The Resolutions

by Mia Garcia

  “I promise you,” Jess’s voice was clear and warm and just what he needed. “You won’t have any other thoughts aside from how annoying I am.”

  It was his turn to smile. “You aren’t that annoying.”

  “Is that a yes?” she asked, hopeful.

  He could say no. He could. Staying in place felt like a relief and exhausting at the same time, but Jess felt like a tether, a way out if only for this one moment. What would happen if he didn’t take it? Would he ever have it again? “I need to shower.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Rude,” he said, finally butting her off the bed, just a bit satisfied at the thump she made when she hit the ground.

  “I’ll wait for you downstairs. Ten minutes?”

  “What? Thirty at least.”

  “Fine.”

  Ryan untangled the fabric from his body. He pictured a majestic unveiling like a butterfly from that chrysalis thing, but in actuality it was a lot of muffled grunts, eventually falling off the bed. The sun greeted him with the same cheerfulness that Jess had—not caring whether he was ready or not. He dropped the tangled bundle on the floor, which fit in with the rest of the mess in his room.

  How Jess had managed to stop herself from organizing it while he was cocooned, he had no idea. But then there in the corner of his room he spotted the pile of small boxes—gifts from his grandmother’s many travels (travels he’d one day be a part of when schedules and budgets aligned). Previously an unruly mountain—now sorted into three small piles and tucked against the wall. Could be worse.

  Down the hall he could hear Jess chatting with his parents. Any delay now would come at a cost. He fished his towel from underneath a pile of possibly clean clothes and crossed the hall to the bathroom. He made the water scalding hot and hopped in. The water circled down the drain as he closed his eyes and imagined his sadness as tones of gray circling down and away. When he opened his eyes, he could still feel it clinging to his skin, which was just as well. Without his sadness, would there be anything left of him?

  Lee

  LEE HAD REACHED the end of the internet. She knew it was the end because it featured a rotating ice cream cone that did most of the work for you, and that surely signaled the end of humanity. How lazy did you have to be to need a rotating ice cream cone?

  And the fact that she was on the verge of even considering buying the thing meant it was time to step away from her laptop. She still had several hours until she needed to be at Jess’s and the possibilities were endless: she could pretend to clean her room again, but since the accidental result of pretending to clean one’s room is actually cleaning your room, it was already annoyingly put together. She should finish the last volume in the graphic novel series she was reading, but that meant the series would come to an end and she wasn’t ready for that.

  Her pile of unread film magazines on the floor next to her desk toppled over as if on cue. She was sorting them into keep and toss piles when there was a knock on the door.

  “Lee?” her father called from the other side of the door.

  “I’m decent,” she replied, eyeing her solar system jammies.

  Her father popped his head in, an easy smile on his face for a man who looked like he could bench press a small car. Her dad had always been muscle on the outside and marshmallow on the inside, but not that many people saw past the six-foot-tall, giant-of-a-man part. Where her father was an open book, Lee kept her emotions close to the chest as much as possible. It was safer that way.

  He settled by her desk, noticing the video she’d left up on her screen.

  “What’s this?” Her father’s face was an inch from the screen. Lee made a mental note to remind him to make an appointment with an eye doctor. His eyesight was getting worse and worse.

  “The greatest invention in mankind’s history.”

  His smile took over his whole face. “I thought that was penicillin?”

  “Common mistake.”

  “That so?” Her father chuckled before his eyes started to wander around her room as the pause in conversation extended.

  Lee sighed, knowing what was coming next. When things got uncomfortable between them it was always about her mother. Paula Maria Perez-Carter. Careful how you pronounced Paula, of course, making sure to stretch out the u until it carried with it her bilingual tongue and brown skin that absorbed the sun deep into her heart. Her mother’s memory carried a weight, even three years after her death. It was unfair to her memory, but it was the truth.

  “What’s up?”

  “I wanted to make sure you were okay missing those school days for the trip to Virginia for your mother’s birthday?”

