Meet Me at Midnight

by Jessica Pennington

  “Since when?”

  “Since … forever?” I push a hand through my hair. “And I know it’s easy money, and I can have this whole business just waiting for me when I graduate, but I know I’ll regret it. I want to coach. I’ve always wanted to coach. And I get that it’s a long shot maybe, but”—god, I’m rambling like Sidney now—“I’d rather try for that and fail than go for a sure thing that I’m never going to care about.”

  Dad looks to the house again, and I finally realize what he’s looking for. Mom. His other half, the person he wants to face this hurdle with. I thought I’d face this hurdle—telling my dad—with Sidney. That I’d finally work up the nerve to tell him, and I’d get to tell her, and we’d celebrate. I had imagined pancakes would be involved. Or a late-night make-out session. Maybe both.

  But at least she left me with something. “I want to study sports psychology. And I have a plan.” I pull out the list I made this morning in my bedroom when I was too afraid to run into Sidney in the kitchen, and I set it on the table. “Do you want to hear it?”

  DAY 56

  Asher

  We take this picture every year on the last day of vacation, after our cars are loaded and we’re ready to drive back home. Each family out on the end of the dock. And if someone manages to remember a tripod, both families out on the dock. And then it’s always me and Sidney at the end of the dock. The kids. If photos had names, like famous paintings, that’s what our parents would call this one. Usually, we do something funny. Sidney pretends to strangle me, or we pose as if she’s about to push me off of the dock. But I know we never actually hated each other before, because those pictures were fun, and now I can’t even figure out how to stand next to her. So I walk down the dock and stand behind her.

  She’s still wearing the necklace—the one I bought her two years ago—the one I probably never should have given to her. Maybe she was right all along, maybe we were doomed from the start, and I ruined everything trying to take us to that place. All the summers to come. But something about seeing that silver chain around her neck just makes me feel worse. That she wants the necklace, but not me. It seems unfair, cruel, and I understand why people want engagement rings back. Sure, it’s her necklace, but why does she even want it, when she doesn’t want me?

  I should just stand here and smile, but it seems more appropriate to do something antagonistic. Something that’s a throwback to the pictures of summers past. But I don’t mock-strangle her, or push her into the lake; I do something that will actually annoy her. I wrap my arms around her shoulders and I smile. Now our photo is just like the others … a total lie.

  14 DAYS AFTER

  Sidney

  On the desk in my dorm room, there’s a small envelope of photos. They arrived this morning, marking exactly two weeks since the world’s most awkward end-of-summer photo. And the last time I saw Asher. While the package says they’re from an online printer, I know they’re actually from my mom. The combined photographic efforts of my mother and Sylvie. Our summer, distilled into one little cardboard packet of memories. But the memories seared into my mind weren’t captured on anyone’s phone—definitely not by our mothers. It’s hard to believe any of them could be in that envelope, but I still can’t open it. I’m scared to see what’s inside.

  The last week of vacation was nothing short of awful. The house had never felt so small, and I had never felt so directionless. Without pranks to play or dates to plan, something was missing. And as much as I didn’t want to think it, I knew that thing was Asher. Asher was summer vacation. He was my favorite lake, and the best two months of the year. I wanted to be mad at him, to stay angry, but he was right; once a few days had passed, and the shock of my almost-arrest wore off, things didn’t seem so dire. It didn’t seem so plausible that he had fabricated an entire summer of magical moments just to one-up me. But I also knew it was too late. To fix what I’d broken with him, but also, to forget everything that night reminded me of—that our relationship was a disaster waiting to happen, and that eventually, it would ruin everything with our families. It would ruin us.

  I painted more rocks that last week than all of summer, trying my best not to paint anything that reminded me of him. Dinners were a throwback to ignoring one another, and it was hard to miss the concerned looks on our parents’ faces as they poked and prodded us with questions, trying to draw us into a conversation. By the end of the week I felt invisible. The most words I got from him were forced—hellos and good nights if I was near our parents. An answer if I asked him something casual at the dinner table, just to try to be normal. But all of it was without an ounce of the light I was used to.

