolute truth. How is this being twisted into a malicious joke?!

I stood up, stepped into the aisle, and looked down at the old man with absolute, desperate sincerity.

"Sir, please, try to calm down. I understand why you're upset, but please believe me. I am not lying, and I would never, ever joke about your son's life."

"If you don't believe me, come with me."

I looked him dead in the eye, extending a genuine invitation.

"My class president said the reunion is at the Tex-Mex place right across from the school. If we leave now, we'll be there in twenty minutes."

"Come with me. Once you see Mr. Miller with your own eyes, once you see him standing there alive and breathing, you'll know I'm not playing a sick joke on you."