by Amy Spalding
None of my friends seem to be inside, so I text Kat—Are you here yet? I even add a confetti emoji because I know it’s the kind of thing she’ll like—and head out to the backyard. I spot Hannah, Tobi, and a few others from track, and I step into their circle.
“McCall!” Tobi cheers. She’s wearing a sparkly dress and red heart-shaped sunglasses, even though no one else is dressed up and it’s nighttime. “We’re graduating!”
“She’s had, like, a beer and a half already,” Hannah tells me.
“I thought her body was a temple,” I say.
“Temples have wine and stuff,” Tobi tells me.
Hannah and I exchange a look.
“There’s soda, too,” Hannah says. “And mineral water? You can keep your temple running with Prohibition-era laws.”
“Thank god,” I say, and luckily a sophomore girl scampers off to get beverages for us. Kat’s right; I’ll miss being at the top of the food chain. It’ll be weird to be the babies again, and I mention this to Hannah.
“Oh, I’m grateful for it,” she says, as we accept our bottles of Topo Chico. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Now I can be honest about that again.”
I clink my glass bottle against hers. “Also, we can protect each other.”
“Yes. I’m so glad you changed your mind and accepted—”
“I haven’t really said anything to anyone yet,” I say.
“You nerd,” she says. “Why not? Berkeley’s a great school. It was my dream school!”
I make sure Tobi’s too tipsy to be paying attention. It’s a safe bet. “It’s a long story, but I fucked up some of my application deadlines, and then . . . I liked how it sounded to go as far away as possible, so I kept talking about Michigan. It took me a while to sort out what I actually wanted.”
Hannah nods. “The whole process makes you not want to say anything to anyone, huh?”
I try not to let it show on my face how true that’s been.
“I was so nervous I wouldn’t get in,” Hannah continues. “And everyone would know I already had this dumb Berkley keychain as a good luck . . . whatever.”
“It’s all too public,” I agree.
“You two have to start beering next year,” Tobi says at a very loud volume.
“Beering?” I ask.
“Athletes in college manage not to beer, too,” Hannah says. “We’ll survive.”
I feel something in my chest lighten. It was easy to want to believe that when I got to college I’d have to learn to be a bubbly fun girl everyone wanted to party with. I’d have to be like Kat to survive. But Hannah’s right; I can stay just James. Just James can be enough.
We keep drinking mineral waters while Tobi beers more and loudly outlines her plans for seducing Miguel Carter before graduation. I keep my phone handy but there’s still no response from Kat.
It’s a little hard to believe that despite how much time I’ve spent with my track teammates, I’ve only recently realized I’d have this much fun hanging out with them beyond practices and meets. I wonder how this year—how high school—would have felt had I realized it sooner.
And it seems like with school behind us and only graduation ahead, walls are coming down anyway. Everyone’s talking to everyone, and it matters less who was a drama kid, who cared only about their grades, or who was basically a clichéd asshole. As more people join our group in the backyard, we end up talking about college, and from time to time it hits me how this is all slipping away. By the end of this weekend, we won’t be seniors, and by the end of the summer, most of us won’t even live here anymore.
“Wait,” I find myself saying. The night’s caught up with me and I have no idea how long it’s been since I arrived. I check my phone, but there are still no messages. “Have you guys seen Kat?”
Hannah’s friend Ryan gestures toward the house, so I take a deep breath and walk inside. I’m assuming he’s wrong, because even if it feels like I’m Kat’s lowest priority, I don’t actually believe that it could be true. What about the magic elixir? And while Kat’s more popular and visible than ever, Ryan could be buzzed enough that he spotted someone else with curly hair and not the queen herself.
But when I walk inside, I see Kat sitting backward on the back of the sofa, holding court with admirers all around her. According to my phone I’ve already been here for nearly two hours. How long has Kat?
“James!” she squeals, and I can tell from her tone and the red Solo cup she gestures with that she’s drunk. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Are you?” I ask. “When did you get here?”
