Time of Our Lives

by Emily Wibberley

  To talk to you.

  I’m glad.

  It’s the perfect response, somehow. It’s everything Fitz is, reserved and understated, and yet open and heartfelt. There’s another pause, this time without the typing bubble. I wonder what he’s doing, what school he’s visiting, whether he’s in a college bookstore somewhere across the state.

  Tell me about UConn. What do you like about it?

  His question makes something in my chest flutter. A girl who looks about my age walks into my aisle, trailed by two younger boys, probably fourth or fifth grade. One of the boys crashes into the rack of key chains, and the other howls in laughter. The girl scowls.

  “Go bother Mom,” she says, waving them off and turning her attention to the car decals.

  I leave the girl and her brothers behind, heading for the stationery aisle.

  UConn is actually on Matt’s college list. There isn’t a whole lot of overlap in the schools we like, but UConn has a ton of programs and great resources.

  “Hey,” Matt says, suddenly behind me. I startle, whipping around to face him. He’s holding a UConn polo shirt. “You talking to your dad?” he asks.

  “Oh, no, actually,” I tell him, my stomach sinking guiltily. I don’t hide things from Matt. Whenever Tía is being impossible or I get a grade I’m unhappy with, Matt is the person I go to. “This is, um, Fitz.”

  “Fitzgerald?” I hear puzzlement in Matt’s voice, not resentment. “I still think it’s crazy you ran into him again last night.”

  “Yeah. I know.” While we walked home from the party last night, I told Matt I ended up talking with Fitz for a couple of hours. I didn’t mention how we went up to the rooftop, and Matt didn’t ask. “He’s smart. I’m determined to get him to diversify his college list.”

  Matt rolls his eyes with a smirk. I know exactly what he’s thinking. For the past year, I’ve played unofficial college counselor to pretty much our entire grade. From telling Colleen O’Connell about Kenyon’s creative writing program to encouraging Tory to reach for Berkeley, I’ve become the go-to source for everything college-related. I’m College Confidential in human form.

  “Tell him to apply here,” Matt says. His friendliness is touching and completely charming. He’s that kind of guy, inclusive and welcoming. “Then the three of us could hang out,” he continues.

  My expression falters, and I hope Matt doesn’t notice. He’s been unusually engaged today—admiring the campus, asking questions during the tour, picking out this UConn polo. It’s honestly been wonderful to watch. I don’t know how I’ll muster the heart to tell him that after last night, I might be falling in love with Brown.

  “I will,” I say weakly.

  Matt nods and wanders off toward the sweatshirt rack, either not noticing or choosing not to remark on my hesitancy. When he’s gone, my phone vibrates in my hand.

  This is coming from a place of complete friendship and has nothing to do with any potentially non-platonic hopes I may have, but I feel like you’re not the type to pick a college for a guy.

  I read the text once, then twice, each time with a twist in my gut. Fitz has known me for two days, and he recognizes this fundamental truth of who I am. My boyfriend of over a year . . . doesn’t. I don’t want to contemplate the questions that realization brings.

  I glance up from the phone, finding Matt chatting easily with a guy in a UConn soccer sweatshirt who’s holding a pile of new notebooks. Matt says something, and the student laughs. I’m not surprised. Matt’s the life of the party. Not only the “party”—the life of the campus bookstore, the lunch table. It’s why I fell in love with him.

  It’s why I still love him.

  I watch him, adoration warring with whatever hint of reluctance I felt when he brought up going to UConn together. I don’t blame him for wanting college to feel the way high school does. I’ve loved high school. I’ve loved high school with him. Finding notes he’s written me stashed in my locker, sitting in the bleachers at his games, having him help me poster for pep rallies.

  It’s not that I don’t cherish those memories. They might even be the best I’ve ever had. But I don’t know yet. I need to explore, try new things—with him and on my own—and uncover memories I can’t begin to imagine now. Matt might not understand I crave those opportunities, the wide-open world college could represent. Every day, I wonder if he’ll only ever want the Juniper he knows. The Juniper of the past.

