by Emily Lowry
I’d cheered up Chase Jones’s morning?
He was about to take a seat. I had to say something before I lost my nerve. “I was wondering…”
Chase looked at me expectantly.
“I have this article I’m supposed to write. It’s about Evermore social life.”
His expression darkened, and I recoiled, surprised.
“I’m sorry, it’s dumb. Thanks again for the yogurt.” I turned to leave, my cheeks red again.
“No, no, don’t worry.” He said quickly. “Please, it’s all good. I was just hoping… ah never mind. What’s the article?”
I explained the article, and I told him how, since I did not engage in high school social events myself, I’d decided the best way to go about this project was to interview the popular kids, seeing as Evermore was just one big popularity contest of a school. He flinched when I mentioned he was the first person I had thought of interviewing.
“You hate the idea,” I said. His face was easy to read. He looked like I’d replaced his frozen yogurt with soggy asparagus.
I guess cheering up his morning had been a temporary fix.
“I don’t love it,” he replied slowly. I must have looked crestfallen, because he added “I’m sorry Abby, I could definitely do you an interview about football or something instead?”
I shook my head. “That’s Payton Clarence’s realm - sports. Look, forget I mentioned it…”
Chase looked at me and again, his eyes were not unkind. They were almost sad, I realized, also realizing simultaneously what a beautiful shade of navy blue they were. “Can you give me some time to think about it? I’m not saying no, I’m just not really in a good head space for deciding right now.”
“Totally okay,” I said, nodding. This had already gone so differently than I had expected, with Chase buying me yogurt and laughing at my jokes. It somehow didn’t shock me when he shied away from the interview request. Honestly, before speaking to him, I had assumed all the popular kids would be so self-obsessed that they would leap at the chance to be the Featured Popular Kid for the school paper. But Chase? Full of surprises, this one.
“I’ll let you know.”
“Great.” I turned to leave, pausing at the door. “I’m sorry I almost hit you with my car.”
He laughed grimly. “Thanks, wouldn’t want to get run over twice in one day.”
I smiled back, not really sure what he meant. That was my first interaction with Chase Jones. And it was safe to say that he was really, truly, absolutely nothing like what I expected.
6
Abby
A week after nearly taking out our school hero with my car, I was making careful plans to go to my first high school party. Parties were a non-negotiable part of high school for anyone with any kind of social life - i.e. anyone who wasn’t me. And as much as I wasn’t looking forward to it, I knew I had to bite the bullet and prove my journalistic range to Nicholas and Mr. Adebayo.
It was actually Nicholas who had suggested the party. At school, I’d taken the opportunity to take Nicholas aside to discuss the social feature and get his input. And, to be honest, it was also a GREAT opportunity to spend some alone time with him — even if he was distracted by the blinking cursor on his laptop for most of our conversation. He recommended trying to put myself in the shoes of a typical high school student. What would they experience? What would they look forward to?
His answer: The first party of the year.
Every single year, the first big back-to-school party took place after the Evermore Panther’s first home football game of the season, Nicholas informed me.
I looked at him, hopefully. “Are you going?”
Nicholas sighed a rather self-righteous “Oh, no,” as he took off his glasses to polish them on his shirt. My fledgling hope dissolved in an instant. It turned out he had a beat poetry reading that night, or else he definitely would have been there, he assured me.
I wasn’t super sure if I believed him.
I shrugged off the thought — Nicholas was far too good for these high school parties, anyway. He was mature and worldly, on a fast track to Northwestern next year, his number one college pick. I imagined him leaning forward during round table discussions, eager to contribute to many-an intellectual debate.
Sigh. Only two years to go and I would hopefully be in a similar place.
Since I wasn’t much of a social/gossip writer, I decided that I would approach my party feature like the investigative journalist I so desperately wanted to be. I would wear a disguise, the disguise of the cliché high school student. I’d always managed to be invisible, so how hard could it be to blend in?