“I dunno, awhile? Ago?” She giggles and pats the sofa next to her. “Sit with me! We’re all talking about—what do you call it?”
“Lucid dreaming,” someone says, which makes Kat nod emphatically. Someone else starts talking about being aware during a dream, which, of course, makes two guys bring up Inception because guys at parties love talking about Christopher Nolan movies. Someone squeezes around me, and I watch as Quinn hops up to take the spot on the sofa Kat just offered to me. I don’t think Quinn knows it, but Kat knows. But all she does is beam at Quinn and yell at David Levy that his dream about cats doesn’t count. I feel like the embodiment of my unanswered text to her.
I back away and make my way toward the front of the house. Matty’s crew is still stationed there, louder and drunker and higher than before.
“Hey!” Matty shouts at me. “Where’s your friend?”
“I’m not her keeper, Matty.”
He stumbles over to me. I’ve never been a huge fan of Matty Evans, but right now I feel a surge of sympathy for him. He doesn’t look fun inebriated, like Kat. He just looks sad.
“She thinks she’s hot shit, you know,” he slurs.
“I do know.”
He moves in even closer. “I made”—he holds up one finger—“one little mistake and she just gets rid of me.”
“You slept with another girl,” I say. “You didn’t forget her birthday or something.”
“April second,” he says. “See? I haven’t forgotten her birthday.”
“Good job,” I tell him.
“You were my friend then,” he says.
“On April second?”
“Before Kat dumped me,” he says.
I think about that. Were Matty and I ever really friends? We spent plenty of time together, but I’m not sure I thought about him that way.
“How’s your guy?” he asks. “Glasses guy?”
“Logan’s fine,” I say. “Not that he’s my guy anymore.”
“That sucks,” Matty says, so I shrug. “That guy’s a good guy.”
Something turns inside of me and all I want to do is cry.
“Man.” Matty’s still looking into the next room at Kat. “She fuckin’ thinks she’s something.”
I follow his sight line and take in the crowd that surrounds Kat. I watch how her eyes light up and how, even without hearing what she’s saying, her gestures tell a story.
“She is something,” I say.
I don’t bother to tell Matty good-bye. I just get out of there.
I wake up earlier than usual the next morning, since my Habitat for Humanity shift is today. After changing from pajamas into running gear, I take off down the block. Up ahead I see a familiar form, so I break into my fastest sprint.
“Whoa, fancy meeting you here,” Logan says.
“You’re home for the summer?” I ask.
“Not yet, just home for the weekend,” he says, as we match paces like we never stopped. “How are you doing, McCall?”
“This year can suck it.”
He cracks up so hard he giggles like a little boy. “Senior year’s overrated. You’ll have a way better time off in Michigan.”
We run in silence for a few minutes, just the sound of our shoes hitting the sidewalk in almost perfect unison.
“I’m not going to Michigan,” I say. “I accepted at Berkeley.”
“Hell, yeah,” Logan sa
ys. “I like this news.”
“We aren’t back together,” I say.
“I didn’t say we were. It’s merely that my plans to make that happen are a lot easier with you only a six-hour drive away.”
“Logan . . . there’s just no guarantee,” I say. “People our age think they’re in love, and they make these promises, and then twenty or thirty years later it all falls apart.”
“Sure, sometimes,” he says. “Not always.”
“I don’t want it to fall apart with you,” I admit.
“So you just threw a grenade into it and ran?” From anyone else that would sound accusatory, but he just laughs. “McCall. C’mon.”
“My parents split up,” I say. Such a little sentence for something so big.
“Shit, I’m sorry to hear that,” he says. “You doing OK?”
I find myself laughing. “Almost, maybe? No, I don’t know why I said that. Not really.”
He slows down and reaches over to touch my arm. It’s been a while since I felt his hands on me.
“Logan, I think . . . I think my world’s small right now. With you in it, without you in it. And I have to make it bigger.”
