"To see who I've been texting."
Zoe ran up the stairs and into her room...which was not her room. She paused for a moment, then ran across the hall to what had been Jon's room. It seemed to now belong to a girl. She quickly grabbed her cell, unlocked it to confirm it was hers and ran back downstairs. "I have your bedroom," she remarked.
"Well, I suppose I upgraded as well," Jon remarked. She was still looking at the same page in the album as when Zoe left.
Zoe scrolled through the recent text messages. "Athena isn't here..."
"She's two years younger than you now," Jon said.
"So, you're saying my life is completely different now? That's not fair..."
That earned her a stern look from Jon. "None of this is fair, Zoe...but it is what it is."
"Oh, jeeze...why is Sarah McMillan in here? Do I even want to look? Please don't tell me I'm in with her crowd," Zoe said.
"What about Karyn?"
"She's not in here either."
Zoe flipped to the photo gallery, looking for recent pictures. She showed Jon the last pictures. A picture of Zoe smiling. The smile was atypical, and she wasn't wearing heavy dark makeup, her look was much more subtle. She swiped to the right...there was a picture of several teens together...Zoe must have taken it. They were clearly fooling around somewhere.
"That's Kyla," Jon said. "But...she's usually so shy." This Kyla wasn't physically different, but her hairstyle, makeup, and clothes were.
"And look at Stephanie...She looks completely different. Why is she blond?"
"Well, Karyn and I were friendly with her till she started hanging out with Sabrina and Trevor. Maybe she never became friends with them." Jon paused. "I hope Karyn is all right. Maybe I should call her."
"Yes, an adult calling a random teenage girl won't be weird at all," Zoe said.
Jon sighed. "I suppose you'll have to find out how she is for me tomorrow at school."
"Go to school...as a sixteen year old? No way..."
"If I have to go to work...after I find out what my job is, you have to go to school, young lady."
"Fine," Zoe said. She didn't feel angry, like she had when...it was hard to think of her former Mom as opposed to Jon as Mom. She was worried about what was going on, but she didn't feel angry. And...she'd said jeeze...because somehow, saying fuck seemed wrong.
Jon put down the photo album. "You probably have some homework to do...and you might need my help with it," she pointed out. "If you are going to be a junior."
Zoe nodded. "Can't we just wish ourselves past the hard parts?"
"How would we learn then?" Jon pointed out. "You can't always take the easy way out."
"What about this is easy?" Zoe said.
