by Emery Lord
“Whoa, Hancock. Hey.” He sat in a nearby seat and tugged me down beside him.
“Sorry.” I wiped my face frantically, clearing evidence of my outburst. “God, this day completely wrecked me.”
“It sucked.” Hunter leaned in, elbows on his knees as if he were sitting in the dugout. “Okay. One at a time here. What’s going on with Max?”
Obviously, I couldn’t tell him about today’s bickering match. Besides, I’d spent the past few hours wondering if some bigger issue lurked beneath Max’s gripes about Hunter. Hunter’s presence was an easy problem to latch onto, more immediate.
“I don’t know.” I threw my hands up, embarrassed to sound like such a dramatic person. “We’re off, and I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.”
“You want my advice?” When I nodded, he frowned thoughtfully. It warmed my mood a bit, that Hunter Chen would take my problems seriously. “Keep fighting. It means you’re trying to get your side out there, that you care.”
“Keep fighting?” I scoffed. Clearly he didn’t know that part of that fight was about him.
“Look, I don’t really know Max. But I know you, and I know the way you talked about him all summer.”
It felt like a long time ago, when our idea of the future extended only to being back in the same city. Everything revved toward that, the anticipation. Now we were angled toward next fall, parting ways. Or at least, I was.
Hunter turned, a sad smile. “You don’t want to wonder whether you left it all on the field.”
It seemed simple when he said it that way.
“Yeah,” he said, more sure this time. “Trust me on that.”
“Is Julia home for the holidays?” I hadn’t wondered about her until this moment because apparently this was Paige Is a Jerk to Her Friends Week.
“She is,” he said, unreadable.
“Are you going to see her?”
“Probably on New Year’s. Friend-group overlap. You know.” Defeat looked out of place on Hunter Chen’s handsome face, and I hated dragging his mood down with me. “I think she’s going out with someone at school. He’s shown up in a few pics.”
I knew how to get a smile out of him, and I only hesitated because I could hear Max’s voice, accusatory. And it was partially out of lingering annoyance that I said, “Well, I bet you’re better looking.”
He pointed a finger at me, like he knew exactly what I was doing. After a moment, he smiled. “It’s true; I am.”
For the next few days, a dusting of snow made the world seem quiet, and I went quiet inside myself, too. I texted with Max, but only surface updates, and I chatted with Maeve at length.
I knew Tessa was home by now, but I hadn’t heard a word from her. Her Christmas gift sat wrapped on my dresser, a painful reminder festooned in gold paper.
After I finished with Maeve, I wandered downstairs. My dad had taken Cameron to spend a gift card somewhere, and my mom was on a step stool, straightening a drop cloth on the countertops. The paint cans were popped open and waiting.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said. “How was your chat with Miss Maeve?”
“Good. Can I paint with you?”
“Sure. You want to prime that section?” She pointed near the sink.
Lately, she’d taken to wearing silk scarves that belonged to my grandmother, tied neatly around her neck or, like now, pushing her hair back like a headband. We worked in silence, under the sounds of NPR on an old radio my dad dredged up for her. After I rolled the first few stripes of primer evenly, my mom nodded approvingly, and I took my moment.
“Did you have a boyfriend when you left for college?” I knew she had a boyfriend or two in high school, one longer relationship in college. But she never shared details, and I’d never wondered before.
“I did. Pete Warner.”
She said the name as if it contained all necessary information.
“When did you break up?”
The pause she took—I knew it well. She’d paused like this many times in my life: when I asked why swear words were bad if they were only words, when I asked if getting your period hurt. When I asked anything that didn’t have a straightforward answer.
“About two months into college,” she said finally.
My mom, by all observation, enjoyed telling me what to do. Curfew. Rules. Various and sundry nagging. And Lord knew, she was always asking about Max and me. So why, when I actually wanted her suggestion, was she making me work for it?
“Gotcha.” I tried to mask my disappointment, but my voice sagged down.
