by Emma Doherty
This is the moment of truth, and while my friends are clearly desperate for me to pass, I’m sure there are as many people in this room who would be happy if I failed.
I lay the papers, face down in front of me, too freaking scared to even look at them, my eyes blurring already from the shame and embarrassment if this doesn’t go my way.
“It’s gonna be okay, Abs.”
I look up at Brett’s words, and the look on his face tells me I’ve got this, tells me I’m going to be okay no matter what’s on the sheets of paper.
I consider holding them close so I can flip through and know the scores before I have to tell anyone else, but really, what’s the point when everyone’s watching anyway?
I take a deep breath to psych myself up then flip over the papers, spreading them out so both grades are visible.
The table erupts.
The whole damn table erupts in screams and whistles as I stare in shock at the grades in front of me.
78 and 82 written in red across the top of the tests.
I passed. I passed. I freaking passed the exams. I’m going to graduate.
I’m in total shock.
Sasha is pulling me out of my seat and gripping me in a hug before Chase is there spinning me around. Next Aaron and Brendon and Jennifer do the same while Livy and Sophie stand back, grinning wide and clapping for me.
I’m actually shaking with shock.
I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I did it.
“Congratulations, Abigail,” Ms. Sallinson says, and I turn to her. She’s smiling widely. “You should be very proud of yourself.”
Coach winks at me. “Knew you could do it.”
I start to laugh at that because there is no way I got that impression from her, but that’s Coach through and through, pushing me in everything I do, pissing me off enough to prove her wrong.
They wave goodbye before retreating out of the way, and then Jackson is there smiling at me and hugging me.
Brett.
Where’s Brett in all of this?
I glance around and he’s there grinning at me, a proud look on his face, and everyone else in the room disappears.
“Well done.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m really proud of you.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
He shrugs modestly before looking around at the chaos around me. “I’m really happy for you.” He looks at everyone else, all still laughing and smiling, talking amongst themselves, before he turns back to me. “I guess I’ll leave you guys to it.”
He sends me one last smile before turning around and heading back to his table, leaving me feeling a little empty inside at his absence. I don’t want him to go back to his table.
I blink rapidly to pull myself together, remembering to enjoy this moment and everything it means as everyone goes to sit back down to enjoy the last ten minutes of lunch.
My heartbeat is still going crazy in my chest.
I’m so hyped up.
So happy.
So, so damn happy.
I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this proud of myself in my life. I honestly might get these papers framed.
Fuck this.
“I don’t want to be here,” I say, everyone turning to me as I stand and gather my stuff.
“Where are you going?” Brendon asks.
“Home. My mom’s at her sister’s, and I’m going to have a drink and order some food and celebrate.”
A wide grins spreads across Chase’s face. “Yeah?”
“Hell yes.” I glance around at them, noting how Aaron is already standing to join me and Jennifer is putting the English book she had out back into her bag. “You guys want to come?”
“We can’t ditch,” Livy says, looking around worriedly.
I laugh in her face. “We’re graduating, Livy.” I can’t wipe the grin off my own face. “I’m graduating.” Oh god, it feels so good to say those words. “It can just be an extra senior day. What the hell can they do to us now?”
“Yes!” Sophie shouts. She starts banging her hands on the table, pounding them up and down. “Senior day, senior day, senior day!” Sasha, Jackson, and everyone else joins in her chant and we’re creating such a scene that I’m pretty sure we’re about to get yelled at but in this moment in time I really don’t care. And looking at my friends right now, I don’t think they do either.
Livy eyes me for a second, considering before her face breaks out into a grin and then she’s standing too.
Everyone else scrambles to their feet, all getting ready to leave, and I notice that the rest of the cafeteria is all looking this way. I look at Brett, and he’s looking over too.
“You coming?” I call out, not giving a damn that everyone’s watching. “Party at my house.”
He looks at me, and for a second I think he’s about to say no, but then he stands, pushing away his tray of food and throwing his backpack on his shoulders.
His friends look at him before glancing back to me. “You guys too,” I say, and I mean it. Maybe I can actually have a nice conversation with people outside of my group, something I should have done years ago but didn’t because of my own stupid issues.
Actually, screw it—screw it all! I climb up onto the bench, looking around the cafeteria at the people I recognize but have barely spoken to because of my own damn insecurities, and I cup my hands around my mouth to shout, “Yo, seniors.” Blank faces stare back at me. “We’re ditching. Senior afternoon. Party at my house.”
For a second, no one does anything, they just look at me with surprised eyes, and I think the damage has been done—I can’t take back the way I’ve treated the rest of the senior class. But then there’s a murmur and people start to move, Hallie standing up first, followed by the rest of the girls soccer team, and then other people, grabbing their stuff and pushing their lunches away.
Sasha starts laughing behind me. “Yes, Abigail!”
I know it’s not about me, not really—they just want an opportunity to ditch and a party to attend—but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything at all.
