The Best Possible Answer

by E. Katherine Kottaras

  “This is so depressing,” Sammie says. “This is just the summer of suck. It won’t stop raining, you’re a mess, in one month I’m moving to a new apartment and a new school, and I now have to listen to those two all afternoon.”

  “Not exactly summer perfection, huh?”

  “Nope. Far from it.” She reads from her phone. “‘Your mood may be swayed by electronic disturbances from the planetary shifts that are inevitable and real. It’s not too late to take charge, though. Change it up. Move a little. Play some music and dance. Take a risk, and you’ll find that those around you will respond in kind. Perhaps even the planets will move with you, too.’”

  “Is that mine or yours?”

  “Mine.” She presses a few more buttons on her phone. “You don’t want to know yours. ‘Worries about the integrity of important relationships in your life … taking action … letting them know what’s on your mind—’”

  “That’s enough, thanks.”

  “Yeah. Like I said.”

  Evan arrives for work, and Sammie and I shift in our seats uncomfortably.

  He comes into the office, stuffs his jacket into his locker, and puts on his whistle.

  He looks at me. “Are you okay?”

  “What?” It’s the first time he’s talked to me in a month.

  “I don’t know. You look like you’re upset about something. Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I mean, kind of.” I look at Sammie. “I’m fine.”

  “Okay…,” he says, but he says it like it’s a question, like he doesn’t believe me. He has a guitar with him, which he places under the counter next to me. “Do you mind if I leave this here? Can you keep an eye on it?”

  “Sure,” I say. “Go for it.”

  Sammie perks up. “You should play for us. Professor Cox and Virgo are in the middle of a sing-along, and my horoscope is saying that I should get up and dance.” She kicks my leg. “Vivi, wouldn’t you like to hear him play?”

  What is she doing? “Um, sure?”

  Evan gives me a funny look. It’s a look of betrayal. Of distrust. Like he knows that the girl who kissed him and then went crazy and threw him away is lying to him. Again.

  “Maybe,” he says. “We’ll see.” He grabs his rescue tube and heads toward the water.

  “What was that?”

  “I know you’re in crisis mode, but I’m not giving up on you.”

  “You honestly think that getting into a relationship with someone is going to be the thing that helps me?”

  “No,” she says. “I think confronting your parents and demanding that they pay for the many years of therapy they owe you is going to be the thing that helps. But you have to face the truth, Vivi. Besides me, you don’t have anyone else. And I’m leaving the city in a month. So having another friend, someone like Evan, who genuinely likes you, who genuinely cares about you, can’t hurt, either.”

  “Ugh.” I slide into my chair. “I really hate you sometimes, you know that?”

  “Yeah, I know,” she says. “Because you know I’m right. I’m always right.”

  * * *

  The rains come again a few hours later, complete with a cold wind, lightning and thunder, and small chunks of hail. Professor Cox doesn’t want to get out of the water, even though he’s getting blasted by ice, and Virgo has to yell at him that the pool is closed and that if he doesn’t get out, he’ll have to call security. That doesn’t work, either, but Professor Cox gets out when Evan finally yells, “Okay, then, Professor Cox, how about the police?”

  He scrambles out of the water and runs out of the pool area, leaving his towel on a chair.

  Evan and Virgo duck into the office out of the hail.

  “I feel bad,” Evan says. “I shouldn’t have threatened him with the police.”

  Virgo asks, “Do you think he’ll be teaching in the fall?”

  “No,” Sammie says. “He’s going on a sort of emergency sabbatical for a year. My mom’s been helping to advocate for him. But I don’t know if she’s going to help as much after we move.”

  “You’re moving?” Virgo asks. “Where to?”

  “The suburbs.” Sammie sticks her finger in her mouth and fake gags.

  “A new school for senior year?” Evan says. “That sucks.”

  “Well, maybe,” Sammie says. “I’m thinking about getting my GED this fall and taking classes at the local community college in the spring.”

  This is news to me. “You’re going to do what?”