“He and I … we had a fun time together,” she said. “But it wasn’t a very deep connection. It didn’t hold up when we were apart. Not meant to be, that’s all.”
Did Max and I have a deep connection—is that what she was saying? If someday I had a teenage daughter of my own and she asked about my high school boyfriend … would Max be an old memory, a name I hadn’t said aloud in years? That seemed unfathomable, Max Watson as a footnote in my life story. Besides, our relationship did hold up apart—three summer months that felt steady and good.
I sighed again, closing my eyes for a moment. “Tessa’s officially going to that school in Chicago.”
She nodded, like it all made sense, but she didn’t look away from her painting. “Ah. Near Laurel?”
“Yeah.”
“She was considering LA and New York before, right?”
“And Nashville.” I mean, this wasn’t just about me. “It’s not like her, right? To base a decision around someone else.”
“Hmm.” My mom kept her lips together, mulling. “She’s excited about the program?”
I idly swiped more primer, stretching up as far as I could reach. “Yeah. I guess it’s kind of an alternative school. Which is great. But, like, if you were Tessa’s mom, wouldn’t you be worried?”
She raised her eyebrows, and I hoped that meant she was stumped. Like, as a mother, she had to admit this was a bad idea. “Well, to be fair, I’m always worried.”
The comment was meant to put me at ease, but I couldn’t be deterred.
“Don’t you think it’s going to end badly?” I prodded. God, I was being so transparent, trying to pry my mom’s opinion into my own. Desperate for the win. “What kind of friend would I be if I glossed over that?”
“You know what I think?” She smiled, a bit sadly. “I think this isn’t the last time you’ll approach a major life decision differently than Tessa. Or any of your friends.”
I wanted to mumble about this cop-out answer, but even I had reached the limit of my bratty streak. I felt my shoulders droop.
My mom continued. “You wouldn’t base your college decision around Max—I know that. Partially because of who you innately are and partially because, well … half your childhood, you had a single mom.”
“True.” And I absorbed a few important things: that my mom had a happy life without partnership, and that she had independence through work she cared about. I wanted those things. I prioritized those things.
“Tessa’s grown up with her parents’ relationship as a bedrock for what happiness looks like in adulthood. Does that make sense?”
So had Morgan, with her so-in-love-it’s-gross parents. Kayleigh and me, not so much. I nodded, considering this. “I’m not a total cynic—maybe she and Laurel will be together forever! I just don’t want her to lose her whole self in it.”
“I know,” my mom said. “But maybe trust Tessa to know herself and her priorities, eh? It sounds like she’d love this school regardless of Laurel.”
I sulked a little, loathing to be wrong. After a moment, I sighed and looked up at the cabinets, blocks of streaky white soaking in. I’d have to go grovel.
“I’ll finish it,” my mom said. “It’s okay. Go.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Instead of giving me a directive to return before dinner or wear a coat, my mom—was I imagining it?—looked a little proud of me.
“We don’t have ice-cream sandwiches,”
she said. “But I’m willing to donate two of my Klondike bars to the cause.”
When we were little, Tessa saw a movie on vacation that we’d promised we’d see together when she got home. She wanted to see it again anyway, but my tender fourth-grade feelings were still hurt. She came over to apologize with two melty ice-cream sandwiches in hand, and it had been a tradition ever since. We just didn’t often have occasion to apologize to each other these days.
I walked the line of trees between our neighborhoods, wet leaves glomming onto my boots. The cold kept the ice cream from melting, though I longed to put my hands in my pockets.
Tessa’s parents had video security, and I held up the Klondike bars to the camera. She must have checked the screen because, opening the door, Tessa looked unsurprised. Her skin was tan and freckled against an oversize cream sweater, and she’d wrangled her curls into a loose braid. Truly, I aspired to this level of weekend loungewear instead of flannel jammie pants and faded T-shirts from random middle school events.
“I was a jerk,” I said.
She leaned her head against the doorframe, appraising me. “Maybe a little. But I bit back way too hard.”
