13 and Counting

by Lisa Greenwald

  I start to wonder about Jason and Valentine’s Day, actually. He probably doesn’t even know it exists. He’d never do anything for it, even if he did have a girlfriend. He’s just not that kind of kid.

  Ari shakes her head, like she can’t deal with Cami or any of the other girls for one more second, and she pulls together her lunch remnants in the brown paper bag and gets up to throw everything away. We all turn to look at her as she walks away and then Marie whispers, “What’s up with her? She’s been kind of ignoring my texts and stuff. Sort of out of the blue.”

  “What? Nothing. She’s fine.” I run my words together and start collecting my lunch remnants, too. “I’m going to see if there are any apples left.”

  I find Ari by the garbage can. “I hate Valentine’s Day discussions, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, so dumb.” She doesn’t look at me. “I honestly don’t celebrate it. You know that.”

  “I know. But it’s cool about Amirah joining the race training with us.”

  She mumbles, “Yeah, I think so, too.”

  We stand there awkwardly for a minute until I explain I’m going to see what fruit they have on the salad bar counter.

  “Cool. Grab me a banana if they have.”

  She walks back to the table and I can tell her thoughts are somewhere else. I know something’s going on with Jason but I don’t know what it is. I wish she’d just tell me. Be honest. Even if it’s just a little bit honest. Over the summer we had that whole thing about Total Honesty Friends and Protecting Feelings friends. I wonder if Ari forgot all about it.

  That’s part of Be Me, too, I think.

  Plus when she keeps these secrets, it makes her feel far away even when she’s standing right next to me.

  I guess I could be wrong, that I’m making this whole Ari/Jason thing up. It was only that one incident on the porch, and then her being quiet at the lunch table just now.

  Maybe I’m totally reading into this.

  Or maybe my gut is a hundred percent right.

  20

  ARI

  “I’M TELLING GOLFY TONIGHT,” I announce to Alice over the phone a few days later. “I haven’t called him back and we haven’t texted either. He has to know something’s up. I mean, his voicemail was literally two seconds and all he said was hi and hung up. But I get an eerie feeling like he knows things are off.”

  At lunch it’s been nonstop talk about Cami and Kaylan’s trip, with occasional discussions about Amirah training for the race with us, and the others debating if they want to as well. And of course the Jason cuteness discussion, which seems to find its way in every day for some reason, and sporadic Valentine’s Day talks.

  It’s cold and I have tons of homework and Bubbie is better but not quite herself yet and the whole world feels gloomy and gray. I can’t have this Golfy thing hanging over my head anymore.

  “I just need it to be done,” I explain.

  She sighs. “I really thought you were going to be one of those camp romances.”

  “For life?” I gasp. “Like get married?”

  “Kinda, yeah.” She laughs too. “Like when they have the couples who met at camp come back every summer for a blessing or whatever. It’s weird, but that’s what I thought.”

  “Okay, Al. But you know we’re thirteen, right?”

  “Yes,” she says, still laughing. “Okay, good luck with the call.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hang up and wait a few seconds, staring at the snow falling outside my bedroom window.

  “Hey, hey.” Golfy answers the phone on the second ring. He’s told me so many times how much he hates talking on the phone, but he’ll always talk to me. That’s something, and when I think about it, I feel instantly guilt-ridden. He’s so good. Too good, maybe. I wish I still liked him as much as he liked me. “Where have you been?”

  “Hey,” I say, and then wonder if I should make small talk first or not. “Listen, Golfy, I don’t know how to say this, but I think we should just be friends, um, like for now, until camp starts and we see each other again and then, um, we can see . . .” My voice trails off, and I kind of wish he’d interjected but he just let me talk and talk.

  “Huh?” He cracks up. “Is this some kind of prank?”

  I hesitate. “Um, unfortunately, no. You’re so great and everything but the thing is, we don’t see each other that much, or like at all, and I have a lot going on and, um, my bubbie is not doing so well and I have a lot of stress and it’s just too much right now.”