  And that frightens me. I feel the fear in little perforations when we’re kissing or he’s waving to me on those bleachers or we’re walking out of house parties hand in hand. They’re would-be perfect moments, punctured until I force myself to forget the dread it’s not exactly me he loves. Only this me. Now me.

  I unlock my phone and begin replying to Fitz.

  But I don’t finish the message. I won’t write this relationship off. Not that texting Fitz would be doing that—I just can’t deny that somehow this new friendship feels like a tentative move in that direction. I won’t close my eyes while the current knocks me off my feet and pulls me toward the unknown.

  Matt’s a good guy. He deserves my trust, and my efforts to try to make it work. No matter where he and I end up, I can give him that.

  I put my phone away, leaving Fitz’s text unanswered.

  Fitz

  LEWIS DIDN’T QUESTION what changed my mind. We devoured the doughnuts and got on the road to Wesleyan by eleven, following Mom’s itinerary. With the radio on and the heater cranked, we left Rhode Island in the rearview.

  It took every iota of my self-control not to text Juniper immediately. I could acutely feel my phone in my pocket the entire drive, its weight pressing into my thigh. It was an onerous test of willpower to resist texting her when I took my phone out upon entering Connecticut to tell my mom we’d nearly reached our next destination.

  I respect Juniper has a boyfriend. Besides, I would be deluding myself to imagine one night under the stars, trading my dictionary back and forth, is the foundation for an epic romance involving two people who don’t live in the same state or plan to go to the same college and who couldn’t be more fundamentally different.

  But her number is a promise. Of what, I don’t know. Something I don’t know how to define yet.

  We’re in a diner outside Middletown when I finally decide I’ve waited a respectable amount of time before texting her. Though it’s a little past noon, the Monday lunch crowd is thin. In the booth opposite me, Lewis is scrolling on his phone, looking bored. I pull mine out and open a message to the number I’ve had programmed in since early this morning. Keeping the message brief, I ask Juniper where she’s visiting.

  The waitress brings plates of burgers and fries for Lewis and me, but I hardly taste the food because I’m distracted by Juniper’s incoming texts. The conversation continues, and like last night, it’s easy. She says she’s visiting UConn, and that she wouldn’t mind if we ran into each other again. I fight the thrill those words spark in me.

  “You texting a girl?” Lewis asks. I don’t reply. “Yeah, you are,” he crows, apparently finding whatever confirmation he needed in my silence. What’s infuriating isn’t his confidence. It’s him being right.

  “A friend,” I clarify coolly. I reply to Juniper, wanting to know why she’s excited to visit UConn.

  “The best girlfriends are often friends first,” Lewis points out.

  He’s obviously trying to project older-brother wisdom and experience with girls, which ordinarily I would permit without interrupting or bothering to reply.

  Not today. Not with Juniper’s reply staring up from my phone screen. Instead of chasing dreams and following futures the way she described yesterday, she’s visiting UConn because she wants to follow her boyfriend. Meanwhile, I’m here with my brother, who I had to watch grind up on the random girl he found at Brown last night.

  The twin
frustrations put fire into me. “Is that what Prisha was?” I ask, terser than I intended.

  Lewis glances up from his phone, his eyes narrowed but not exactly surprised. I get the sense he does remember our conversation from last night. It was the first time I’ve come close to losing my temper with him. Now I’m near losing it again. When he was home, we’d fight over stupid stuff, but I’ve hardly ever stood up to my brother on real things. I don’t know what’s different, but something is.

  “Yeah,” he says evenly, following a moment’s pause. “She was. She lived down the hall from me freshman year. I think we collectively hooked up with the entire rest of the hallway before figuring out how we felt about each other.” He dips a fry into his ketchup. “But we did,” he continues, “and I had to put an end to random hookups. For a little longer, anyway.” He winks, and once again, I’m irritated.