I lifted one shoulder. Sure, her words punctured like darts, but mostly because they hit the bull’s-eye.
“And I do know …,” she began, trailing off with a sigh. “I do know that my life is cushy. I’m really trying to own that and, like, figure out how to put it to use.”
I nodded, hearing Laurel in between her words, the rests between the notes. The conversations, slow and steady, that become the ways love changes you. “Mine is too, honestly. But I got jealous. I got jealous that you have a set plan.”
“You got jealous.” She laughed, blowing a curl out of her face. “I got jealous of you in New York.”
I furrowed my brows. She did? “But when you visited in June, we had such a good weekend.”
I’d wanted to laugh-cry in relief to have the person I knew best in a city I’d only just met. I’d introduced Tessa to my new friends like an overeager kid at show-and-tell. After that, Tessa and I camped out in her hotel room, switching intensity between elation about her new girlfriend and the pressing issue of coming out to her parents.
“I know,” Tessa said. “But you were so clearly clicking with Maeve and everyone. And I don’t know any of that film stuff.”
She stared down at her bare feet, toes painted burgundy. Had I ever seen Tessa McMahon look embarrassed? She was … jealous. Or at least, taken aback to see me fit in somewhere other than with her. Before I could explain how no one—including Maeve—would ever supersede our lifetime of friendship, Tessa held up a hand and repeated, like she could hear my thoughts, “No, I know.”
If she’d gone off to New York and made a new close friend—found a future that excited her—I would have been sucked into jealousy like quicksand. But I always thought Tessa was impervious to envy like that. “I should have thought about that.”
“Nah,” she said. “I should have gotten over myself. I’m happy for you.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said. “About Tate. I really am.”
She held out her hand, waiting for the ice cream offering, which I placed in her palm. Then she stepped back and opened the door for me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
New Year’s Eve, we’d always lounged at Tessa’s house. But the List dictated a New Year’s Eve party, so I shimmied into a silver dress drudged up in the messy Target clearance aisle. Tessa got us tickets to a local band showcase at the Carmichael, and I got a rare, one-night curfew extension. But Max was still skiing, so it’s not like I had someone to kiss. And it’s not like he would have danced with me anyway.
But I liked the music so far, and I liked Laurel’s friends from home, who were mingling with us, laughing. My mind tugged toward Max again, the unsettledness I still felt between us. Fanning my face, I stepped toward the bar.
Laurel sidled up to me. She’d swept her box braids into a bun, showing off a low-backed velvet dress. “Having fun?”
“Yeah! I know cover bands are supposed to be cheesy or something, but I’m into them!”
“Me too!” Her smile was bright, but I could feel her hesitating—waiting for something. “So, uh, I heard you and Tess went a couple of rounds about Tate.”
She mimed fisticuffs, punching the air gently, and I wanted to sink into the sticky cement floors. I pressed my hands against my face. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. I hope you don’t think that had anything to do with—”
“Sorry?” Laurel leaned her elbows on the bar. “I was going to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“Yeah! I was freaking out about Tess going to school in Chicago.” I recoiled in surprise, and she laughed happily at my shock. “I was thrilled, too. But I didn’t know if she was going because of me. What if I want to transfer schools in the future? What if she hates the school or the city and resents me for it? What if the choices put so much pressure on our relationship that it breaks?”
That sounded familiar. “Oh my God. Yes. Exactly.”
“Plus, Northwestern is something I worked really hard for! Chicago feels like my thing, even though I want Tess there with me every second.”
“No, I totally get that. Completely.”
“But since you brought it up with her, we talked it out. I mean, maybe you didn’t approach it perfectly …”
“I did not,” I confirmed, and she laughed again.
“But we had a great talk, and I feel solid about it now.”
“I’m glad. Not my finest hour.” The bartender plopped two waters in front of us, and I left two bucks on the bar—something I’d learned from watching Tessa. “Is it hard being long distance?”