“You’re not serious.” Isabel Yang, my best and only friend, sat on the end of my bed on Friday night, groaning dramatically. We had skipped the actual football game as I figured I needed at least a couple of hours to get my look right.
Apparently two hours were not enough. Izzy examined my outfit — the one I hoped would transform me into a popular high schooler — with a critical eye. “You absolutely cannot wear that. They’ll think you’re a narc.”
I glared. “I wish you loved me enough to lie.”
I looked at the tight black cocktail dress, hanging skimpily on its hanger. I’d found it in one of the few bags of things that mom didn’t take with her when she left us almost two years ago.
The dress was lacy and sheer, a far cry from my usual “casual professional” look that featured a rotation of plaid skirts, oxford shirts, and slacks. My little sister Katie was always laughing at my clothes. “They don’t look like you, Abby!” She would tell me. “They look like you are dressing up to make people think a certain way of you!”
Katie may have had a point. My serious image was carefully curated - fashion was surely a distraction, wasn’t it? And didn’t I want NYU to take me seriously? Nicholas to take me seriously?
Isabel laughed and slurped her iced coffee, bringing me back to the present. “Guess I love you too much to lie. Let me work my magic.”
She set her cup down and brushed past me, before shifting through my closet. Iz and I have been best friends since the first day of seventh grade. We were both lost, looking for our homeroom, and we had run into each other — literally — in the hallway in our mutual panic. She had a better excuse to be lost than I did: her family had just moved here from LA. My excuse was a little more pathetic. All the other kids had spent their time before the first bell finding their friends. When the bell rang, they moved to class in a flock. Me? I was engrossed in my novel, sitting on the front step of the school. By the time I looked up, the hallways had cleared, and I realized I had no idea where I was going. It was mortifying. I think my hatred of being late formed at that very moment.
Izzy sighed repeatedly as she flicked through my closet. “Abs, we badly need to go shopping. Like stat.” She eventually picked out a couple of things she deemed acceptable and shoved the coat hangers into my chest. “These.”
I changed, nervously, into a black halter top I had never worn before — the tags were still attached — and a pair of soft, skinny grey jeans that I had gotten as a Christmas present last year from my Aunt Jess in California. I had forgotten I even had them.
I surveyed myself in the mirror as Izzy smiled behind me, holding up the finishing touch she had picked out — a pair of black ankle booties.
I buckled them onto my feet with a glance in Isabel’s direction. Fashion came easily to Izzy. Thanks to her petite frame and natural sense of style, everything looked good on her. She was wearing a short babydoll dress and white high-top Converse shoes for the party.
“Ner-vous?” Izzy asked, drawing out the word.
“I just want to be the perfect high school student.”
“I don’t think that exists.” Izzy rolled her eyes as she picked off a piece of lint off my top. “Just be yourself.”
“But if I’m not perfect, they won’t let me into the party.”
“If that was the prerequisite to get in, no one would be there.�
�� Izzy threw up her hands. “Trust me Abs, any party that doesn’t want to let you in is a party you don’t want to go to.” Part of me was grateful for Izzy’s effortless confidence. The other part of me was jealous. She always knew what to say.
There was a knock on my bedroom door.
“Come in.”
The door opened and my dad smiled, poking his head in. My dad and I looked super alike, with the same brown hair and wiry physique, and the same green eyes. I claimed they were colored like emeralds, but he said that I was wrong, and they were actually the color of freshly cut grass. Because every girl wants to hear that their eyes look like someone’s lawn.
I groaned when I saw what was in his hand: an old-school Polaroid camera.
“You’re joking,” I said.
“It’s for the album,” Dad said. Ever since mom left, he’d been obsessed with putting together photo albums of our lives for Katie and I. Every moment of my life was documented in a thick binder in our basement. Originally, he’d wanted to start an online album, but my sister and I refused. We did not want embarrassing photos of ourselves plastered on the family Facebook page. Dad’s concession was that he got to take as many photos as he wanted, but they stayed offline. We agreed.
