by Emery Lord
“Oh my God, this freakin’ song,” I said, looking up at Max.
I knew, for the rest of my life, this song would take me back to the specific feeling of this past July. It already did—I could practically feel the heat, smell the garlic salt and sticky diet soda. Finally home from New York, my heart tripping at the sight of Max’s name in my inbox, driving my own car with the windows down.
Morgan appeared at the edge of the dance floor, motioning severely at me. “Get out here!”
I glanced at Max, hopeful that he’d join me, caught up in the spirit of the song. His body looked planted, roots extending into the core of the earth. But he smiled, shrugging. “Go for it.”
“You sure?”
Max held up a hand—a dignified pass, like declining hors d’oeuvres. All right, then. When I got near enough, Josiah grabbed my arm and pulled me toward my friends.
“Um, finally!” Morgan yelled at me. At this stage of the night, Ryan had sunglasses on and was bopping hard with an invisible microphone. Josiah and Malcolm were nearby, lip-synching to each other.
So, fine. Can’t beat ’em, join ’em. I put my arms up.
“There she is,” Morgan said, laughing.
Oh yeah, what are you waiting for? I mouthed with the song lyrics. I liked dancing to a song I knew so well, every pulse, every background vocal ooh and oh.
The last beat of the song dropped off, replaced with a slower piano ballad. It was an awkward transition—a big, breathy laugh to a heartfelt confession. We all stood there for a moment, the energy we’d been exuding with no place to go. Tessa would have commandeered the DJ’s station and excused him.
The dance floor shifted from clusters to couples, single cells snapping into pairs. I glanced through the crowd, hoping Max would appear, dodging pressed-together bodies to get to me. After only a few seconds, I scurried from the dance floor, the embarrassment of it more than I could handle. How had I come with a date—my boyfriend—and still wound up feeling like a rejected Austen heroine?
In the same spot I’d left him, Max was still holding court with the engineers, but he slid out to greet me. “Have fun out there?”
“Mm-hmm. You’re missing out …” I tried to say it temptingly, but he laughed happily, like it was a joke. I couldn’t be upset, really. He’d told me, point-blank, that dancing wasn’t his thing. Still. It reignited a simmering little worry, that I was his pal Paige and not, like, a cute girlfriend to be romantic with.
On our way out, we passed Aditi in a classic black gown and red lip.
“You guys have fun?” she asked. As junior class vice president, she was on the dance committee, which may have accounted for why the whole event was considerably less tacky than I’d expected.
“Definitely,” I said.
“We miss you at QuizBowl,” she said, which was generous. “But the theater stuff sounds so cool—good for you.”
“Oh, thanks! Max says you’re killing it on the team.”
She shrugged. “Just trying to keep up with Columbia here.”
I opened my mouth to say I didn’t know the reference, but Max scoffed. “Oh, please.”
“What?” She flashed a mischievous smile. “I’m sorry, but you can’t tell me you’re applying to big-name schools and expect to not get teased a little.”
My gaze swung up to Max as he gave a tense laugh. He hadn’t mentioned Columbia College to me yet, but it made sense—he’d always liked Chicago, and he was already applying to Northwestern.
“All right, I better find my date. Nice to see you, Paige!” She nudged Max as she walked past. “See you Monday, Ivy League.”
Ivy League? Columbia College wasn’t Ivy. But Columbia University was. In Manhattan. My thoughts spun like a centrifuge, dizzying, and I gave a strained smile to no one. “I’m just gonna use the restroom real quick before we go.”
“Okay …,” Max started to say, but I was already en route, heels snapping against the cafeteria floor to the bathroom nearest the parking lot, mercifully empty.
My chest rose and fell, and I placed one hand over my breastbone, wishing I could unzip my dress. Columbia? I shut myself in a bathroom stall as a clammy sweat whooshed over me, that pre-vomit stomach drop. Max would do that—go to New York with me? Did I want him to? I waved both hands, fanning myself and trying to shake the jittery energy from my fingers. But my stomach still clenched, and I winced, surrounded by the sound of water on water as I hurled, crouched in my pretty clearance dress.
