If We Were Us

by K. L. Walther

  “Don’t worry, we’re not going to make you hook up with one of us,” I said quickly, squeezing his hand.

  About fifteen minutes after Jack’s proposition, Luke and I were mocking the junior boys by doing their favorite fist-­pump move when Nina had come twirling up to us. Chestnut hair flying everywhere, she announced that it was time before grabbing hold of Luke’s sweaty T-­shirt and dragging him out of the mob.

  “Okay, here it is,” Jennie whisper-­yelled from a few yards away. The turf field was completely dark, so we blindly followed her voice to the locked metal contraption housing the controls that turned on the overhead lights.

  “Fuck!” Reese muttered after I heard the clang of her foot banging into the metal post.

  Meanwhile, Jennie illuminated her iPhone so she could type in the four-­digit code on the keypad, and then pulled open the door. “One…” she counted. “Two…”

  And on three she flipped a switch.

  Turning on all the turf’s high-­powered lights.

  I didn’t need to ask Luke to know the sight he was treated to was like nothing he’d ever seen before. It was like the scene in the movie Ratatouille when the chefs come into the kitchen and the rats instantly scatter. There were couples everywhere, all in various states of undress. I spotted Lucy Rosales push a guy off her so she could grab her shirt and make a run for it, and by one of the field hockey goals, I saw more of Jack than I ever needed—­or wanted—­to see.

  After about ten seconds of watching our classmates run for their lives, Jennie shut off the lights, and I grabbed Luke’s hand again. “Run!” I whisper-­yelled before taking off for the woods to hide. By the time we made it under the trees, everyone’s breathing was heavy with excitement.

  “What—­the—­fuck—­was—­that?” Luke asked.

  The girls and I laughed. “That,” Reese answered, “was Bexley’s favorite use for the turf field.”

  “That’s literally the grossest thing I’ve ever seen!” he exclaimed. “I feel sick! I can only imagine what my mother will say when I tell her I’ve been corrupted!” We kept laughing, and Luke soon joined in. “Where did you get the combination?”

  Jennie collected herself first. “When I was president of Hardcastle last year, I organized a nighttime Ultimate Frisbee game, so obviously the lights needed to be on, and AD Calder gave me the code that unlocks the control box. It hasn’t been changed since then.”

  “How many times have you done this?”

  “This is only the third,” Nina said. “We do it really infrequently to make sure people don’t catch on.”

  “The next time will probably be in the winter,” I added.

  Luke was incredulous. “People come up here when it’s cold?”

  “If it means they’re gonna get some,” Reese said, “then yes, they’ll brave the cold.”

  There were a few heartbeats of silence before Luke deadpanned: “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Michigan anymore.”

  “Not even close,” I replied, my grin invisible in the darkness, so happy that Luke was here with us. “Now it’s time for the finale.”

  * * *

  Some would say that the finale was anticlimactic, but after expending most of our energy on the dance floor and bringing some unlucky Bexleyans’ illicit activities to an abrupt end, we just wanted to catch our breath and chill.

  Before our next destination, the five of us made a quick detour to Simmons, where Nina raced inside to grab the tote bag of essentials we needed. Then we set off for Thayer House, where all the freshmen boys lived. Predictably, their common room was a ghost town when we arrived, since they were still busy showing off their moves at the dance. “Okay, so Mamma Mia or Mamma Mia 2?” Nina posed, grabbing my laptop from the bag, along with some candy: M&M’s, Sour Patch Kids, and my favorite, Junior Mints.

  “Oh, please not the first one,” Luke said. “I’ve seen it well over a thousand times.”

  We gave him quizzical looks.

  “I have three sisters!”

  “So number two it is!” I declared, taking the computer from Nina and crouching down in front of the TV to plug it into the HDMI cord.