  “I don’t think you ever have to ask if I’m okay with missing school,” Lee said. “It’s always okay.”

  “Just making sure. In case you might have any plans. You never know.”

  Lee shook her head. Her mother’s birthday would be forever marked in her calendar along with the day of her death. But their trip to Virginia in April would be to celebrate her birthday as they had every year, come rain or shine, as her mother would’ve wanted it.

  What she wouldn’t have wanted was the ripple effect of the trip. Each year leading up to it her father would run around finding ways to keep busy until April, to keep his mind from wandering over to how much he missed her. Last year it was starting a community garden in the middle of winter. This year it was tackling the guest room—or what was supposed to be the guest room—but was really a room for what Lee called the “too hard stuff.” Anything that was too hard to get rid of: certain items of clothing, jewelry that Lee didn’t want to go through, medical bills, photos, all connected to Lee’s mom.

  “No plans. Are we staying with Auntie Rose?” She smiled, slipping her hand into his; brown skin against brown skin.

  “I don’t think we can get out of that one.” Her dad smiled, placing his other hand over hers.

  Lee always thought her hands were big like her father’s until moments like this when she felt five again, holding his hand as they crossed the street.

  Lee was somewhere in the middle: short like her mom but strong like her father. Blunt like her, and soft like him. Though she hid that softness as much as she could.

  He pushed himself off the desk, and within two steps he was at the door, taking up the whole frame. It always made Lee smile, like they were living in a dollhouse her dad had outgrown. “When you heading out?”

  “Probably around eight. You have your office shenanigans?”

  “Shenanigans require a degree of fun that my coworkers know nothing about.”

  “Sounds like a rager,” Lee said.

  “I don’t think we have the same definition of rager.”

  “Didn’t you fall asleep at last year’s party?”

  He shook his head. “Power nap.”

  Lee winked. “Right.”

  Closing the door behind him, Lee heard her phone buzz somewhere below her pillows. Jess had managed to pull Ryan out from under his comforter. Good. She’d missed annoying him these last few weeks.

  She sent out a quick group text confirming that the drinks were taken care of before tossing her phone back on the bed. Going into her closet she searched for her comfiest sweater for tonight—Jess’s basement was freezing in the winter—when her eyes landed on the small beat-up box she’d stuffed in her closet.

  The guest room wasn’t the only place they’d stashed the “too hard stuff.” Maybe she should do a little cleaning herself before the trip? Pulling the box down, she fiddled with the tape sealing it shut, which was slightly yellowed now and peeling off the sides.

  She jostled the box, hearing the familiar clang of a wind chime, lifting the memory up from the fog—yes—she remembered tossing it on top of other things.

  A notebook, an album, everything else was frayed; there might be other things, but her memories cracked under the scrutiny.

  Her phone buzzed again.

  Whatever else was in the box had waited this l
ong so it could wait another day, and another. She dropped it next to her shoes, grabbed her sweater, and closed the closet door.

  One thing at a time.

  Jess

  ACCORDING TO TRADITION, the four of them would gather in Jess’s basement every New Year’s Eve.

  Lee always took possession of the sofa, if it could still be called that, while deciding on the order of the evening’s entertainment. She had the most opinions on what they watched, so it was better to let her pick. Ryan and Nora plopped down on the mountain of pillows Jess arranged on the floor, discussing what color Ryan would dye his hair once it grew back. Because Nora couldn’t dye her own hair (as it didn’t fit La Islita’s image) she lived through encouraging others to do so.

  This was how it was supposed to be, all four of them together. And tonight would be a New Year’s Eve to remember, she was sure of it.

  Jess felt like they’d all been drifting apart these last few months. Between Ryan’s broken heart, Nora’s schedule picking up at La Islita, and Jess’s own list of commitments, the four of them had barely any time for each other. (Lee was just increasingly withdrawn—but it was hard to get her alone to ask why.) A part of Jess wondered if they felt the same way too. Sometimes she felt like she was the only one trying to coordinate plans—and most of the time, only one or two of them would be free on the same night. Would she one day be one of those people with just fond memories of her high school friends?