I flushed the toilet, my breathing slowed. Okay. Better. Maybe it wasn’t even panic, but something off I’d eaten at Arpeggio’s. Food poisoning can come on fast.
The possibility of having both NYU and Max—that was a good thing, one I hadn’t even considered before. My brain just worked like a faulty telephone switchboard sometimes, routing me to the wrong feeling. That’s all this was.
I blotted my face with cold water, rinsed my mouth out. I’d brought a tiny travel toothpaste, prepared for our Italian dinner, and I swished some around. The humid air in the gym had flattened my bangs, and I looked, at once, too pale and too flushed, with eyeliner bleeding black. What a dream girl. I folded toilet paper and cleaned myself up.
This is good news, I informed my reflection. Get it together.
Max pushed off the wall where’d he been leaning, waiting for me. “You okay?”
“Fine!” I looped my arm through his, mostly so we’d be walking in step, obstructing his view of my face.
When Max started the car, I stared into my lap, into the ocean of my dress’s fabric. “So, hey,” he said. “I’m sorry Columbia came up like that. Aditi mentioned it as a possibility for herself next year, so I told her I’ve been considering it, too. Pepper said I should pick a reach school or two—figured it might as well be Columbia and Caltech.”
“Oh!” My voice came out an octave too high. I pressed a hand to my chest like I could compress my heartbeat into normalcy. “Caltech, too! Okay!”
“I was going to tell you,” he said. “Obviously. And it was just an idea. I won’t apply if it bugs you.”
Bugs me, like it was a gnatty little annoyance. As opposed to a gesture of willingness to fundamentally reroute his life choices based on mine.
“No, it’s totally fine!” I said, lying through my freshly toothpasted teeth. “I just thought you felt pretty strongly about the 250-mile-radius thing.”
“I do. Well, I don’t know. When I mentioned that radius to my mom, she kind of laughed it off. Here I thought she’d be lost without me. But … I think she might be looking forward to being an empty nester? Having some freedom. Kind of offensive, if you ask me.” He looked over—I could see the movement in my peripheral vision. “I’m yammering. Sorry. I feel like I freaked you out with this.”
“I was just surprised. It’s fine. Great!”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. I mean, they’re great schools, right?” That’s how I’d feel if my brain were capable of processing emotions into their proper channels. If my brain hadn’t taken “Boyfriend near Dream School” and funneled it into “Bad, Yikes, AHHHhhh” as it cliff-dove into the panic below.
“I’m also applying to U of M,” he added, offering proof that there were other recent additions. “But, um, as long as it’s come up … I know I’d like to stay together. Regardless of where we end up.”
Right there, on the table. No dancing around it. A theme with Max tonight, apparently. I wasn’t sure why I was surprised; it was Max. He knew who he was and what he wanted—Ryan had told me that once.
The light flicked to green, and Max put his hands on the wheel.
“I hope that, too,” I said, my voice measured. “Obviously.”
He gave a small laugh, hand rising to adjust his glasses.
“What?” I demanded, annoyed.
“Nothing. It’s just very us. I’d like to; you hope.”
“Well, I don’t know what schools we’ll get into! Or how we’ll feel! I’m trying to be—”
; “Realistic. Yeah, I know. You’re planning for the most likely scenario. But I’m thinking in terms of what I most want to happen. Figured I’d put it out there.”
Maybe on its own, this comment would have simply flattered me. But layered on top of the little “old married couple” comments from friends and near strangers, Max’s casual admission felt like weight. Weight that was becoming heavy. “Well, we don’t have to decide now. Right?”
“Of course we don’t, Janie.” He said it lightly, like he’d expected my reaction on some level. “Wow, are we growing up? Look at us, not spinning out about an impossible-to-know future?”
Okay, that got me. I laughed, shaking my head. It was just us, me and this person who clicked into place with me. This was really fine. Totally fine.
In the driveway, Max slid the car into park, and I leaned in to kiss him. That, at least, grounded me right here. It was just getting good when the porch flashed a bunch of times, a strobe effect inside the car. My mom at the light switch inside, very over me sitting out here in the darkness with my boyfriend.