  My friends and I capped off almost every Saturday night like this. We went to a boys’ house and took over their common room by popping in a chick flick and lounging on their furniture, eating junk food. The dorm rotated every week, and no matter which one, it was always a mixed bag of reactions whenever the guys returned for the night; some told us to beat it, while others did their best high-­pitched giggles and joined us on the couches. The freshmen boys, though, especially since it was the year’s first Saturday night, would most likely walk into the common room, exchange a what’s going on? look with one another, and then walk right back out again.

  After hitting play, I saw that everyone had settled down in their movie-­watching position of choice. Reese snagged the leather recliner, and Jennie was in the armchair to the right of the couch, hugging her legs to her chest. I moved a few paces to plop down on the couch with Luke…and Nina. She was lounging on the left end, using the couch’s arm as a backrest, while her legs were stretched out across Luke’s lap.

  It’s official, I thought. Nina Davies likes Luke Morrissey.

  But Luke was keeping his hands to himself, ignoring Nina’s silent invitation for him to rest them on her legs. Instead, his arms were folded across his chest. To me, the message was clear: He wasn’t interested. And deep down, I had a feeling that even if they became super close and Nina’s flirting continued, Luke still wouldn’t be interested.

  * * *

  I felt my phone buzz toward the end of the movie, right when Donna’s ghost sings the heartfelt “My Love, My Life” to her daughter Sophie. Before checking it, I flicked my gaze to Luke to see if he was crying. “I won’t need tissues,” he’d said when I jokingly offered them to him. “I’ve seen this movie too…but only a hundred times, not a thousand.” Now, his face was noticeably tear-­free, expression completely neutral. Nina’s legs were still draped over him, and sure enough, Luke still hadn’t taken the bait; his arms now rested on the back of the couch. I glanced down at my iPhone, then blinked to double-­check the name on-screen. I swiped to see the message:

  So word on campus is the turf saw more action than usual tonight…

  I fought the urge to smile.

  Retweet, I typed back. The most epic light show!

  Epic? came his reply. Impossible!

  Guess again, I was about to write, but before I could, he quickly buzzed in: Because you and I both know there’s only ONE epic light show.

  And then a third message: Up for an adventure?

  Something rippled through me. Up for an adventure? Yes, I was always up for an adventure, and he knew it. So my thumbs dashed off a response, but hovered over the send button for a couple of seconds before sending back: I’m listening…

  * * *

  A few minutes later, I jogged along Belmont Way toward The Meadow.

  “Where are you going?” Jennie had asked when I’d stood to leave Thayer.

  “Oh, Charlie needs me for something,” I’d said, adjusting my obnoxious MERICA trucker hat. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow? At brunch?”

  I waited until Reese nodded in confirmation before making my exit. Although I managed to catch Nina telling Luke, “We all think she’s in love with him. I mean, I know you’ve only been here a week, but you see it, right?”

  It was close to 11:00 p.m., so unsurprisingly there were a ton of underclassmen loitering on the house porches, trying to make every last second count before their curfew.

  Dusk-­to-­dawn lights dotted the Bexley golf course, lighting the way as I ran the final stretch to our meeting place: the sixth hole. I wished I had Stinger, but leaving tire tracks on the meticulously manicured grass wasn’t the best idea. Breathing now shallow and a ringing noise in my ea
rs, I let out a sigh when I heard Perry Lake’s calming waves. The sixth hole was small and secluded, right on the lakeshore. I leaned against a streetlamp’s post, figuring I’d beaten him here, since he was nowhere to be found, but when my breaths slowed and the ringing died away, I heard someone say, “What the hell are you wearing?”

  Then, stepping out of the darkness and into the lamplight’s glow, heinous fleece and all, was Nicholas Carmichael.

  Once again, I felt that ripple. New, a little strange, but full of excitement.

  “It was my outfit for the dance tonight,” I explained, noticing the Hudson’s Bay blanket he had thrown over his shoulder.

  “Right, right.” Nick nodded. “What was the theme again?”

  “Red Hot American Summer,” I answered, tilting my head. “Did you really not know that?”

  One side of his mouth curled up in a smile. “Oh, come on, Sage. You know those aren’t my thing.”