  No—that wouldn’t be them, not if she could help it. She shook off the thoughts of college breaks filled with awkward, forced conversations and sat down next to Lee on the couch, her notebook tucked under her arm. She knew it wasn’t possible, but the notebook felt warm, like it, too, was excited for what was to come.

  All the food was laid out on the floor in front of the TV, a giant spread even for a group double their size: Nora’s three desserts, a pile of candy, three boxes of pizza, popcorn, and as many sugary drinks as Lee could carry.

  “What are we watching first?” Ryan slapped Lee’s leg.

  Lee returned the smack with a pillow. “I keep going back and forth. It’s between this movie about some white people finding an ancient artifact, which of course, they take home. It doesn’t end well for them. Or option two, which is about some white people moving into a creepy new house . . .”

  “Let me guess,” Ryan said, reaching for the popcorn. “It doesn’t end well. What else do we got?”

  Lee nodded, reaching for option three. “Classic sci-fi, which could use a little more color, but it’s still good.”

  Ryan shoved a handful of popcorn in his mouth. “That one!”

  Lee handed Jess the DVD, and she dutifully hopped off the couch toward the TV set, accidentally dropping her notebook.

  “Please tell me you aren’t doing homework, Jess.” Nora pointed to the notebook before flipping open the first pizza box. Jess’s mom had blessedly kept the pizzas in the oven to warm while they were setting up, which meant the cheese was melted enough for those gorgeous cheese strands to appear. Nora picked up a piece and did a little shimmy as the cheese stretched and stretched.

  “Nope!” Jess dropped the disc in the player and turned around. “It’s something I wanted to talk to you guys about before we dove into Lee’s movie marathon.”

  The door to the basement opened, and Jess’s twin brother, David, peered down, the sound of several acoustic guitars following after him. “Can I join you?”

  Ugh. “Weren’t you going to a friend’s party?”

  David shrugged. “Grounded.”

  “For?” Jess couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed David was grounded, but she’d been so preoccupied with the plans for this evening it was entirely possible she’d missed it.

  “Uh.” David smiled. “Language.”

  Lee shifted to face David, craning her neck. “Language?”

  “I may have been playing one particularly intense Warcraft raid and said a few things in the heat of the moment.”

  Yeah, that made sense. Whenever David had a free moment he spent it battling . . . Orcs? Was it Orcs? Lee would not approve of Jess’s lackluster fantasy vocabulary.

  She heard Ryan whispering to Nora, “What’s a Warcraft?”

  Nora didn’t answer.

  “Sooooo?” David waited as a tap, tap, tap of a tango started behind him.

  For a second her mind was a jumble of annoyance, but she quickly tucked it back. “Sure, can you give me a bit, though? I need to talk about something . . .”

  Lee turned at that, her eyes narrowing. Jess narrowed hers right back, making sure there was a smile along with it.

  “What kind of something?”

  “Stuff.”

  Jess grinned. She and David had never really had that so-called twin sense or anything. If they did, then maybe this would be easier.

  “How long does ‘stuff’ take?”

  “Like an hour.”

  “An hour?” David was about to ask why when Jess heard her mother call for him. He sighed and headed up the stairs. “An hour it is, but if Mami tries to dance with me I’m hiding here.” He slammed the door behind him.

  Lee’s head was cocked to the side, eyeing the waiting movie behind them. Maybe even wondering what Jess was up to.

  “So,” Jess said, her mind focusing on the task at hand while her stomach did a little dance of excitement. “I’ve been thinking that this year should be different.” She paused, waiting to be interrupted, but no one did. She took a breath, pressing the notebook against her chest before exhaling. “I want us to do the resolutions again this year, but this time I want to do them right.”

  “This sounds ominous,” Lee quipped.

