by Kit Frick
“Which is why I cannot stress enough the importance of a well-maintained database.” Principal Keegan was gesturing behind him with the PowerPoint clicker at something titled “Your College Application Action Plan.” It was a dizzying grid of Reach, Target, and Safety Schools organized by every date and application component imaginable.
“It doesn’t have to be anything fancy,” he chuckled. It was impossible to tell if this example was supposed to be too fancy or just right on the scale of college acceptance to obsession. “Just a simple Excel or Google Sheet will do. What’s important is having a system. It’s not enough to simply organize all the elements. You have to stay on top of your deadlines and mark off the steps as you go. That’s how you keep things manageable and attainable. That’s how you reach your goals.”
I craned my neck and shoulders around in my chair and combed through the sea of Pine Brook juniors. My eyes found the Smurf, who gave me a little salute from the back row. No sign of Matthias or Dave, which wasn’t much of a surprise. This was exactly the kind of thing they’d skip. We hadn’t talked about Dave since the fight, but they’d been sitting together in the sky dome and hanging out like everything was normal. Guys could just do that. Go on like everything was normal.
I spun back around and buried my face in my notebook. From my quick survey of the auditorium, I ventured that nearly half the juniors were asleep or trying to be. A solid quarter were furiously scribbling notes and nodding cheerfully, as if organizing their college applications was the greatest opportunity that Pine Brook had ever handed them. The remaining quarter—the really smart ones—were doodling idly in their neat spiral notebooks, looking every bit the attentive pupils from stage while secretly daydreaming about whatever boozy or directionless plans their winter breaks held in store.
I envied them. I wanted to want nothing more than boozy and directionless. That was my problem. I was too serious, I wanted too much. Why couldn’t I just ease up, be happy? My fingers found the black band on my wrist, spun it around and around.
A minute later, Jenni passed a note to Bex, signaling her to read and pass it on. Bex unfolded the paper and handed it to me. Twenty-six more minutes until Keegan reveals the secret to getting into Harvard. Then, viewing of The O. C. Chrismukkah episode at my place. I smiled in her direction and passed the note to Ret. Maybe normal was that easy. The four of us—Ret, Jenni, Bex, and me. Always the same.
A few minutes before the bell rang, Ret pressed another note into my hand. This one was intricately folded into a perfect square and had FYEO written across the top in curvy, intricate script—“For Your Eyes Only.” Ret hadn’t just written this note in assembly; she’d clearly been carrying it around, waiting to give it to me. I let my eyes flicker across Bex and Jenni. They were focused on the screen. Then I unfolded the paper slowly, careful not to make any sound. In tiny handwriting I had to bend over to read, Ret had written: I had sex with Jonathan. Twice!
My head shot up. Ret was grinning.
22
JANUARY, SENIOR YEAR
(NOW)
New year, New Ellory. I can almost hear the power ballads pulsing behind me as I push through the school doors on Monday morning, the first day back, first day of spring semester. Nothing can touch me today. There’s no crackling inside as I receive my ball of clay to begin the pottery unit in Studio Art. No falling flakes of ash in Spanish or math. I left them down by the river, left them with Ret.
I ride the high until lunch, when it hits me I didn’t pack one this morning. Head in the clouds, out of the game. So instead of walking down to the shop with my usual brown bag, I wait in the bathroom until the bell signaling the start of fifth period rings, and then I take the stairs up to the sky dome. I tell myself the fourth period lunch crowd will be gone, the coast will be clear. I tell myself I’ll grab a bagel, be down in the shop in no time.
Obviously, I am wrong.
When Jenni turns the corner into the eighth-floor hallway, I freeze. I want to disappear, but there’s nowhere to go. It’s just me and Jenni, her satchel bag swinging loosely from one shoulder, walking straight toward me. No one else in the entire hall, the entire world.
You know how they say that time stops in moments of extreme joy or fear or despair? It doesn’t. It keeps barreling forward, and there’s literally nothing you can do about it. No pause, no rewind, nowhere to run.