  He doesn’t say anything right away.

  “I’m sorry about your bubbie,” he says, after a long time of silence. “You never really told me much about what was going on. You just said stuff in passing. I wish you’d, like, told me for real.”

  “She’ll be okay,” I explain. “It’s a long recovery but I think she’ll bounce back. Actually, I know she will.”

  “Good to hear.” He pauses. “I’m sorry to hear this, Ari. About, um, us. But you do whatever you need to do. I’m not going anywhere.” He laughs. “Well, I mean, I am. My grandparents are taking our whole fam on a cruise pretty soon. But you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do.” I laugh a little. “Thanks for understanding, Golfy.”

  “You bet. I gotta run, though. So, uh, keep rockin’ or whatever.”

  “You too.”

  I hang up the phone, expecting to feel all sorts of relieved but I don’t, really. I have a sticky-stomach feeling from lying. I mean, it wasn’t totally a lie—all of the things are true. But I didn’t mention the Jason part.

  I had planned to call Jason right away and ask if I could come over and we’d sit in his sunroom in our pajamas and I’d tell him I loved him all along even though I didn’t realize it and how amazing is it that we’re across-the-street neighbors and on and on and on.

  But I don’t feel like calling him. Or doing any of that.

  I put on my pajamas and crawl under my covers and fall asleep with the lights on.

  At midnight my phone buzzes with a text from Alice asking how the call went, but I don’t reply. I get out of bed and turn out the lights and fall back to sleep immediately.

  All of this drama can really make a girl tired.

  Then at three in the morning, I’m up, wide awake, as if it’s eleven a.m. and I’ve slept twelve hours and I’m totally refreshed. I check my email. Nothing. I take out all of the clothes in my drawers and refold them and put everything away. I sort through my closet and make a pile on my beanbag chair of stuff to donate. I test all my pens to see which ones work and I throw away the ones that don’t.

  It’s amazing how much you can accomplish at three a.m.

  And then I read over the list.

  Be Me.

  I kind of feel like I can check that one off. I’ve been doing a pretty good job at being me. I didn’t go to the water park that day when I didn’t want to, I told Golfy how I feel, and I’m working on pursuing my sudden feelings-about-Jason thing.

  Be Me.

  I feel like I did this one without even really trying. But maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I look over the list again, stopping on the start a movement thing.

  Maybe Be Me is the movement. The opportunity for everyone to feel okay, that they have permission to just be themselves.

  Like how Kaylan applied to comedy camp all on her own. That’s a Be Me kind of thing. And Amirah training for the race with us, wearing her hijab with pride while running. That’s totally Be Me.

  And Cami, um, hello. Cami is Be Me all the time. One hundred percent. Cami could basically lead the Be Me movement.

  I start to type out a text to Kaylan and I’m about to hit send when I realize it’s only three thirty in the morning and I would completely wake her up. And then I realize I can’t tell her the Jason part. Not yet, anyway.

  So is that really Be Me? If I’m keeping it from my BFF.

  My head starts to spin and I start to feel tired again, which makes sense since it is the middle of
the night. I crawl back under the covers and when my alarm goes off at six thirty I am awakened out of the deepest sleep imaginable.

  21

  KAYLAN

  “HULA-HOOPING IS REALLY MORE OF a side-to-side thing than a swishy, circle-y movement,” M.W. explains at our lockers. Marie is with her, trying to help, too. “You’re overthinking it.”

  I clench my teeth. I remember being good at hula-hooping a few years ago, but now it seems like I’ve never done it in my whole life.

  “Kaylan, honey, hula-hooping in the hallway isn’t the best idea,” Ms. Phipps says. People always use the word honey when they want to make whatever they’re saying seem nicer. It doesn’t work.

  “But no one’s even here yet,” I tell her. “That’s why I came to school early.”