  “Oh!” Nora said, beaming. “I like the resolutions. They’re fun.”

  “Yes!” Jess returned Nora’s smile, nudging the Nutella brownies toward Nora, who was trying to reach them by using her foot to kick the container closer. “Last year was . . . actually, I don’t remember what happened with our resolutions last year.”

  “We didn’t do them,” Lee said, rolling her eyes.

  “Right! Which is why I think this is the perfect year to do them as they’re meant to be done.”

  “Which is . . . ?” Lee asked. Jess knew she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “To do the things we always talk about but never do.”

  “How so?” Ryan gathered a blanket around himself.

  “Well, skipping things like pass the driver’s license exam after the third try.”

  “Hey. Rude,” Lee grumbled, accepting a brownie from Nora.

  “Or attempting to be less of a slob.” Jess jerked her head toward Ryan.

  “I’ve decided I’m just artistic . . . it’s really in the way you see it,” Ryan said. “One person’s mound of junk is another’s MoMA exhibit.”

  “No, you’re a slob,” Nora chimed in.

  Ryan stuck out his tongue and grabbed the meringues. He popped two in his mouth like popcorn.

  Jess continued, putting every nervous but excited beat of her heart into her words, hoping that it would convince her friends. “Think of all the stuff we’ve always wanted for each other. All the things we might not see in ourselves, but that the rest of us can,” Jess said. “And also, a bit of tough love. A little ‘put your money where your mouth is,’ if you will. Time to stop talking a big game and . . . I can’t remember how that one ends, but you get the point!”

  “Is this about Jason and me?” Ryan said midchew.

  “It’s about all of us.” She looked at each one of them, hoping her love for her friends translated through everything she was saying. “Listen, I miss you guys. I know we all have our shit to do and we’re midway through our junior year. There’s a ton of stuff coming our way, but I really want us to look back on this year and know that we made the most of it. And our time together.”

  That drew a smile from Lee. Maybe her plan would work after all. “Okay, so how do we do that?”

  “Well,” Jess replied,
grinning. Lee would love this part, she was sure of it. “You tell me. I want you to write them for me.”

  Lee sat straighter, a quirk at the corner of her mouth. “You want us to handle your New Year’s resolutions?”

  “We’ll all write them for each other. But really think about it! Nothing silly or jokey like jumping off a bridge. Real resolutions. Think of it as a friendly push down the path to awesome.”

  Ugh, she needed to work on her motivational speeches.

  “And we have to do them?” Ryan asked. “Do we, like, pinkie promise or something? We did zero of our resolutions last year. I don’t know . . . ,” he said, scratching his head.

  Jess picked up a pillow and chucked it at Ryan.

  “Oh no.” Nora giggled. “She means business.”

  Jess picked up another pillow, aiming it at Nora who covered her mouth. “I’m serious. I want us to do this.” They needed to do this. In the fall they’d be seniors. They’d be applying to schools in different cities—maybe even different states. These last few months had felt like the beginning of the end. She waited, wondering if she should simply tell them everything. How she worried they would drift apart and they were moments away from being that person they used to hang out with a while ago . . . but in the end there was only one thing her mind could settle on: “Trust me. We need this.”

  “We?” Nora chimed in, looking at Jess like she was understanding something for the first time.

  “Yeah. We.” Jess nodded.

  “So we get to write yours?” Important details needed to be double-checked.

  “Yes. That’s the point.”

  “I might be up for that.” Lee seemed to think about it.

  “So that’s a yes for Epic New Year’s Resolution Time?” Jess hopped on her toes, her energy rising.

  Nora cheered and shook Ryan by the shoulders until he cheered as well.

  “Are we really going to call it that?” Lee said.

  Jess rolled her eyes.

  “Okay, so what now?” Nora said.

  Jess pulled the notebook from under her arm, ripping three pages and handing them out. “I figure we can huddle three at a time and think of two resolutions for each person. We can trade off so the person doesn’t see their resolution until the end.”