  I put down my burger. “Why do you do that?” I ask calmly. The anger hones my questions into needle points.

  Lewis studies me. “Do what?”

  “You ask me about girls, or tease me or whatever, or tell me about your gorgeous conquests.” I give him a look that I hope comes off pitying or dismissive. “Is getting laid the only thing you care about?”

  “When you get laid, you won’t ask me that question,” he replies.

  I’ve had enough. I’m tired of Lewis treating me like I’m nobody because my life doesn’t resemble his. I’m really tired of him playing everything off like it’s easy or a joke or insignificant. The only people who never get frustrated are people who don’t care.

  I get up from the booth and throw my napkin onto the table. I don’t even know where I’m going. It doesn’t matter. Just not here. But when I start for the door, Lewis’s hand grips my wrist, holding me back.

  “Hey, hold on,” he says, his voice softening. I reluctantly face him. “I didn’t mean—” He shakes his head. “It was a joke. I’m sorry,” he continues, sounding surprisingly genuine.

  I wait by the booth, unmoving, reluctant to stay. But I have no choice, really. Unless I want to spring for a four-hundred-dollar Uber to New Hampshire, I have nowhere to go except Lewis’s car.

  I sit back down, scowling. Lewis says nothing. “Just because I haven’t dated a dozen girls doesn’t mean I’m a loser,” I say eventually. I’ve known for years what my brother thinks of me, and I’ve chosen to ignore it or, at the very least, hide my resentment of it, convincing myself he couldn’t possibly view me that way. It’s liberating and dangerous to finally put words to the feeling instead.

  Lewis’s face falls. His bravado disappears, and for once I’m seeing my brother as himself, not the debonair role he plays for his friends and job interviewers and probably even his girlfriends. He’s serious, even somber. “I don’t think you’re a loser,” he says.

  The lack of prevarication in his reply startles me. It’s not like Lewis to speak so straightforwardly instead of playing it cool and letting me read whatever I want into his detached dismissiveness.

  I don’t believe him. He probably only wants the easy way out of this conversation. He doesn’t know how to deal with me talking back, and he doesn’t like it.

  “I don’t,” he insists. “I think you take everything really seriously.”

  It’s the understatement of the century. “Some things are serious,” I say, knowing it’s futile to try to convince Lewis to care, and feeling irrationally compelled to regardless. “Like Mom.”

  Lewis looks away, his eyes flitting to the parking lot outside, gravelly pavement under the slate-gray sky. “Some things are,” he says. “Not everything. I just want to make sure you’re cutting yourself some slack.”

  I notice how once again he’s dodged discussing Mom and once again completely misunderstood what it’s like inside my head. Cut myself some slack? I wrestle for the right words to explain this fundamental fact to him. “I’m not like you, okay?” I say quietly, staring at my plate. It’s hard to admit—hard to confirm what Lewis has said and felt and implied about me for years. We are different. He’s effortlessly cool, and I am a loser.

  Lewis snorts. I look up, surprised to find him close to laughing.

  “Well, duh,” he says. He picks up his burger and takes a huge final bite. I watch him uncomprehendingly while he chews. “I know we’re different,” he continues. “Sometimes I can’t believe we were raised under the same roof.”

  I start to smile, unable to stop myself. His constant carelessness does hurt—I haven’t forgotten the feeling—but right now, the humor of the moment eases the sting. “Well, we were adopted,” I reply.

  Lewis waves his hand. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  He glances at the bill and puts cash down on the receipt. We slide out of the booth, and I feel a sudden warmth in my chest from his words, a gratefulness for this unique instance of my brother’s universal easygoing acceptance. It’s me he’s accepting this time, and it’s foreign and friendly and kind of fun.

  We walk toward the door of the diner. In the corner of the restaurant I notice a family of four red-haired children and their parents, who look beleaguered.

  Lewis pauses in front of the door, and I nearly ram into him. “I didn’t hook up with that girl last night,” he says. I don’t know why he’s telling me, or why now. I stay quiet. It’s a stiff, strange moment. “I just got her number,” he continues.