He nods. I wait for whatever he has to say next, but right now, Logan Sidana is speechless. I like how it looks on him.
“I never want to hate you.” I expect to think about my parents, but it’s Kat’s face in my head. I’m sure Kat’s still sleeping off her hangover, and I doubt once she’s awake that I’ll be on her mind at all. Technically there’s no reason I couldn’t just text her, but right now it feels as fantastical as learning to fly.
“I’m pretty unhateable,” Logan says as we resume our run. “E.L.L.”
“Everyone Loves Logan?” I ask. “Seriously?”
He cracks up even more. I miss his arms around me, our early morning runs, the way he could still surprise me with a kiss after being together for so long. But his laugh, it turns out, is what I missed most.
“Always and forever.” He stops running again and turns to face me, with his arms folded across his chest. “I could never hate you, McCall. Even if you wanted me to.”
I step back into a run, and grin when he catches up with me.
“This is horrible,” Hannah mutters as we walk over to the Habitat for Humanity construction site from my car.
“It’s not that early,” I say. “I’ve already been up getting my miles in. When do you train?”
“Certainly not in the middle of the night like you,” she says. “Some people don’t mind running during daylight hours.”
“When exactly do you think the sun comes up?” I laugh and help myself to a cup of coffee. “We’re building a house for someone who needs it. I feel like the least we can do is get up early.”
Hannah sighs but pours herself a cup of coffee as well. “Thanks for letting me crash your big volunteer project, by the way. If I haven’t already thanked you. I’m sure you wanted to be some lone wolf doing good in the world.”
I don’t know what to say because, while I’d never thought of myself as a wolf, lone or otherwise, I get what she’s saying. It probably shouldn’t feel so great to hang out with a friend who seems to inherently understand you; it’s something I used to take for granted. But I guess there’s also something nice about someone new. I’d worry it makes me a hypocrite, if not for the fact that I was the one shoved aside in the first place.
The construction leader goes over our day’s schedule, plus safety information. Hannah and I both scribble down notes about protocol, hazards, and expectations. I left this volunteer opportunity for last because it really seemed as if you should build up to it—no pun intended. Still, I’m practically a high school graduate now, but I doubt that makes me ready to construct a home.
I decide to choose the task that’ll have the fewest implications for the structural integrity of the house and start carrying materials over from the supply trailer to the lot. As I haul over bags of concrete, I think about my own home and the empty lot it must have been once. Obviously, that was long before Mom and Dad bought it—it was built in 1923—but I have to imagine that everyone goes in with relatively the same hopes and dreams.
“McCall, I’m over there actually hammering boards together,” Hannah says, walking alongside me. “You should join me.”
“I’m good here,” I say, and I realize I am. There’s a sense of your own strength in watching this huge stack of items disappear in one place and then reappear in another, thanks in part to your own arms, back, legs. It doesn’t necessarily feel like building a house, but it feels like something.
We break for lunch, and I sit next to Hannah while we eat sub sandwiches.
“I’ve never seen you eat carbs before,” I tell her, and she laughs.
“I never turn down a free sandwich,” she says. “Did you have fun last night?”
The party jolts back into my head, and I see Kat perched on the back of that couch, gesturing with her stupid cup.
“Not really,” I say. “I ran into Logan this morning, though.”
“Oh, did you?” she asks, and I register that I actually said it aloud. Whoops.
I shrug and try to figure out what to say, because I hadn’t really meant to bring him up. It’s easier not bringing anything up. I’m still convinced that if one detail comes out, it all might. And Hannah seems to like me and want to be my friend. If I unloaded about my entire year, who knows.
“Yeah, I . . .” I let myself trail off.
“Mmmhmmm.”
I laugh even though I absolutely didn’t want to. “Stop.”
“Can I ask?” Her tone is delicate. “What happened with you guys? You were always sort of my, you know.” Hannah shrugs. “My hashtag goals.”