I pulled back, sighing. “God, Mom. So uncool.”
“Moment killer,” Max agreed, his hand still in my hair. “I can’t believe we wasted time talking about our futures!”
I gathered up my purse, trying to convince myself I felt as secure about our conversation as Max did. I’d probably wake up tomorrow elated that he might be at Columbia or Caltech.
“Love you,” I said as I climbed out.
“I know,” he said coolly.
I rolled my eyes, smiling. “’Night, Han Solo.”
I’d made it a few steps away from the car when he called, through the rolled-down window, “Hey. Come here a sec. I need to tell you something.”
Gamely, I walked back, and laid my arms flat on the ledge of his window. “You love me, too?”
“Well, yeah.” He leaned in to kiss me once more. “But I really wanted to watch you walk away in your dress twice.”
I backed away from the car, flattered and scandalized. “Inappropriate!”
“I do love you, though,” he called.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Mom!” Cameron hollered. “Were two of our cabinet doors … stolen?”
“That would be a very weird burglary, wouldn’t it?” my mom replied.
She’d removed the two lower cabinets at the hinges, exposing Cameron’s hand mixer, bags of flour, and plastic piping bags.
“Those are my test doors,” my mom explained. “So I can make sure the color is right.”
“Why my baking supply cabinets?” Cameron asked.
“Those doors are the least visible to anyone walking into the kitchen.” My mom—diplomatically, I thought—withheld that all the cabinets belonged to her, even the baking supply ones.
“If anything, it’s just easier to take your stuff out and put it away,” I said, trying to be helpful.
Cameron’s eyes shot to me. “I don’t want my supplies to get dusty.”
“Well,” my mom said, terse now, “I’ll be working on them today, so you won’t have to bear it for long.”
I joined my mom in the backyard, and watched over my laptop screen as she flicked on the electric sander. I stretched my legs out, yoga pants warming in the sun. On today’s docket, my Biggest Challenge essay. I’d long known I wouldn’t write about Aaron or about my grandmother—they were losses to be mourned, not lessons to be learned.
Since Homecoming, I’d settled into the idea of Max applying to schools near mine. But my body’s absolute freak-out proved what I had to do: write, as best I could, about the anxiety that had trailed me for seventeen years—occasionally leaping out but always lurking.
When I considered scrapping the meager words I’d gotten down, I watched my mom with her surgical mask and determined brow, scouring off the layer that didn’t work. I forced attention back to the page, to sand it down.
After dinner, Cameron went upstairs, but I stayed in the kitchen to help with dishes.
“I wanted to talk about the possibility of taking a senior trip.” I pulled my shoulders back, readying myself to speak fast but steady. “Kayleigh planned a senior trip to Florida over spring break. Her dad and Lisa are staying in the next town over for their honeymoon, so it would be chaperoned. It’s very affordable, and I’d pay for it myself.”
My mom stayed quiet for a long time. Organizing, I knew, the many objections she’d level against the idea. “Next town over isn’t exactly a chaperone, is it?”
“Well,” I said, “we’d have parents very nearby.”
I couldn’t read my mom’s expression—receptive? Annoyed? “It’d be you, Tessa, Morgan, and Kayleigh?”
“Yep. And Ryan, Max, Malcolm, and Josiah.” I tried to sandwich Max’s name in there, like she wouldn’t notice. Rookie move—I saw that now. It sounded guilty.
“Max would be going?” She looked at me as if I’d asked her to sponsor a couples retreat to Cancún, complete with tequila discretionary fund. “You’re asking to vacation with your boyfriend?”
“No, no! It’s a whole friend-group thing. Max is part of the group—that’s all.”
She frowned, briefly picturing this, but shook her head. “I’m sorry; I have to say no. It’s not appropriate, you cohabitating with your boyfriend for a week.”
“It’s not—” I huffed, cutting myself off when I heard my tone. “That’s really not what it is.”
“It’s not you and Max living together for a week?”