  “I’ve been talking to my mom about it. I don’t want to start over twice—first at a new high school, and then again when I go to college next year. She’s a little worried about me being by myself so much, but she also agrees that I’m old enough to decide for myself. She told me to take a few weeks to think about it. I mean, she hasn’t even rented a new place yet. Our lease is up in September, so I have some time to figure it out.”

  I know Sammie is going through so much, like me—losing her dad last year, now moving out of the city—but I can’t help feeling a little bit jealous that she’s dealing with it all so well, that she’s figuring things out.

  “That sounds very cool,” Virgo says. “I think you’ve got to do what’s right for you.”

  Evan pulls out his guitar and strums a few chords. “Sometimes that’s easier said than done.”

  The hail beats down harder now. The chunks are pretty substantial, the size of small pebbles. They crack and burst on the cement. Virgo shuts the office door. “This storm is crazy.”

  Evan plucks at his guitar. He plays a few scales and then starts to hum. He looks up at me and smiles.

  “Play something for us,” I say. “I want to hear you sing.”

  I can feel the surprise in the room, from Evan especially.

  “Really?” he asks.

  “Yes, really.”

  “What do you want me to play?”

  “I don’t know. Anything. Something you wrote?”

  Evan leans into his guitar and begins with a soft song. It’s so quiet, at first, that I can hardly hear it, what with the pounding of the hail above. But then his volume picks up and he begins to strum at a quick rhythm. He starts to sing. His voice is smooth and clear. I recognize the subject of the song. I recognize the time and the place. I recognize the moment. “Follow me into the water,” he sings, “away from the falling sky, where we’ll dance, maybe kiss, maybe question the world. I’ll swim into your arms. How quiet it will be.”

  He finishes the song, and Virgo and Sammie explode into applause.

  “Evan,” Sammie exclaims, “I had no idea! You’re amazing!”

  “I don’t know about amazing,” he says. “But thanks. That means a lot to me.”

  He looks up at me. “What’d you think?”

  I want to cry. Here’s this person, this nice, kind, gentle person. He likes me. He asks me how I am. He writes songs about me. Back in June, when we were having real conversations about parents and life and our desires for more, he was nice and funny and kind.

  And yet. It’s the wrong time. I can’t return the feeling. I’m empty. I have nothing left inside to give.

  “It was beautiful,” I force myself to say. “Really beautiful.”

  It’s the truth.

  The hail lets up, and now it’s only rain falling down on us. Virgo stands up. “Well, pool’s closed, and we’ve got another free afternoon. We could head back up to the roof, have another game of Extreme Ping-Pong? If I remember correctly, Evan needs to redeem himself.”

  “Better yet,” Evan says, “you guys want to come up to our place? Our dorm has a pool table. We could try for a game of Extreme Billiards—”

  Sammie jumps up. “I love that idea!”

  “I hate that idea,” I say. “Extreme Billiards sounds extremely dangerous.”

  “Come on,” Sammie says. “It’s not like you have to be home—”

  “I kind of just want to go to your apartment and take a nap.”

  “No,” Sammie
says, laughing. “No nap. You’re coming with us. End of story.”

  “Ugh,” I groan. “But I’m so tired.”

  Evan looks at me. “Come with us, Vivi. It’ll be fun. You can help me beat Virgo with your Extreme tournament skills.”

  I think about what Sammie said. That she’s going to be gone soon. That I’m going to need a friend besides her. Someone who cares about me. “Okay,” I say. “Fine. I’ll come up for a little bit.” But no kissing, I think to myself.

  No kissing, no boyfriends, no more breaking hearts.

  * * *

  We take the bus a few miles north to the campus of St. Mary’s. Their dorm is an old brick building a few blocks away from the central quad. We enter the lobby, to find it packed with people. “Crap,” Virgo says. “I forgot. It’s Sleepover Weekend.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A bunch of incoming freshmen stay overnight so that they can get a preview of college life,” Evan explains. “The RAs fill them with free pizza and get them drunk and then make them promise not to tell their parents. It’s why we have the highest student satisfaction rate in Illinois, particularly among underclassmen.”