I turn back around, and just like that, half the cafeteria, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, the entire senior class of Grove Valley High stands as a whole and walks out of the cafeteria to head to my house.
The teachers don’t even bother to try to stop us, small smiles on their faces as they realize there’s not a single thing they can do about it.
I watch the excitement build as everyone picks up speed, the volume increasing, running out of the building as Sophie shouts at me to hurry up.
In this moment, I don’t know if I’ve ever felt so happy.
Or proud. I feel very, very proud of myself.
31
The doorbell rings for maybe the twentieth time since I got home, and I make my way over to the front door to see a group of girls standing on the doorstep.
“Hey.”
They look at me nervously, warily.
“I’m Abigail.”
They look at me like I’m crazy. “Yeah, we know. I’m Carrie. This is Samantha, Su—”
“Suki, right?” I interrupt, looking at the short girl to the right. “I think we have history together.”
She’s surprised. “Right, yeah we do.”
I grin at them wide. “So glad you could come.” I mean it too. Turns out it’s pretty easy to just talk to new people after all, to have conversations with them. I wish it were something I had figured out sooner. “Come in, come in. Drinks are in the kitchen, and most people are out back by the pool.”
I catch movement from behind her and see some other guys strolling down the path, followed by a pizza delivery guy carrying a giant pile of boxes. I accept the pizzas before the guy tells me he has more in his car. I take the first batch into the kitchen before going back to the door and retrieving the rest, handing over the biggest tip I’ve left in a long time because today I’m in such a good mood that I don’t care if I
drain all my money on food and drinks for this party.
It’s worth it. Everything is worth it in this moment.
I head back to the kitchen and start laying out the pizzas. They’re immediately swarmed upon by the masses before I take the rest and leave them outside on the patio furniture for the people out there. I head back inside just as Chase and Aaron reappear from their trip to the store, where they’ve bought ice and liquor and mixers with whatever fake ID they’re currently using.
I ask them how much I owe them, opening the app on my phone to transfer them the money, but they both insist they don’t want my money and want to contribute to my party.
“Don’t be stupid,” I insist.
Aaron scoffs. “Are you kidding, Abigail? Do you not know how relieved we are that you’re graduating with us? It’s all Chase has talked about for weeks.”
I roll my eyes, knowing he’s kidding, but a look passes between Aaron and Chase, that look they do when they’re communicating something between themselves, and Aaron quickly excuses himself, leaving me alone with Chase.
“What’s going on?” I ask, concerned about the look on his face.
He takes a deep breath. “He’s right, about me being relieved you’re graduating. I don’t think I would have forgiven myself if you didn’t.”
I chuckle. “Chase, don’t. It had nothing to do with you.”
“Yes, it did.”
I open my mouth to deny it but then stop. I guess it did have something to do with him; I was a complete mess at the start of the year when we broke up.
“It’s not your fault that I fell apart. It’s not your fault that I put all my self-worth into our relationship.”
“I shouldn’t have kept leading you on. I should have thought about what that was doing to you.”
I let out a long sigh. “You know, I’ve been thinking,” I confide. “I think you gave me some stability in some weird sort of way.”
He frowns, and I don’t blame him. Our relationship was anything but stable, but when I think about Chase these days, this is what I keep coming back to. “My mom does nothing but tell me I need to look a certain way in order to catch a suitable guy, and you were that to her, so when we broke up, she thought I’d messed up. And my dad? Well you know what he’s like…”
Chase nods.
“But you…you’re good, Chase. You’re a good person. Even when things weren’t good between us, I always knew you were kind and loyal and funny, and I knew that wasn’t going to change.”
“You know I care about you, don’t you? So much.”
I do know that. If anything, the last couple of months have proved his words over and over again.
“And I care about you too, a lot, but we’re way better off as friends.”
He smiles.
“It took me a long time to realize it, but for me, you kind of sucked as a boyfriend.”
He starts to laugh. “I did, didn’t I?”
“You and Livy work way better than we ever did.” It’s the truth, and I’m okay with that. “Go find your girlfriend. She’s probably out back somewhere freaking out that she’s going to get expelled for cutting or something.”
He laughs louder at that, agreeing with the sentiment. Then he steps forward and hugs me.
“I’m really proud of you, for everything.”
“Me too, and we don’t need to talk about this again—about you feeling guilty or how messed up we were. We were kids and now we’re friends. That’s all we need to know.”
He squeezes me tighter before pulling back, his eyes landing on something behind me and a small smile playing on his lips. “I think I’m making somebody uncomfortable.”
I frown, turning to see what he’s talking about, and I see Brett sitting behind me. He’s with his friends but not even pretending to be paying attention to them. His eyes are focused on Chase and me.
I turn back to Chase. “Huh?”
“He’s been watching us this whole time,” he says, still with that same smirk on his face.