  “Okay.” I nod.

  “I wanted you to know.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking troubled. “I was only trying to have some fun,” he says with resignation, and I detect unusual weight in his words. “I’m still with Prisha. We’ll stay together until the day we’ve decided to break up.”

  “And then?” I ask, wondering how I can reconcile his purported commitment with his hands on the other girl’s jeans, their faces close to touching.

  Lewis shrugs and opens the door, letting in the cold. “Then I guess I’ll use the number.”

  Fitz

  WHILE WE DRIVE to Wesleyan, Lewis tells me about the trip to Florida he and his fraternity brothers have planned for spring. After reaching the campus, we walk toward the admissions building, where I have a tour booked today. I have to admit, the admissions office is charming, a custard-yellow bungalow with gray roofs and white-edged windows. Lewis walks me in and says he’ll find me here when the tour’s over. I nod. We’re not exactly friends now, but it’s coming a little easier, the uncomfortable disconnect replaced by an unfamiliar détente.

  When the tour begins, it’s not long before I find myself distracted. The possibility of seeing Juniper might be keeping me on the road this week, but it’s doing nothing to increase my enthusiasm for any of these colleges. I pull out my phone while the tour group passes the impressive white-columned façade of what the guide explains is the library. I’m hoping for a text from Juniper, who didn’t reply to my previous message.

  I click on the screen. Nothing.

  It feels weird, knowing we’re both in Connecticut, an hour apart, and yet ignoring each other. I consider whether to text her again. Pro: the possibility she’ll reply. It’s unlikely, though, since she didn’t reply when I texted that I didn’t think she’d be the type to follow a guy to college. Con: she’ll think I’m an obsessive creep, delete my number, and forget I ever existed. I’ll end up celibate, living with fourteen cats and my extensive collection of detailed model trains, rueing this exact moment when my life went wrong.

  I put my phone back into my pocket.

  Eventually, we return to the admissions building where the tour began. Lewis is waiting out front, carrying two Starbucks cups, steam seeping from the lids. He holds one out when I reach him.

  “I don’t know your drink,” he says. “I went with cappuccino.”

  “Cappuccino’s great,” I say instead of explaining I’m nowhere near enough of a habitual coffee drinker to have “a drink.”

  “How was it?”
Lewis asks. It’s the middle of the afternoon, and the sun is peeking through one sliver in the frigid sheet of clouds. We cross the street, returning to the parking lot. Lewis’s car is in the back row, overlooking a giant field in the middle of the campus. The snow hasn’t stuck here, and the grass isn’t completely brown yet. I briefly wonder what the field looks like in summer. Verdant. Green with plants or grass.

  “Same as the others,” I say with a shrug.

  He nods. Instead of getting in the car, he walks to the edge of the lot, surveying the lawn and the brick buildings on the other side. “I bet Mom spent every afternoon reading on this field.”

  It takes me a moment to process his words. “Wait, what?” I ask, following his eyeline. He’s so focused, like he’s actually envisioning Mom here right now. But all I see is dry grass under barren trees.

  Lewis gestures at the campus buildings around us. “She went here for two years before she had to transfer to take care of Grandma.”

  I blink. I knew Mom transferred schools when she had to move back in with her parents. Grandpa couldn’t leave his job, not when his insurance was paying for Grandma’s medications. But it meant Mom had to be home to help with the caretaking. It took her two extra years to finish school while she drove her mother to doctor’s appointments, cooked for her parents, managed medication schedules—all while she fought the disease she’d one day inherit.

  I guess I never thought about where Mom had gone to school before Grandma’s diagnosis. Never considered what kind of life she was embarking on before her entire world was upended. I’m surprised Lewis has, though. It makes me wonder if he’s closer to our mom than I’d assumed. He’s paid attention to her in ways I wouldn’t have guessed given his careless demeanor. This new information has me questioning if there are other pieces of him I’ve overlooked.