  And by the time I packed up my room, I wasn’t sure what was worse—Asher mad at me, or just being ignored. Treated like I was nothing special. Which I wasn’t. I knew that—knew that I was the one that ruined it all. But I was sure we still had time to turn things around. I had sparked a controlled burn. Something small and manageable and early—we would overcome it. Eventually. Hopefully. But right now, I still can’t open that envelope. I tuck it into a pile of books on the shelf over my desk, and run out of my room.

  * * *

  I was paired with one of my teammates as a roommate. Apparently, it’s freshman tradition for all of the swimmers to be paired up together. Every morning, my roommate Ellie and I walk to the main cafeteria, to meet up with other girls from the team. Our dorm is directly across from one of the campus’s three dining spots, and it’s weird but also comforting to have a built-in group of friends here, who all share something in common. Not that we sit around talking about swimming twenty-four/seven, but it’s this strange thread of familiarity that connects us all. In every class but one, I have at least one teammate I can gravitate toward.

  After breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we do core training and weights. While they’re preseason captain-led practices that aren’t technically mandatory, we all know we better have a really good reason for missing one. I haven’t yet, even though it’s a lot harder to drag myself out of bed now than it was during the summer. I don’t like to think about why that is. But today, as I wander through the conditioning room in the college field house, I can’t help but notice that Asher isn’t here.

  When it comes to team activities, I feel like my eyes have a special inventory system that requires me to verify whether Asher and I are in the same room. And currently we are not. I finish my core workout and move to a machine. Ellie spots me at the free weights, and I spot her, and when we’re finally leaving for the locker room—hot and sweaty but somehow more energized than when I arrived—Asher finally walks in.

  Perfect timing.

  24 DAYS AFTER

  Sidney

  Two weeks into classes, Asher and I have barely spent any time together in the weight room. We are a perfectly choreographed performance of coming and going. But when he’s missing altogether, I finally lose my cool. He can’t spend five minutes in the same room with me? I shouldn’t. I really know I shouldn’t, but I still stop next to Ryan, Asher’s roommate.

  “Where’s Asher?”

  Ryan holds his weight in a curl and smiles at me. “Room.”

  “Is he coming today?”

  “Not likely.”

  I let out a disgruntled grunt and Ryan laughs. “Chill. He’s sick.”

  A prickle of something goes up my arms. “How sick?”

  “I’m-definitely-not-going-back-to-the-room-anytime-soon sick.”

  Ellie is still standing by the doorway and I wave her away.

  “You’re going to be late,” she says. The only class we share is in thirty minutes, and she’s right. We barely have time to shower as it is.

  “Take notes for me?” Ellie gives me a tiny salute and walks away. “Sidney notes, not Ellie notes!” I yell at her back. It’s the second week of classes; am I seriously going to skip?

  I put my hand out to Ryan. “Room key, please.”

  “Sidney, seriously.” He gives me a serious look. “Now�
��s not the time to give him crap.” The way he says it makes me think Ryan knows a thing or two about me and Asher. “You don’t want to go in there.”

  “Key, please.” I wiggle my fingers. “You don’t need it, you said so yourself.”

  He pulls his key ring out of his bag and twists a large gold key off, smacking it into my palm. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Asher

  I want to die. Maybe it’s the grim reaper knocking on my door, here to drag me off to somewhere my head doesn’t spin and my stomach doesn’t feel like someone is twisting it into a pretzel.

  “Asher?”

  I groan and it sounds like maybe I am dying. It’s worse than death, or the grim reaper—it’s Sidney. Why now? Why? Mentally, I scream but I say nothing. Maybe if I just pretend I’m not here she’ll go away. She has to go away.

  “I’m coming in.”