  We head to the basement, where the pool table is, but some of the weekend visitors are in the midst of a game. “Damn high schoolers,” Virgo says, and then he looks at Sammie and me. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Sammie says.

  Virgo and Evan give us a quick tour of the common area. It smells like microwave popcorn and patchouli (a sort of gross combination), but it also makes me want to live on my own.

  I can’t believe that I’m not going to Stanford. That I bombed everything except that stupid physics test. I know there are other options, other colleges that I could still get into, but I haven’t even thought about any. My father was so hell-bent on my following in his footsteps, I never even thought to research anything else.

  The thought of it makes me dizzy and a little nauseous, but the last thing I need is to have an Episode right now. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down.

  Evan and Virgo lead us up to their room on the fifth floor. Virgo unlocks the door and pushes it open. “Welcome to our man cave.”

  “It’s way cleaner than I expected,” Sammie says. And it is. The decor is sort of typical boy—navy blue and gray comforters, a few posters on the walls, and Christmas lights strung on their bunk beds—but overall, it’s pretty nice, and it smells much better than the common room.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” Virgo plugs in his phone and turns on Spotify. “Tame Impala?”

  “That works.” Evan sits down on the bottom bunk—his bed, I presume—while Virgo climbs to the top. Sammie takes the one chair in the room, so that the only place for me is either next to Evan on the bed or on the floor. I choose the floor.

  Virgo leans over the top bunk. “Want to contribute to the satisfaction rate?”

  “Are you seriously thinking about getting us drunk?” Sammie says. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

  “No, you dork.” Virgo laughs. He sits up and pulls out his phone. “I’m hungry and I was just going to offer all the free pizza you want.”

  “Oh, got it,” Sammie says. “Sure. That sounds good.”

  After a few minutes of debating crust thickness and toppings (we settle on corn bread, half–Canadian bacon and pineapple, half-pepperoni), Virgo tries to call in our order. “An hour and a half for delivery versus half an hour pickup? Forget that. I’ll just come get it.”

  Evan takes a few cans of pop out of the small fridge next to the desk and passes them around to us. We toast: “To rainy August days, drunk freshmen, and pizza deliberation.”

  Evan takes out his guitar and starts to play again. I lean against the bed and watch him. I can’t help but feel sad at the thought of him—the thought that there’s this really nice person who I can’t let into my life—not because of who he is, but because of how hurt I am.

  My phone dings and I pull it out of my bag. Sammie’s sent me a covert text: You are smitten.

  I don’t write back. Instead, I just glare at her and shake my head.

  About twenty minutes later, Virgo jumps down from the top bunk. “Time to get the ’za.”

  “I’ll come with you!” Sammie says before she turns and winks at me.

  They are out the door before I can protest or offer to join them or figure out some excuse for not being left alone here with Evan.

  Thankfully, they leave the door wide open. The hallway is packed with the laughter and running of all the weekend visitors, but in here it’s dark, and it’s relatively quiet. It’s just Evan and me, and I’m not sure what to say or do.

  Evan puts away his guitar and then he sits on the floor next to me. “May I?”

  I nod. He’s so close, I can feel his warmth, hear his breath, smell his clothes—a perfect mixture of fresh dampness from the rain and fabric softener. He’s familiar and comfortable, and yet I feel like I should maybe get up and run far away from him.

  But I don’t.

  He looks at me. “How are you?”

  I laugh. “You’re always asking me that.”

  “Am I?” He smiles. “Well, I guess it’s because I want to know.”

  “I’m okay, I guess.”

  “That’s not very convincing.”

  “It’s been a rough summer,” I say. “A very rough summer.”

  He hangs his arms over his bent knees and nods. “Seems like it. Want to talk about it?”

  “Not particularly,” I say. “But thank you.”

