Psssst!

I startled so hard that the bubblegum I had been stealthily blowing popped like an electric fuse.

“Winter! Stop fidgeting,” my math teacher, Ms Treacle, shrieked. “This is a test and others are still working.”

She said it as if I wasn’t. Which wasn’t exactly wrong. No matter how hard I tried, the page of algebraic equations stood there on the page meaningless, despite hours of math tutelage from my father, a mathlete in his own time. It was all lost on me.

To me, the page of equations seemed more of a philosophical dilemma. I mean, how was one to ever really know the identity of x when y is an inconstant number? Isn’t the fact that x is so codependent on such an inconsistent, wishy-washy figure really the issue here?

Pssssssssst!

There it was again, so close that the hiss was practically a tongue inside my ear. Cognizant that Freak-al Treacle, as we liked to call her, was observing my every pencil etch, I attempted a natural-seeming stretch of the neck and upper back to catch a glimpse at Hazel behind me. Was she trying to get my attention?

Hazel sheltered her answers with her elbow protectively and shot me a lightning-bolt glare.

Huh.

“First subtract x from both sides,” the whisper continued.

I froze. Where was this voice coming from? No one else seemed to hear it. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

I examined the first equation and, sure enough, there was the x that I slowly subtracted from each side.

“Good,” the voice affirmed. “Now you need to flip the fraction…”

Was this God? Am I dying? I wondered, nevertheless following every instruction in exactitude. When faced with Ms Treacle or death, my choice was clear.

It wasn’t until Hazel, brown noser that she is, noisily pushed back her chair, undoubtedly to let the class know that she was done first, and sauntered past that I noticed my shadow flinch. It actually moved out of the way so as not to be tread upon by her spic span patten leather shoes.

“Summer?!” I gasped.

I had chalked Summer up to my mom’s explanation: an imaginary friend that my overactive imagination had created for companionship, the result of being a precocious only child. But I have vivid memories of actual interactions — conversations, play dates, and even arguments — with Summer, my shadow. It had actually come as quite a shock when, at around 4 or 5 years old, I realized that not everyone’s shadow talked back to them, only mine.

My parents had put me in therapy and a litany of after-school activities until Summer was nothing more than a laughable story of crazy things I did when I was little.

But here she was.

“Miss me?” she asked, bemused.

I grinned, and it was like the final puzzle piece — one I didn’t even realize was missing — clicked into place.