  Wait, what? I lift the bowling ball that is my head off of the pillow to look at the door, then let it crash back down. This isn’t the lake house, she can’t just barge into my room, or stick a hairpin in the door to wiggle it open. But then I hear a key slide into the lock, a twist of metal, and my room is no longer a Sidney-free space. She’s standing just inside the doorway, her face still red from conditioning, her tank top blotched with sweat.

  I look her up and down, still trying to process that she’s here.

  She looks down at herself then back to me. “Sorry, I just came from the gym. I’m gross.”

  I nod. Blink. And then puke.

  * * *

  “Wow.” Sidney shuts the door behind her and walks over to the bed. “Okay, this is not what I expected.” She sets a plastic grocery bag down on the desk just beyond my bed and drops her backpack to the floor. Ryan and I have our room set up identically on either side. You could slice it down the middle and it would be a perfect mirror image: a bed against each long wall, desk butted up against the far headboard, and a dresser on the far wall, on either side of our one window. Ryan has a poster of a half-naked girl over his bed, but I haven’t gotten around to putting anything on the walls. My dresser, however, is another story.

  “What is that?” My upper body is hanging off of the bed, over the plastic trash can I just puked in. I feel too horrible to care that I just puked in front of Sidney.

  “I brought you chicken soup from the cafeteria. And some crackers. Ryan didn’t say you were…” She gestures to the trash can. “Don’t eat soup. Please.” She looks around the room and her eyes land back on me. “Do you have a cup?”

  She doesn’t wait for me to answer, just leaves through the little door to her left and disappears into the bathroom. If only our bathroom had two doors like the one she and I used to share, I could hope that she’d just disappear out the other side. But no, she comes back. She’s holding the blue plastic cup I keep my toothbrush in, and crosses the room to my bed.

  “Drink a little.” She holds the glass of water out to me. “Just tiny sips.” I take it and pull myself upright enough to take a sip. “Are you good for a few minutes?” She nods at the wastebasket and I nod back.

  Without a word, Sid picks it up—wincing just once when she glances down—and disappears into the bathroom again. I hear the slosh of liquid going into the toilet bowl, a flush, and then the shower head turning on. More sloshing and dumping. The whole thing reminds me of listening to her in the bathroom at the lake house, how I could hear her getting ready step by step.

  “Do you have dish soap?” Sid’s voice is echoing in the bathroom. “Disinfectant of some kind?”

  “Why would I have dish soap in my room?”

  She pokes her head out of the bathroom door. “In case you needed to clean something?” She shakes her head at me. “I’ll take that as a no. You and Ryan obviously just planned to wallow in your filth after a few weeks.”

  “How much do you hate me right now?” I can’t help but laugh, even though it makes me a little nauseous.

  Sidney doesn’t answer. A minute later she emerges with the wastebasket and a handful of toilet paper folded into a thick square. She sets the basket back in its spot beside my bed and stands next to me. Then she gently lays her hand on my forehead. “I’m guessing you don’t have a thermometer, either?”

  “Must be in the same box as my dish soap.”

  She smiles and doesn’t move her hand. “Funny.”

  When Sid’s hand leaves my forehead, I’m relieved. “Well, Doctor? Do I have a fever?”

  “I can’t tell. I’m still hot from the gym, so I don’t think my measurements are going to be very accurate.” She shrugs. “My mom always seemed really confident when she did that, but yeah, I don’t know.”

  Sidney sits on the bed across from me and pulls her phone out of her pocket, holding it up in front of her face.

  “You’re taking a selfie in my dorm room while I puke.”

  Sidney is rolling her eyes at me when I hear buzzing and then my mom’s voice fills the room.

  “Sidney.” She sounds happy to hear from her. I can tell she’s smiling without even seeing her.

  “Hey, Sylvie.” She lets out a little sigh. “So I don’t want to worry you, but Asher’s sick, and I’m not sure what I should do. I figured you’re probably the expert on this.”

  My mom makes a sympathetic awwww sound, and says “Hi, sweetie” really loudly, like I’m farther than five feet away and I might not hear her. “Does he have a fever?”