She doesn’t see me at first. Her eyes are cast down, deep in thought, maybe about whatever or whoever has made her late to fifth period, has set her down in this particular hallway on a collision course with her past. When she looks up, she’s so close she’s practically on top of me. I take a step back.
Jenni’s pace slows almost imperceptibly for just one step. One tiny falter. Then she raises her chin and shakes her head, slow and deliberate, her hair flashing around her shoulders and down her back in a bright red wave. She looks straight into my eyes and lifts one hand to her forehead. At first I’m not sure what she’s doing, but then it hits me: With four little taps of her fingers—forehead, chest, shoulder, shoulder—Jenni is making the sign of the cross. I guess her time in Tennessee last summer had a lasting effect. Is she blessing me? No, she’s crossing herself—this is a warding away, a protection. Jenni doesn’t just hate me. She’s actually afraid of me.
I take another step back, stumbling into a wall of lockers. Jenni laughs. Just one short ha like a gunshot echoing in the empty hall. Ha ha ha. I’m wrong again. She’s not scared, she’s putting on a show. She’s thriving on seeing me this way. Trapped. Alone. I’m the one radiating fear, my rabbit heart beating wild inside my chest.
Then she picks up the pace and breezes past, staring straight ahead as if I’m not even here.
Maybe I’m not.
I can hear the sharp thud of her platforms retreat down the hall, then turn the corner. Gone. She didn’t touch me, but my body reverberates with the impact, as if I’ve been slapped. Until now, I’ve been doing such a good job of avoiding Jenni. It’s been easy, really; she doesn’t want to see me any more than I want to see her. My mind shoots back to her single text from the summer: I’m praying for you. Are you really, Jenni? Or are you just praying for yourself?
Jenni’s pious performance is a wake-up call—leaving Ret behind won’t be enough. Fallout, fall from grace, fall guy, fall apart. There are other chapters to close; the past is everywhere. Did I really think it would be so easy to walk away?
I’m shaking all over. I sink down to the floor, my back sliding against the metal until I’m sitting on the cold tile of the eighth-floor hallway, head tilted against a locker door, heart thudding. My fingers gravitate automatically to my wrist, but they close around bare skin. I want the comfort of the band to twist, but it’s been in a box in my room since the start of winter break. I can feel my breath coming faster and faster, the blood beating in my ears. I would take the crunching again any day. The hollow emptiness. Anything but this.
“Are you okay, Miss Holland?”
My back stiffens and my head bangs sharply against the locker door.
“I’m fine.” I’m not. I rub the back of my head and stare up at Mr. Samuels, my homeroom teacher, trying not to visibly shake. He doesn’t look happy to find me out in the hall when I should clearly be somewhere else.
“In that case, shouldn’t you be in lunch?”
“I just got dizzy. I think I forgot to eat breakfast.” I push myself up from the lockers, willing my legs to stop shaking. “I’m fine now.”
Mr. Samuels twists his mouth to one side and eyes me. He clocks in about two inches below my forehead, but he looks deadly serious staring up into my face. “If you’re not feeling well, I strongly suggest you head down to the nurse. Otherwise, it’s been several minutes since the second bell. You need to be inside.” He glances down the hall toward the sky dome.
“Right,” I mumble, starting back down the hall. Right foot, left foot. I can do this. “See you tomorrow in homeroom.”
He nods, and I can feel his eye
s on my back until I push through the door and it swings shut.
The sky dome is filled with people, but everyone’s wrapped up in their own drama, sharing stories from winter break. No one notices me walk in, no one cares. I take in a deep, shaky breath. There are a couple of empty tables on the far side of the cafeteria, and sitting here with a book sounds better than going back out into the halls, walking all the way across the school to the art wing. I get in the line, which is short, since I’m late. I start to reach for a bagel, then change my mind. A bagel would sit like a rock in my stomach. I go for the hummus and carrot sticks instead and grab a lemonade from the soda-less bin of cold drinks by the cashier.