  I don’t feel like telling him, but I do feel this strange desire, this need to lean against him, to rest my head on his shoulder.

  So I do.

  He leans back against me, and then he kisses the top of my head.

  “You’re so nice to me.”

  “I try.”

  “I do remember,” I say finally. “Anne Boyd’s party. Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

  “You remember?”

  “The last fifteen seconds? You were my first kiss. Of course I remember.”

  He laughs. “Oh no! I was your first kiss? I kind of want to apologize or something. I hope I didn’t ruin you for life.”

  “No way.” I shake my head. “Not at all. If anything, you set the bar high. And, I mean, nothing’s hotter than making out on the uncomfortable edge of a cold bathtub. Nothing has compared since.”

  He laughs. “Seriously. What could be better than shower curtains and shaving cream?”

  “Wait a minute. So I wasn’t your first kiss? You were what, twelve?”

  “Thirteen, thank you very much. And I’ll admit: I’d played Seven Minutes in Heaven before. In fact, I was drafted into the minor leagues at the end of eighth grade.”

  We both crack up.

  “In all honesty,” he says, “you were my second kiss.”

  “Really?”

  He nods.

  “And you set the bar high, as well.”

  All of this talk about kissing really makes me want to kiss him.

  I think we’re about to, when a group of kids runs down the hallway screaming, which startles us both.

  “You’d think they’d never been away from home before,” Evan says with a laugh, which breaks the weird intensity of the moment.

  “They probably haven’t,” I say. “I mean, my parents rarely let me go anywhere, so I kind of get it.”

  He looks at me. “They’re pretty protective, huh?”

  “Well, they were. Now they don’t know what to do with me.”

  Now there’s not much they can do with me, I think.

  “Viviana—”

  I look up.

  “Vivana, is that you?”

  “Oh no.” Standing at the edge of the open door is Dean. Dean of the HushDuo legacy. Dean of the Biggest Ass on the North Side of Chicago legacy. Dean—the guy who ruined my reputation and broke my heart.

  Evan looks at me. “You two know each other?”

  “I’m Dean.” He ste
ps inside the room and puts out his hand. He’s holding a red cup that smells like some kind of hard liquor and his eyes are glazed over. He’s plastered. “I knew Viviana in a past life.” He says this with a creepy, drunk smirk on his face. My heart drops to the pit of my core. “We used to go to school together, before I transferred out of that hellhole of a place.”

  “Um … okay,” Evan says before releasing Dean’s hand.

  Dean looks at me. “Are you applying to St. Mary’s?”

  I stumble over my words. “No—I mean, I’m not sure—I mean—”

  “I never took you as a local girl. I thought you had bigger and better dreams, like Stanford or Harvard or some snotty place like that.”

  What an ass. Which is what I want to say. But I’m too shocked or hurt or confused by the fact that he’s standing five feet in front of me to articulate anything of value. Plus, the last thing I need is to explain all that to Evan.

  My phone dings. It’s a text from Sammie: If you haven’t started sucking his face, make it happen now, because we are on our way back.

  I ignore her message and throw my phone back into my bag.

  Dean’s still standing there, staring at me. “After everything that happened, I’m shocked, and frankly somewhat appalled, that you still have a phone. That you’re still willing to take that risk again.”

  Oh no.

  No, no, no.

  I look at Dean, and then Evan, and I think about everything else that Dean could say right now that could ruin this—whatever this is—between Evan and me.

  “It’s—it’s just a phone— I mean, how dare you even stand there—” I try to get the words out, to stand up for myself, but I am immediately nauseous and dizzy—and my breath is gone—completely gone. I am sitting firmly on the floor, but I feel like I’m falling, spiraling, plunging back into the disaster that is my past.

  Evan gets up and starts to close the door as a signal for Dean to leave. “You’re clearly bothering her, and so I think it’s time for you to go.”

  Dean chugs the rest of his drink. “And I think it’s none of your business.”

  “You’re standing in my room and clearly bothering my friend, so it very well is my business.”