  “To practice hula-hooping?” She tilts her head to the side, laughing a little.

  Forcefully, but still respectfully, I say, “Yes, exactly. It’s like a New Year’s resolution kind of thing and Marie and M.W. are helping me.”

  I look over at M.W. and Marie and they half nod and half shrug. I wish they’d lean in to this a little more. It’d help, but oh well.

  “Okay, but when the rest of the students start arriving, please stop. And where are you planning to store these Hula-Hoops all day?” she asks, looking up at the clock above the closest row of beige lockers.

  “I asked the gym department and they said we could store them in the big equipment closet for the day. Thanks for understanding, Ms. Phipps. I know it’s a little, uh, out of the ordinary.”

  “Okay, Kaylan.” She sighs and walks away, shaking her head.

  I put my hands on my hips and watch M.W. show me again how to do it. “See?” she asks. “Side to side. Side to side. Super-gentle movements.”

  I pull the Hula-Hoop up to my waist and try to do what M.W. says. “Like this?” I ask.

  She stands back with a hand on her hip, her head tilted to the side, and she watches me hula-hoop. “Better,” she says. “Definitely better. But doing that on a unicycle—that’s going to be tough.”

  “I can do it. It’ll take work, but I can do it.”

  “I love your dedication,” she replies, laughing.

  The rest of the girls arrive and as soon as I see Ari walk in, I know something’s up. Her eyes are all red and puffy and she looks like she didn’t sleep a single minute last night.

  She goes straight to her locker and hangs up her coat and then turns to me. “I need to go to the library and cram for my history test. I’ll see you guys later, K?”

  I nod. “You all right, Ar?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  I shrug. “You just look, um, kind of tired.”

  “I’m fine,” she says.

  But when she walks away, the rest of the girls just look at me, and we all sort of shrug at each other, and then Cami says, “Something is totally up with her. We need to find out.”

  My stomach sinks because when Cami comes up with stuff like this, she follows through. Like last spring, when she was convinced our teacher Ms. Vicks was in a relationship with our other teacher Mr. Nitel and she started following them around to get all the information. She even spied on them at their cars at the end of the day, and kept a daily log of their habits.

  She just gets these things in her head and then has to see them through to completion. But the thing about Ari is it kind of takes her a while to sort out what she’s feeling and then to tell people. Like with her dad’s job—we all didn’t know right away.

  “Cam,” I warn. “She’ll tell us when she wants to tell us.” But what I really mean is that she’ll tell me when she wants to tell me.

  “Kaylan, come with me.” Cami grabs my backpack, puts it on my shoulders, and then takes my hand. “I need to talk to you. About the trip.”

  I see all the others roll their eyes, laughing at her a little bit, and I wonder if this is when and how things change. Cami slowly distancing herself from everyone else so she can be BFF with me. She loses her status as ruler of the group, or whatever it is. I don’t even know. And then what becomes of me? I’m just torn between Cami and Ari. But I like the other girls, too. I want to be friends with everyone.

  People always wonder when and how friendships change because they can’t pinpoint the moment. But right now, I can pinpoint it. Maybe not the exact minute but the time frame, the period when things went from one thing to another thing.

  I didn’t choose this, though; I don’t think I like it.

  Cami and I walk down the B wing and she doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, until she stops in the middle of the hallway and says, “We need to follow her, Kay. I think something’s really going on with Ari and I’m concerned.”

  “Cam, honestly, I talk to her every day. She’s going through a lot, but she’s okay. We need to give her space.”

  “No. It’s more than that. There’s something you need to see.”

  I get a rumbly feeling in my stomach. People always say “something you need to see” but it’s never “something you want to see.”

  We continue walking. Past the main office, past the cafeteria, past the music wing and the science labs and around the corner to the library. We look through the big glass windows with the pretty display from the recent author visit.

  And we see them.

  Ari and Jason at one of the tables, talking with heads close, while Mr. Singer the librarian is behind the desk, taking books from the basket and scanning them.