“Izzy, get in there too,” Dad said.
Izzy threw her arms around me and kicked up her heel, posing for the camera with ease. I forced a smile, wiping my sweaty palms on my jeans.
Flash. Click. And we were off to the party.
I had the nervous energy of a six-year-old who’d accidentally drank a pot of coffee. I couldn’t hold my hands still if I tried, so I drummed my fingers along the steering wheel repeatedly as I drove Izzy and I to the party.
“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” I asked.
“Relax,” Izzy said. “You’ll be fine.”
When you knew someone as well as Izzy and I knew each other, you got used to each other’s nervous ticks. Mine was constantly looking for reassurance that I was doing things the right way. If I was baking a cake, I’d check my measurements a hundred times before I poured the flour into the mixing bowl, meaning I wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs to bake red velvet cupcakes with.
I took a left into suburbia, then another left, and we were there. I had found the address thanks to some online sleuthing through students’ profiles.
Poorly parked cars packed the street, putting my mind at ease that this was, in fact, the right place. I found an empty spot a few blocks away and pulled into it haphazardly. My driving was not at its best when I was nervous. Izzy and I walked back over towards the party, the heels on my boots clicking with more dread with every step I took. I hated to admit it, but I was nervous. It had been easy for the duration of my high school career to avoid the popular crowd all together and just be invisible. I wanted nothing to do with it. I still didn’t, I told myself; I was doing this for my story! Despite trying to reassure myself, the thought of trying and failing, of being rejected… it was really getting to me.
The party was easy to find — all you had to do was follow the thumping bass. Each drum beat tangled my stomach in another knot.
The house was dark, but laughs and shouts came from the backyard. A single red solo cup was lying on the front lawn.
“Backyard,” Izzy said, directing me towards a boy standing near a fenced gate.
Calling the mountain that guarded the gate a boy was an understatement. He was probably all of fifteen years old, but he stood well over six feet tall and had a full beard already. I vaguely recognized him as one of the offensive linemen who played for Evermore’s JV football team. The thick scent of cheap body spray — undoubtedly named after some natural disaster like Hurricane or Earthquake — clouded the air.
Oh come on, they have the JV guys playing security?
“Hey,” I said. What was I supposed to say? Was there a secret password? I looked to Izzy for help.
“We’re here for the party,” she explained.
“What party?” The boy’s voice was gruff.
Izzy cocked her head. “Who put you on guard dog duty? Someone from the varsity team? I didn’t think a backyard party needed a bouncer.”
“He wants to keep it small. Only football guys and their girls.”
“Who does?” I asked, knowing he was lying. There were clearly a ton of people in the backyard, judging by the noise level.
“If you don’t know whose party this is, then you’re not coming in.” Mountain boy raised his eyebrows, challenging us.
Izzy took a step forward, staring up at the giant. “We could hop the fence. You don’t look that fast.”
“I run a four-nine forty.” He crossed his arms, impressed with himself.
Izzy glanced at me, our expressions similar: What the heck did that mean?
I shivered and tried to peer past the giant, but the fence was too tall to see what was going on. Judging from the delighted screams, whatever was happening at the party was more fun than I’d had in a long time. Plus, I smelled campfire, and fire meant warmth. “Can we just do a quick lap?”
The boy sighed, exasperated. I almost felt bad for him for a split millisecond. It’s not like he got to go into the party either. “Don’t you get it? You’re not coming in. So beat it. Find someone else to piss off.”
7
Chase
I leaned back in the lawn chair and held a bag of crushed ice against my aching shoulder. Tonight’s game had been a rough one, starting the season with a bang, and we’d had to fight hard for our narrow win against the Hollyhill Wildcats.
Late in the third quarter, I’d taken a vicious sack. The defensive end landed on me, pressing his full weight on my body. Thanks to a recent rule change, it was a fifteen-yard penalty for roughing the passer, automatic first down. That penalty put us in the red zone, and a play later Dylan caught a pass in the flats and scampered in for the go-ahead touchdown.