When I sink into a chair at a vacant table, I’m not sure I even want the hummus, but I force myself to eat. When I’m done, I shove my tray aside and fold my arms across the table. The back of my head is still throbbing a little where I hit it against the locker, and I rest my forehead across my arms. I feel like I could sleep for a week. With my eyes closed, I imagine the impossible—time moving in reverse, back to the moment where everything started to unravel. Was it last spring, watching Ret get into the back of Dave’s car, watching them drive away? Or January, that dismal day with Matthias at the Roaster? Or before that, the fight in the truck, the night at the Crow, a thousand sleepovers at Jenni’s, Dave Franklin’s living room? Or further, Comparative Religions, freshman English, Abigail sobbing in the locker room, back and back and back. Before Pine Brook. Before any of us ever met.
I can’t make it stop. My eyes fly open, and I force my head up. I could go on avoiding Jenni and everyone else forever. But it’s not working. I don’t want to spend the rest of the year sneaking through the halls, avoiding everyone, avoiding anything that could drag me back to junior year. I’m not going to go around begging for forgiveness, begging them to take me back. But I can’t just leave Pine Brook filled with ghosts. When I came back this year, I knew I was going to have to face them eventually. Didn’t I? Isn’t that why I refused to transfer, why I made myself return? Walking away from Ret felt like an ending, but it was just the beginning. Moving forward means facing each and every one of them. If I can figure out how.
23
DECEMBER, JUNIOR YEAR
(THEN)
By 5:45 on Christmas Eve, my parents were at a holiday party across town, two shots of celebratory schnapps had been consumed, and I’d fired off a text to Ho-Ho-Holidays letting everyone know I’d be going dark for the night. For once, no one gave me any shit. At six, Matthias arrived on my doorstep bearing a foil-wrapped plate. He looked freshly scrubbed, and he smelled amazing, like apricots and vanilla. It was only the second time we’d been alone—really alone—since the fight.
I let him inside and kissed him, breathing him in.
“Rebecca baked,” he explained, handing over the cookies. “Exactly once a year, she comes down from her office and gets inspired to do parental things like drag the tree up from the basement and bake cookies with Cordelia. It’s almost heartwarming.”
“I don’t know whether that’s sweet or sad.”
“Mostly sad. Lures Cordelia into a false sense of assurance that she’s going to have a real mom for at least two months following Christmas every year. I stopped believing in the magical Mom Claus around her age. We’ll see how long it takes C to become hard and bitter.”
He followed me into the kitchen, where I placed the cookies on the counter next to several tins of my mom’s own holiday baked goods and the bottle of peppermint schnapps.
“You start the party without me?”
“I was feeling a little festive with the elder Hollands out.” No careful, meek Ellory tonight. No dancing around. I picked up the bottle. “Join me?”
Matthias tipped back two shots and I had a third, and then I took his hand and led him into the family room. I was warm and soft around the edges. The carpet was squishy beneath my feet. My shirt was silky against my skin. We floated over to the couch.
I clicked on the TV and flipped through the channels until It’s a Wonderful Life came up on the screen. Matthias plopped down on the couch and pulled me gingerly after him, onto his lap.
“I won’t break,” I said.
He started to say something back, but I leaned in and pressed my mouth against his. His lips were smooth and his skin was hot and everything was spinning just a little. His hands moved lightly across my stomach, across the green fabric of my shirt. I drew in my breath.
“Too much?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not enough.”
He hesitated for just a second, then a light seemed to turn on in his eyes. He yanked his sweater over his head, pulling his arms roughly out of the sleeves. I reached for the buttons on his shirt. When his chest was bare, I pressed my face against his skin and breathed in the smell of bar soap mixed with flour and vanilla.
He gathered up my shirt at the hem and pulled it off. For a second, I felt the shock of cold air against my skin. Then I leaned back into the couch and pulled him with me, on top of me. His breathing was hot and ragged in my ear, and I felt instantly warmer. I thought about those first times we were together, how I would wait for something inside me to click, how eventually I’d pull back when the click never came. I was a different person now. The fight had changed something inside me. I couldn’t have all of Matthias, but I could have this. This was mine, and mine alone.