Was she serious? “Are you intentionally trying to make this sound nefarious?”
“I am intentionally,” she said, “making judgment calls as a mother.”
I’d known she wouldn’t love the spring break idea—the long drive, the distance, the possibility of drinking. I didn’t expect her to get most caught up on Max’s presence or how it would look to other parents.
Walk away, Paige. I felt the call in my chest, intuition singing. Instead, I doubled down like a reckless moron. “You’re going to have to trust me to make good decisions on my own next year, you know …”
“Yes, I will. And until then, this is my jurisdiction,” she said, gesturing to the entirety of our household. “And this isn’t an appropriate scenario for two seventeen-year-olds.”
Angry tears filled my eyes. Did I even need her permission if I was paying for everything? “So, should my friends all go without me? Or should Kayleigh uninvite just Max?”
My mom threw her hands up, right as the side door opened.
“Hey! I brought you that …,” my dad said. He stopped in his tracks, staring at our postures. “Drill bit … What am I walking into?”
“Parental distrust,” I snapped. “Based on zero evidence.”
“Your daughter,” my mom said, “is asking to vacation with her boyfriend.”
“I am not. Dad. My friends are planning a spring break trip. Kayleigh’s dad and Lisa would be there. It’s safe and cheap and—”
“And that doesn’t change the inappropriateness of—”
“Whoa.” My dad held his arms out, separating us and silencing us at once. He swiped his hands a few times, eyes squinted closed as he thought. When he opened them, he motioned to me. “You, upstairs. No, don’t give me that look; I’ll be up in a minute.”
I went, feeling childish and frustrated at myself. What was the point of being well behaved if my mom didn’t trust me anyway? I fired off a few ranty texts to Tessa before my dad knocked. He kept one hand on the doorframe as he leaned into my room. “What would the sleeping arrangements be?”
“I’d be upstairs in bunk beds with Tess.”
“And our good friend Max?” he asked dryly.
“On a pullout couch with Ryan downstairs.” I held my hands out, earnest and desperate to be seen as such. “Or whatever Mom feels comfortable with. I swear, it’s—”
“Ah, ah,” he said, cutting me off. “And you can cool it a little, okay? Your mom is only trying to keep you safe, which she does a pretty great
job of, by the way.”
Before I could huff that he owed my safety to my own decision making, he popped back out of the room.
I stewed in the silence, mentally enumerating my valid points. Did she have any idea about her incredible good luck? I followed rules to an almost pathological degree! She’d written articles about bullying, shoplifting, teens running gambling rings. But I wanted to go on a trip with my equally well-behaved friends and suddenly I’m a risk?
By the time my mom knocked, I was seething. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah.” I said it in my “no” tone of voice, though.
She sat on the corner of my bed, leveling her field of vision with mine.
“I’m giving the trip a tentative yes.” When my face lit up, she held up one finger, stopping me. “Tentative. And I have stipulations. I’ll be talking with Mr. Hutchins at length. I might task him with surprise check-ins.”
“That’s fine,” I said quickly. I mean, embarrassing as hell, but better than nothing.
Her lips pursed as she let out a long sigh. “If there’s alcohol there, Paige—and I’m not naïve about that—it can lower your inhibitions.”
“I know.”
“And if you’re with a boyfriend, unsupervised in a house for a week, you could feel caught up in the moment or even pressured. That’s not a statement about Max; it’s just the reality that making an informed decision when—”
“Mom,” I said. “I’ve been friends with Morgan Sullivan for half my life. I understand consent.”
Morgan didn’t dial down her beliefs—not about sex and agency, not about her faith and personal abstinence—for anyone, even parents. So my mom knew full well that I’d heard my options.
“I know you do. But it can feel less straightforward in the moment, and I don’t want you to ever regret something that …” She trailed off, sighing, and I startled at the realization that she might be speaking from experience.
“I hear you,” I said. “Thanks, Mom.”
She watched me for a moment, resigned. “Well, you can thank your father.”
“Is he still here?”
“No, he went home. Had more grading to do.” She stood up, turning to go.