Adrenaline carried me through the rest of the game. But after the adrenaline wore off, the pain returned.
I’d grudgingly agreed to come to the after party because Dylan had insisted I didn’t have a choice. It was our captain, Adam Zamos’ annual back to school bash, and, as he was a senior this year, this one would be his last hurrah. While my shoulder hurt, it wasn’t the only discomfort I was dealing with. I hadn’t been seeing Savannah long, but I thought we’d grown close in the time we’d spent together. It felt like a missed opportunity, an interception on the goal line. But more than that, I didn’t understand why it had happened. It was starting to get under my skin. Three times in a row, dumped exactly three-weeks after Click announced I was seeing someone. It couldn’t be a coincidence.
Dylan sat in the chair beside me, cup in his hand. “Dude, you need to let loose. We won. You’re the best quarterback in the state. And you still don’t look like you’re having any fun.”
I grimaced and shifted the ice pack. “I’m not the best quarterback in the state.”
“You’re the only QB I’d want.”
“You kidding me? Go get yourself a QB that can’t throw and the coach’ll give you the ball thirty times a game. That’s at least twenty touchdowns. A game.” I exaggerated on purpose. Dylan was a phenomenal player, and I was constantly worried he didn’t get the recognition he deserved. I would literally be half the quarterback I was if I wasn’t able to trust him to pick up a first down on third and short. Or to block a linebacker when they came screaming in on a weakside blitz.
Dylan laughed. “Dude, you think I’m a lot faster than I am.”
Around us, the backyard party was in full swing. Adam grilled a pack of smokies over the firepit, turning them as the grease fell to the embers and sizzled. His girlfriend Hailey Danielson was beside him, still in her cheerleading uniform, and Hailey’s best friend — my sister Jordyn — sat on her other side, laughing with Peter Landry, our team’s second string QB.
Girls flirted with guys, tossing their hair. Boys puffed out their chests and inflated their accomplishments, talking ab
out their great blocks, their great tackles, their perfect catches. These were the same boys that would be beet red and embarrassed by their mistakes when we watched a game film on Monday.
“Hey, babe,” Madison, my ex, was suddenly standing in front of me. I looked up — man, she was looking seriously hot tonight — but I couldn’t help but feel completely removed from the situation. She was hot, yes, but it didn’t excite me anymore. Not like it used to. Madi still called me “babe” all the time, like she had some claim to me. I never fought it. Madison had a habit of just doing what she wanted at all times, and I was just glad that most of the time what she wanted to do didn’t involve me. I heard she had moved on to a freshman at Boulder who had his own YouTube channel. I, for one, was glad. A Youtuber would surely suit her better than I had. He’d at least like the attention more.
“Hey, Madi,” I replied, disinterested. I noticed one of the JV guys looking over at me enviously. I knew why: Madison Albright was a big deal at Evermore due to her 30,000 Instagram followers, constant features on Click, and insanely good looks. Everyone — except Jordyn and Dylan — thought I was crazy when I broke up with her. But honestly? I hated the social media. The endless selfies. Our relationship blasted all over Click for the whole high school to see.
Madi scowled, irked I wasn’t paying enough attention to her. As if she wasn’t getting enough attention from the younger guys. They were drooling so much that the lawn wouldn’t need watering for a month.
“Loosen up, Jones, you look like you’d rather be at a funeral.” Madi chastised me.
“I know Madi, I know… I’m just so boring, aren’t I?” I teased.
“Yes!” she snapped. “You are. And that’s exactly why I dumped you!”
I stifled a snort at her skewed version of the truth as she sauntered off. Whatever makes her happy, I guess, I thought, before returning to icing my shoulder. I didn’t give it another moment’s thought. I knew she would find me in the hallway and say hi to me at school on Monday, as if nothing had happened. It was just Madi’s way.