  “He doesn’t have a thermometer. I felt with my hand, but I just got out of conditioning, so I’m hot. It’s hard to tell. But I think so? He’s all sweaty and gross.”

  “Ditto,” I mutter, hoping my mom didn’t hear. Sid tries to hide a smile.

  “He’s still his sassy self though, so I don’t think he’s on the verge of death or anything.”

  “All we can really ask for,” Mom says. “Does he have any ibuprofen?”

  Sidney looks to me, and I shake my head.

  “I have some in my room,” Sidney says.

  “Give him three of those. And again in four hours.”

  Sid nods like she’s sitting in a lecture, taking notes.

  “Make sure he doesn’t dehydrate. The orange Gatorade is his favorite. Not the melon stuff, the orange,” Mom says, very seriously, like melon Gatorade could be my demise.

  Sid nods, also very seriously. “Got it.”

  “You’ll stay with him?” My mom’s voice sounds nervous.

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say, just as my mom says, “Thank you.”

  “That’s pretty much it. If he’s still at it tomorrow, make him go to the campus clinic.”

  “Got it.” Sid gives the phone a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Sylvie.”

  “You, too, sweetie.”

  Sidney tucks the phone back in her pocket. “I’m going to run to my room for the ibuprofen. And I’ll get you some Gatorade; I think they have it at the little convenience store inside the dining hall.”

  I’m lying on my back, eyes shut, but I push myself up onto one elbow. “You don’t have to, Sid. I’m fine.”

  “I told your mom I would.” She turns toward the door, not taking her backpack. “I’ll be back.”

  * * *

  Most of my day alternates between sleeping and puking. In between, Sidney makes trips to the bathroom (using the soap she brought back along with the ibuprofen and Gatorade). Whenever I wake up, she’s sitting on Ryan’s bed, a book spread across her lap, thumbing through pages and scribbling in the notebook propped up on one knee.

  “Don’t you have class?”

  “Just one. And Ellie’s bringing me notes.”

  “You’re in a class together?”

  “Yeah. Cool, huh?” She taps her pen against her notebook and her eyes drop to her book, and back to me, then back to her book. She’s staring at a page but I can tell she wants to say something. I’m relieved when she doesn’t.

  We sit in silence through the afternoon, and when five o’clock rolls a
round, I ask her to throw me my phone from my desk. I type in ten numbers and leave a message on the voice mail, letting them know I won’t be at practice tonight, because I’m sick.

  “What practice do you have?”

  “I’m doing a stroke clinic with a local club team once a week.”

  “Really?”

  “Yup.” I roll onto my back again and look up at the ceiling. I’m not really in the mood to share right now, but she’s looking at me like she wants to know more, and it’s awkward to be trapped in such a small space with someone and refuse to talk. “I’m majoring in sports psychology. It’s part of my long-term plan to coach.” I keep going before she can start asking questions. “I’ll work with club teams the next few years, then hopefully once I graduate I can get an assistant spot somewhere while I get my master’s.” I shrug.

  “That’s awesome.” Sidney’s voice is soft, and a little sad. “So you told your dad you didn’t want to be his mini-me, huh?”

  “Yep.” I don’t want to get into details about this, don’t want to tell her that her breaking up with me was the catalyst for making sure I didn’t lose the other things I wanted in life.

  Doors are slamming down the hallway as guys are coming and going from dinner. “You should go,” I say. Sidney has been sitting here all day, occasionally eating one of the crackers she brought me. She must be starving. “I feel a lot better. Thanks for hanging out today.”

  Sid nods, and tucks her things back into her backpack. She sets the bottle of ibuprofen on my desk where I can reach it, and tells me I should eat my soup once I’ve gone a few hours without puking.

  Her hand is resting on the doorknob when she says, “I’m sorry. About everything.”

  I don’t say anything because I think I know what she’s talking about, but I don’t want to risk it.