His lips found my mouth, my ear, my hair. He reached for the clasp of my bra. It was violet and lace. His fingers fumbled with it for a minute, and then I felt the fabric relax, the straps ease down my shoulders. Click. His lips moved across my shoulder, my neck. My heart was beating firm and loud inside my chest. I could feel it sending blood through every vein, pulsing beneath my skin. His hands were everywhere—on my stomach, my sides, my back. They felt good, necessary. Click click click.
The movie was playing in the background. The couch was soft and deep. I let my hands drift across the sides of his face, detecting just a trace of roughness along his jaw and chin. His hands moved from my hair, down to my breasts, down further to the button on my jeans. I slipped them off. When he moved the thin cotton of my underwear aside and slid his fingers between my legs, I drew in a shallow breath. I closed my eyes and sank into the rhythm of his fingertips, which moved in light, steady circles against me.
* * *
My eyes took a minute to focus on the little digital numbers on the DVR. We were curled up on the couch, and I didn’t want to move, but something told me it was getting late. The spell of the fight had been broken. We hadn’t had sex—not tonight, not yet—but I couldn’t imagine the drowsy, warm, tangled-up closeness that happened after could be any better than this. I made a mental note to ask Ret as the numbers came into focus.
“It’s after ten. How did that happen?”
Matthias stirred and kissed my shoulder, then reached for his jeans, which were crumpled in a heap on the floor. “I should go soon. I have to get downtown.”
“You’re going to a show?”
For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then he said, “But before I go, I have something for you. Wait here.”
He pushed up off the couch and disappeared into the hall. I sat up, a little cold and still not quite awake. I retrieved my underwear from the floor and slipped them back on, then I clasped my bra behind my back. Being naked with Matthias felt amazing, daring, far outside the risk-free zone we’d been occupying for days. But it was undeniably weird sitting alone without any clothes on, in my family room, with It’s a Wonderful Life on TV. When Matthias came back, he was still shirtless, his hair all over the place, beautiful. He was carrying a small wrapped box in his hand.
“Where did that come from?”
“Coat pocket.” He grinned.
“Wait a sec.” I grabbed my shirt and slipped it back over my head. “I have something for you too.” I ran down the hall and lifted a rectangular package from its place on my dresser.
Back in the family room, Matthias was sitting on the
couch fully clothed. His hair was, to a certain extent, back in order. I held out the box to him, and he took it.
“You first,” he said. “Sorry it’s not the best wrapping job.”
The paper was a little crooked, but it didn’t matter. I tore the tape; inside was a small white box with a gold seal. I opened the lid. The ring was silver and across the top were three interlocking stars: one silver, one bronze, and one gold.
“Orion’s belt.” I smiled up at him. “It’s beautiful.”
“If it’s not the right size, we can have it adjusted. The guy at the shop said it’s no big deal.”
I slid it on. “It’s perfect.” Then I held my breath as he untied the curly ribbon and tore open the paper on his box. His face split into a wide grin as he held up a pair of brown leather gloves, the insides lined with black cashmere.
“Try them on.”
He slipped them onto his hands and held them up in the air, wiggling his fingers. “Perfect.”
“No more cold hands.”
“I love them. And now I really do have to go.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m not going to a show, just some quick errands. And I still have gifts to wrap.”
“I love you.” We said it together.
After he was gone, off to ensure his little sister would have a Christmas morning filled with gifts, I sat on the couch twisting the ring on my finger. I wanted more nights like tonight. But tomorrow was Christmas, and then we’d pack up the car to head to Fox Mountain for the Hollands’ annual week of downhill skiing and family fun. It used to be my favorite week of the year. Now, all I wanted was to spend the days curled up with Matthias.
I told myself I could wait.
I told myself there would be so many more nights like this.
I sat there, watching the television while It’s a Wonderful Life finished and started over again from the beginning, spinning Orion’s belt around and around on my finger, waiting for my parents to come home, late and tipsy and giggling. I sat there and mapped everything out—how I’d get home next week, and how we’d go back to school, and how spring would become summer would become senior year, and everything was ahead of us, shining, just waiting for us to get there.