  I watched him shake out the blanket and spread it on the putting green. “Yes, how could I forget? The Carmichael twins are far too good for Bexley’s dances.”

  “You mean Charlie is too good for dances,” Nick corrected as he dropped to the ground. “I don’t go because my couch is so comfortable.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You were totally a lapdog in another life.”

  He laughed and patted the spot next to him.

  I hesitated for a second, then joined him. “You’re right,” I said after stretching out on my back. “Nothing is more epic than this.”

  The sky was breathtakingly bright tonight, the stars above dazzling—­shimmering without the cover of clouds. “That’s Polaris,” Nick said after a moment, pointing to a single diamond-­shaped star. “Also known as ‘true north.’ And if you look over there, you can see Andromeda.”

  His finger traced out the constellation.

  I smiled in the darkness. Nick considered himself an astronomer of sorts, reading books and obsessed with some stargazing app on his phone. “And that’s Perseus,” I said, also reaching up to connect some stars. I’d downloaded the same app. “Right?”

  Nick didn’t answer. Instead, he just said, “I can’t stop thinking about it.”

  My heart hitched.

  “That night,” he went on. “At the beach…”

  “That night…” I echoed, grabbing for the hair tie on my wrist and stretching it out. “At the beach…” It sounded like I had no clue what he was talking about.

  But I did, eyes fluttering shut for a second. To see it again, to be there again: Martha’s Vineyard, back in July. The beach, the bonfire, the s’mores and “borrowed” beer. “Come on, let’s play spin the bottle!” someone had shouted.

  So I’d spun. I remembered spinning first, the empty Bud Light bottle slowing to a stop halfway between the twins. “Get ready, groom.” I’d flashed Charlie a grin, at the same time one of his friends said, “No, no, Sage, it’s totally leaning toward Nick…”

  Totally leaning toward Nick.

  I’d felt him smiling at me from across the fire, but even with its heat, I froze. Kiss Nick? Kiss Nick Carmichael? Half of me couldn’t fathom it; we were friends. Just friends. Always just friends.

  But then my ice broke, that first crack rippling through me.

  Because somehow the other half could imagine it—­kissing him.

  Just once, I’d told myself. Just once, to see what it’s like.

  Now, I snapped my hair tie back against my wrist and sat up. Nick did too, and it was so quiet that I heard him swallow before he gave my ponytail a teasing tug. “What do you think?” he asked.

  “Nick…” I began, but didn’t get to finish, Nick suddenly taking my face in his hands and kissing me. And just like that, it felt like back at the bonfire. Nervous and clumsy at first, but then deep and drowning—­all-­consuming. Afterward, I felt so light-­headed that I swore I would float up, up, and away, so I took one of his hands to anchor myself.

  Nick grinned. “You taste like Junior Mints.”

  I grinned back. “And you taste like a Milky Way.”

  “Not a great combination,” he replied, a dimple popping in his left cheek. I loved that dimple.

  So I leaned in again.

  “Wow,” he sighed a few minutes later. “This time…”

  “A bottle.” I sucked in a breath, snapping back to reality. Here, now, Bexley. My spine straightened. “This time there isn’t a bottle.”

  Nick chuckled. “Well, does there need to be?”

  My heart twisted, knowing what he meant. Everything will change, I thought. If we do this, everything will change…

  “I mean, would you want to?” he asked. “Because I think we could be really good.” He squeezed my hand. “You know, good together. I’ve always thought so, but I’ve never had the nerve to say it…”

  I stayed quiet, unsure how to respond. Nicholas Carmichael was a romantic and a traditionalist; he was imagining a girlfriend to love and adore, to hold hands with while walking to class, to take to prom. The idea made me think of my parents—­that had been them, years and years ago. High school sweethearts, married straight out of college but divorced by the time I hit middle school. “Too young,” my mom said now. “We loved each other, Sage, but we were too young to really know what we wanted. You shouldn’t get serious with someone until you’ve lived your own life first.”

  Nick kissed my knuckles. “Sage?”