“Sometimes. I’m trying not to grip too tightly, you know?” Laurel opened her hand, as if setting a lightning bug free. “Because that’d be desperation at work. I’m trying to give her room. Give myself room. And hope that this keeps being what we both want.”
“That’s good advice,” I said.
Seconds before midnight, the countdown mounted higher and higher, voices rowdy. I stood in the center of it all, still. Why did this feel like a seismic shift, from 11:59 p.m. to midnight? One year was always becoming the next anyway, and this was only one calendar, one way of counting. But suddenly, it was here: my graduation year, the year I’d leave home. I sent Max a kiss emoji, lost for any other shorthand to convey how I felt.
Incongruous. That’s how I felt. Sulking in a glittery dress, worrying about the future while standing in a celebration of now.
Kayleigh slung an arm over my shoulder, smacking a kiss onto my cheek before racing to join Tessa and Laurel near the stage. The cover band shrieked into a Queen song.
Morgan stayed behind, close to me. “You missing Max?”
“Something like that.” I clasped her hand. I wasn’t sure if she even remembered talking to me about fertility in a stranger’s bathroom, but I kept my promise not to bring it up. Still, I couldn’t un-know the fact that my friend was hurting.
She squeezed my hand. “He’ll be home soon.”
We’d been in touch, of course. Ryan’s sister brought her boyfriend, the first outsider to get an invite. (Max liked him.) Max’s mom seemed relaxed, which made Max happy. (She beat him in Scrabble, which made him mad.) Max loved the slopes. (Ryan wiped out hard on a snowboard but sustained only ego and tailbone bruises.)
Ryan had posted a photo of Max in the hot tub yesterday, glasses off and glancing at the backdrop of snow-capped hills. Only his shoulders were visible, so it wasn’t a scandalous pic. Ryan had, however, captioned it: YOU’RE WELCOME, PAIGE! By the time I saw it after work, Max had already commented When did you even take this, creep? and our friends had left a series of enthusiastic, teasing messages.
For a brief moment, everything felt normal. Like summertime, like we were a given. Before complications crawled in like vines overtaking a garden.
A text came in, the same kiss emoji returned to me. M
iss you, girl. I imagined him in the ski lodges I’d seen in movies, crackling fires and hot toddy. Ryan singing “Auld Lang Syne,” probably. Bing Crosby making late-night sandwiches.
Come back to me soon, I wrote. A text, a benediction, a New Year’s wish. As I sent it off, I closed my eyes and saw flashes of the year I’d left behind, an Oscars reel in my mind. Losing my grandmother. Plummeting off the deep end, racing after Max. New York. Every long hour at the cinema, every hour hunched behind my computer writing. Staggering out of my battered car, Hunter’s arm braced around me. Struggling to breathe, to calm my mind.
For being the same 365 days as any other Gregorian calendar year, my God—what an incredibly long year it had been. Four months until May 1, when college decisions would be final. I looked down at my silver dress, at the girl I was right now, the one who’d worked so hard on her portfolios and aimed high. I thought of the lost, grief-stricken Paige of sophomore year and the hesitant junior Paige, baby-stepping out of her comfort zone. What was I doing now, side-lining myself and watching the fun from afar? That wasn’t me—not anymore.
I squeezed Morgan’s hand again, and she looked over, eyes pulled from the crowd she’d been watching contentedly. For the briefest moment, I hesitated, thinking of Max’s disinterest at Homecoming. “Wanna dance?”
Morgan gave me a look, eyes bright beneath the purple mascara she used on special occasions. “Um, only always.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
You think you understand reluctance. You think you have procrastinated before. But not until second semester of senior year do you truly understand the depths to which you, a supposedly good student, can sink.
I was less “reading” Beowulf than “dragging my eyes across the words of” Beowulf. I reminded myself that this was foundational literature. That Seamus Heaney translated it, and I liked his poetry. That once I managed to craft a coherent paper, I could move on to Kate Chopin and Toni Morrison.