I take a few bites of my sandwich. “I don’t know. It started to feel silly to me, the more I thought about it.”
I don’t mention that had been over the course of one afternoon.
“You and Logan?”
I shrug. “Forever starting now. I’m not sure anyone can plan as much as I’d thought you could. I feel ridiculous now. Look at UCLA.”
Hannah makes a big show of looking in the direction of Westwood.
“Stop.” I do my best to hold back a smile. “Nothing this year went as I thought it would. I’m not sure why I thought I could make it work forever with a boy I met when I was a freshman.”
She nods. “That makes sense to me.”
I find that I’m waiting for her to jump in with a story of her own, but she doesn’t. The moment gets to breathe.
After lunch, Hannah convinces me to join the construction crew, even though I still find it mind-boggling that regular people like us are just allowed to do this. Hammering nails into wood feels powerful, though, and unlike my previous volunteer assignments, I think I’m eager to do this again, and keep doing it. Using materials to help someone have a home is so far perhaps the biggest thing I’ve ever done. Originally, it didn’t feel like work if I also enjoyed it, but as I watch the skeleton of a house actually being formed, I wonder how someone couldn’t enjoy this. Doing good doesn’t have to feel . . . well, bad. Is it silly that I’m just understanding that now?
The day passes more quickly than I expect, and Hannah and I discuss how long we should allot for driving back to Burbank, getting ready, and arriving at graduation. I see a team walk by us toward the stack of insulation and notice that one guy isn’t wearing a mask. This morning the leader warned us not to work with insulation without one, and I almost say something. But I’m brand-new to this, and I’m sure there’s a good reason he’s doing what he’s doing. And I’m not the person who’ll shout across a crowd of people. I doubt there’s anything I’d notice that’s worth calling out.
I focus back on hammering nails, but before too long, I hear someone yell from across the yard. There’s a flurry of commotion as people begin clustering around the area. The crew leaders make their way over with authority, which sends a chill through me. There’s something about a forced
calm demeanor that strikes so much more fear in me than loud chaos. I exchange glances with the crew members around me, as if someone’s expression will set me at ease. None do, though.
As the commotion continues, most of us end up putting down our tools and running over to see what’s going on. The same guy I saw without a mask earlier is now sitting on the lawn taking deep gulping breaths, and I move in closer without even thinking about it.
“He’s fine,” the construction leader tells me, as first aid swoops in.
“I’m so sorry,” I find myself saying. “I saw him walk by without a mask, but . . . I thought it must be OK if no one else said anything.”
“James,” she says, looking at my nametag, “communication is key.”
Sometimes a moment feels bigger than what it actually is.
As people stumble into seats on graduation night, I feel like a jerk for having assumed our rehearsal yesterday was unnecessary. Apparently walking in a procession and taking an orderly seat is way out of the ability levels of a lot of graduating Magnolia Park seniors.
I glance up at Kat as the ceremony begins. Her green eyes are fixed on the stage, so it feels like the wrong time to make fun of our less coordinated classmates. It might be the wrong time even if she wasn’t paying such rapt attention. I have no idea what Kat’s thinking.
I’m called up for my diploma before she is, because it’s alphabetical, and I feel silly at how relieved I am that she cheers so loudly at the sound of my name. I’m still crossing the stage and moving my tassel over when the principal calls Quinn Morgan, and I force myself not to measure Kat’s cheer in comparison to hers for me. And I cheer my heart out when Kat’s name is called, because, no matter what, we did it. We got through four years of high school, and we’re all off to see what the rest of the world holds.
Mom and Dad want to take a million photos of me afterward, and I have my second fear of pettiness when I realize how relieved I am that Todd isn’t here. I know being a high school graduate isn’t actually being an adult, but I’d love to magically feel more mature now that my tassel is on the left side.
“Where’s Kat?” Mom asks, as though now she suddenly gives a shit about Kat. “We can’t have photos without her.”