I can feel myself blush. “Stop, it’s not like that.”
“Uh-huh,” he teases.
“Seriously, we’re barely friends. He tolerates me at most.”
“If you say so.”
“I’m being serious.”
“I’m only telling you what I see,” he says with a wink. “And I see him looking at you—a lot.”
He has no idea how much I wish that were true, but Brett proved it wasn’t the other day.
Chase laughs at the look on my face before he takes pity on me and decides to stop giving me a hard time, grabbing a red cup and disappearing out back, presumably to find Livy.
I take a deep breath and turn around, ready to make conversation with people, but when I do, Brett’s right there.
I don’t know what to say to him. All our conversations have always linked back to him tutoring me, and now that’s over. I want to talk to him about his summer, his plans, the future, his family—I want to talk about it all with him, everything. I want him to help me make plans for my future. I want to work through my ideas with him, taking his advice and listening to his suggestions because he’s so smart and thoughtful and I know they’ll be helpful. I want to listen to his enthusiasm as he talks about his future and how he’s going to be a success and let it rub off on me so I know I can be a success too. I want to do all that and more with him, but I can’t.
Because we were never about that. He had a job to do and he’s done it, and now I don’t know how to be around him.
But even more than talking to him, I want to kiss him. I want to kiss him now. I want to kiss him tomorrow. I want to kiss him the day after that.
But it’s not me he wants.
“That looked cozy,” he says after a beat.
“With Chase? He was just saying he’s proud of me.”
He raises an eyebrow, not looking the least bit impressed.
“What?”
“I’m not sure Livy would like you guys being all over each other like that.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
My jaw drops. “He’s been my closest friend since I moved here,” I tell him testily. “And he wanted to tell me he’s proud of me for pulling my shit together the last couple of months and actually managing to be in a position to graduate.”
He doesn’t say anything to that.
“Chase is in love with Livy,” I point out. “And she’s in love with him. They make a great couple, and they’re going to college together and will probably get married and have kids and live happily ever after. And I really hope they do.”
“You do?”
“Yes! I want him to be happy and she makes him happy. And I like her, too. She’s kind and considerate and beautiful, and I know I couldn’t compete with that even if I wanted to…which I don’t, by the way.”
He still doesn’t say anything.
“But it’s really nice that after all this time we’ve spent together, you think I’d actually be capable of that. You actually think I could be so spiteful and so petty as to try to steal her boyfriend away from her after everything she’s done to help me recently.”
For the first time, he actually looks sorry, and I notice that the voices in the room have fallen and there are quite a few eyes on us. “Abigail—”
I step away. “No, screw you for saying that.”
I step past him, ready to head outside and join my friends, then I see Sasha through the window, talking quietly with Aaron.
Sasha…she’s the one he’s wanted all along.
I turn back to Brett. “I get that this was just a transaction for you. You were paid to help me pass, and I know I haven’t delivered everything I promised. I’ll settle that right now, but do me a favor and don’t patronize me ever again.”
Then I turn on my heel and storm away from Brett Sanderson and his stuck-up opinions of me, and I march straight up to Sasha.
“Hey!”
Both she and Aaron s
tartle out of their conversation and look up at me.
“Hey.” Sasha pauses as she takes in my expression. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Can I talk to you for a second?”
Aaron looks between us and wisely decides to make a hasty exit.
“Uh, Abigail? Is everything alright? And why is Brett glaring at us from the across your yard?”
I turn back and see that she’s right: Brett is standing there glowering at us from the back door. I half-expect him to come over here and tell me this isn’t the way he wants Sasha to agree to date him since he’s so good at telling me what to do, but he just stands there.
“So when Brett agreed to tutor me, he had a condition I never told you about.”
She pulls a face. “Okay?”
“He wanted me to get him a date with you.”
Her mouth falls open.
“I told him you’d date him.”
“Uh…Abigail…”
“I mean you’re single, right? Have been for a while, and I know you like Brett so I figured you wouldn’t care.”
“Abig—”
“I need you to do it.” I pause, my jaw tense. “Please.”
She blinks rapidly in astonishment. “Abigail, I don’t think—”
“He can be a complete ass,” I interject, my anger not slipping, “and a know-it-all who thinks he can read people’s minds.” She doesn’t say anything else, her eyes flitting between me and where Brett’s standing across the way. “And he thinks he’s so freaking clever.”
She laughs at that. “Well he kinda is clever.”
I scowl at her.
“You’re not exactly selling him here.”
“Fine. He’s funny,” I admit grudgingly. “He’s smart and he’s kind and he remembers stuff about you and he pays attention and he’s encouraging and he’ll believe in you when you don’t believe in yourself,” I say in a hurry. “And when he’s not being so damn smug, he’s actually really nice. And good-looking. Just because he’s not a jock doesn’t mean he’s not hot.”
She smiles. “I know that.”
“So will you do it?”
She doesn’t say anything.