  They’re the only ones in the library.

  They look up and they see us, and I smile, and they half smile, and then Cami says, “See, this has been going on for weeks. I just didn’t know how to tell you. But we’re almost at February break and I needed you to know before the trip.”

  “Cam.” I take a deep breath and then exhale. “I already knew.”

  “You did?”

  “Well, kind of. I had a feeling. A BFF intuition kind of thing.”

  “And you’re okay with it?” she hisses. “I mean, Jason was your boyfriend. And not even that long ago. I mean, all I’m saying . . .”

  “Cam, stop.” I clear my throat. “We can’t talk about this here. And we can’t talk about it right now.”

  The bell rings and we have to separate and go to our first-period classes.

  She shakes her head again. “I’m just saying, I can’t believe you’re okay with it.”

  I laugh, trying to make Cami realize she’s taking this too seriously, but she doesn’t laugh along with me. And I love Cami, but it seems like she’s trying to create drama right now, when there really isn’t any. I don’t even like Jason anymore. And he was Ari’s neighbor first. And it’s just, like, one of those things.

  “I’ll walk with you,” she says. “I have study hall, anyway. And a study hall first period is literally the dumbest.”

  “Okay.” I don’t say anything for a while because I’m still processing this situation. I mean, it shouldn’t bother me. And I don’t think it does. Everyone can choose who they like and just because I liked Jason at one time doesn’t mean he’s mine forever, or off-limits.

  “It’s not okay for your best friend to take your boyfriend,” she goes on. “Really, it’s not. My sisters would totally say the same thing, by the way.”

  “She’s not taking my boyfriend. He’s not even my boyfriend.”

  “Well, he was,” she scoffs. “I think you’re playing this down because you don’t want to make drama, Kay, but for real, this isn’t cool.”

  “Okay, Cam.” I laugh again. “I get your point of view, but can we just chill for a second? This feels like a lot.”

  She yelps, “Because it is a lot!” She shakes her head. “Okay, here’s my study hall room. We’ll talk more later. I hope it’s not weird at lunch.”

  I keep walking down the hall to get to the science labs and I think about what Cami said. She’s creating drama and I’m not sure if it’s because she likes drama or if it’s because she wants complete best friend sta
tus.

  I sit down in science and take out my notebooks and try to focus on something else, anything else.

  I look over the list and the first thing that catches my eye is Be Me.

  What does that even mean right now? In this situation. I don’t know why it’s so confusing for me to figure out my own feelings here. Am I really okay with it? Or am I pushing them away because I don’t want to create drama?

  I’m not really sure.

  I kind of want to ask others, but I think that would be a bad idea. I don’t want to bring other people into this.

  And when I consider Be Me, I think this is the kind of thing I might need to sort out on my own. I don’t know how long that will take, though, or what will happen in the meantime.

  Keeping our friendship strong is still the number one priority in all of this, really, even though it’s not on the new list. I know that, of course. And Ari does, too. At least I think she does.

  22

  ARI

  “I KIND OF FEEL LIKE we’re a little bit of a cliché, though,” I tell Jason after school. We’re sitting on his front porch. His mom is inside making us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a snack and she thinks that everything is normal and we’re just friends hanging out and it’s so funny when someone thinks one thing because there’s no reason for them not to, or for them to think anything else. But you know it’s something totally different. “Like across-the-street neighbors. My best friend’s ex-boyfriend. These are like every movie stereotype ever created.”

  He laughs. “So what?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I’ve liked you for a really long time, Ari,” he says. “But then you came back from camp and you loved Golfy, and that was that.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And hello—Kaylan.”

  “Of course, Kaylan. I liked her, too, but she didn’t like me like that. I don’t think she ever really did. It was more of a just-getting-her-mind-away-from-Tyler thing.”

  “I don’t think so.” I shake my head. “She did like you. Honestly. A lot.”