  “We’d need to keep it a secret,” I said before I could stop myself. I mean, what was the harm? We could keep it casual and under wraps.

  Oh, and his lips were so warm and wonderful against my skin.

  “A secret?” Nick gave me a look, eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”

  “Because…” I tried to think of a good reason, unable to tell him the truth. He wouldn’t get it. Think! Think, think, think! “Because people talk,” I said, forcing out a laugh. “This place is a fishbowl.” My heart pounded. “Like, remember when Charlie was with Schuyler Cole? They were all anyone could talk about, all anyone was interested in.”

  “Yeah, because that relationship was absurd,” Nick responded. “You’d think he wanted people to talk about it…” He trailed off and shook his head, not convinced.

  “Please?” I asked. “It should stay quiet. That way it’ll be just us.”

  “Just us?”

  “Yeah,” I said, even though warning alarms sounded in my head. “Just us, just you and me.”

  “Well, okay, then.” He untangled our fingers, and I let him pull me close. There was no campfire tonight, but somehow he still vaguely smelled like one. I smiled into his Patagonia. “So are you gonna kiss me again?” he whispered a beat later. “Or not?”

  I did. I kissed Nick and Nick kissed me, kissed me so senseless that I had to cling to his arm when we headed back toward main campus. All around me there were stars, but I didn’t think half of them could be seen by anyone else.

  Chapter 4

  Charlie

  “What do you have going on later?” I asked Nick the first Saturday night, as we worked to straighten his red Arsenal flag. That was the overall theme of Nick’s room: flags. There was a standard American flag, along with his crimson-­and-­gray Mortimer House flag, and a New York Rangers banner. He also had a black tapestry with a glow-­in-­the-­dark map of the constellations (Sage had given it to him for our birthday last year, saying: “But don’t tell him it’s from the women’s section of Urban Outfitters!”). So far, only about half the flags were tacked up, because Nick always had to wait until after the fire marshal’s official visit to transform his room into the inside of a frat house/circus tent. It was the example of a fire hazard.

  “Not much,” my brother responded. “Probably will just hang here.” He motioned for me to hand over another Command Strip. I watched him position it on the wall and put the flag in place. Then we stood back t
o admire it before tackling the constellation tapestry.

  Nick was a prefect in Mortimer, an underclassmen dorm two houses down from Daggett. His house was like a secret society: the guys referred to one another as brothers—­walking around in packs and eating every meal together—­and outsiders only gained inside access if they knew the password. This week’s was “Andromeda.”

  “Not the dance?” I joked. Dances were a Saturday-night staple at Bexley, and the student council was in charge of picking the theme, but when we were throwing around ideas during Thursday night’s meeting, people just weren’t on the same page. Nick sort of lost it after a while. “This is ridiculous,” he’d said, falling into what Sage called his exasperated mom persona (executed by closing his eyes, biting his tongue, and releasing a deep, disappointed sigh). “Let’s keep it simple. USA beach-­themed or something.”

  And thus, the Red Hot American Summer dance had been born.

  But as usual, Nick and I weren’t going.

  Nick, because he was a cringe-­inducing dancer.

  “How about you?” He grabbed the tapestry we would hang over his desk. “Plans?”

  I shrugged. “Dove.” Hence why I didn’t go to dances. I mean, when you had a girlfriend, they were kind of a waste of time. You hung out until that magical hour struck (10:00 p.m.), then you went on a “walk” together. It was routine.

  Nick nodded. “You like her?”

  “Yeah,” I said, both of us now standing on the desk. We were pretty tall, but Mortimer had outrageously high ceilings. “She’s fun.”

  “Really? I heard she’s kind of clingy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Are you in cahoots with Sage?”

  Nick laughed. “So what if I am?”

  We continued hanging the flags, and later, when I grabbed my backpack to leave, I asked if we were on for brunch tomorrow. He and I always had Sunday brunch together. We called it family meal.

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he confirmed, and just as I was twisting his doorknob, I heard him clear his throat. “What’s Sage doing tonight?”