by Cecily Wolfe
Over the past six years, he had grown from a thin, almost scrawny boy with a reputation as a bookworm into a basketball star with a laugh that made everyone who used to mock him want to be by his side. The bookworm was still there, Maya knew, but with those ball skills and smiling eyes, no one thought it was worth mentioning.
Books, Maya thought, were always worth mentioning, and there was no one she would rather talk about books with than Connor.
“What? Oh, no. I don’t think so.”
He didn’t think so? What kind of response was that?
“Why are you so out of it today?”
The two of them had always played it straight with each other, and Maya didn’t see any reason why that should change now after they had been friends for so long. There was a time when they were each other’s only friends, and she was starting to worry if things would be different after they graduated. Or if she told him that she felt differently about him than she had all this time.
“Huh?”
“You’re not paying attention to me, are you? I know guys usually don’t want to go to prom, and I don’t really want to go either, not with just anyone.”
She stopped talking, because it sounded like she wanted him to ask her. As if she wanted to go to the dance with him. As a date.
But what if she did?
Connor was trying to focus on anything except Maya, but she was bouncing around like the basketball he had taken from her, pushing for him to answer all these questions about the stupid prom.
He would rather stay home and watch movies with her than go to that overrated, overpriced, most likely boring event, and he thought that she would prefer that, too.
If that was true, why did she keep talking about it?
Worse, why was she pushing him to ask another girl, and why was she flaunting that three boys had asked her?
No, it wasn’t flaunting, that wasn’t Maya’s style. Connor knew that while he had become ridiculously popular in a superficial way that meant most of his new friends weren’t truly friends at all, not like Maya was, she had found a few girls she seemed comfortable with, but nothing like the crowd he dealt with every day.
Why were these boys suddenly interested in her, and what could he do about it?
Why would he want to do something about it, he wondered?
Being friends with her was like breathing, second nature to him and as far as he could tell, to her as well. He didn’t want someone else hanging out with her like they did, kicking each other off the sofa in the rec room at his house, shoving each other to get to the ice cream in the basement freezer at hers. Holding hands with her as they slid around on the icy sidewalks walking to the library from school in the winter, spending hours shelving books together and discussing the stories they loved.
“Well, I guess I’ll see you later. Same time, same sandbox?”
He blinked a few times to clear his thoughts, realizing that they were standing in front of Maya’s house. She was frowning, the space between her eyebrows creased as her lips pouted. He had to stop himself from leaning forward to . . . do what?
When she shook her head at him, he reached out and grabbed her arm as she turned to face her driveway.
“Sorry. I’m tired, I guess. I don’t care about this prom stuff, anyway. I think we should just have a Star Wars marathon and eat ice cream sandwiches until one of us is sick.”
They had done that after Connor’s older sister died unexpectedly, when his parents didn’t know how to include him in their grief, and Maya had spent several nights at his house listening to him cry and beg and rage over losing Danielle. Sure, that had been four years ago, but they were still just as close.
Would they be this close after graduation?
“Ah, that is tempting. I’d much rather be with you than anyone who has asked me, anyway.”
Connor remembered Danielle’s prom night, when her boyfriend rented a white limo that slid quietly along the street, stopping to let him out to pose for pictures with his sister before whisking her away for the evening. Danielle had been so thrilled, from shopping for a dress and shoes to spending the day getting her hair and nails done.
The memory of her happiness that night was a small consolation, considering that the same boy who had looked at her so lovingly and treated her so tenderly was the one to get her involved with drugs, and ultimately, provide her with the dose of heroin that killed her.
The bottom line, he realized, was that for some girls, it was an important night. He never imagined that Maya wanted to go.
“Okay. We’ll figure it out. I guess if we’re together it’ll be fun.”
He felt her relax, her arm under his fingers less tense than it has been a few seconds earlier.
“I know it will. Later alligator.”
She turned away with a small smile, and he couldn’t help but smile himself, although she couldn’t see it. He wished they were volunteering at the library together that night, but he would see her again tomorrow morning on the walk to school, and undoubtedly have a lengthy and silly text conversation with her throughout the coming evening.
His phone made a tiny chirp as he shifted his backpack over his shoulder and made his way to the end of the street towards his own house. Maya usually didn’t text him right away after they parted each day, since her mother expected her to start helping with dinner and chores as soon as she got home.
The single mother situation left a lot on Maya’s plate, but it had been the two of them since Maya had been little, and she didn’t know any different. Sometimes Connor felt like a spoiled brat, with both parents and a home life that was now, all about him.
The text flashed bright in the grayish tone of the early spring afternoon, but it wasn’t from Maya.
It was to Maya, as well as him, from the library manager.
Please stop by tonight if you can. I have important news for you both.
Chapter Three
Maya stared at her phone for a few moments. Lindsay rarely texted, and it was usually in response to a text Maya sent her to start the conversation.
“Hey, Mom.”
She dropped her backpack onto a chair at the kitchen table, walking towards her mother with her phone held out in front of her. Her mother still wore her uniform, stark white pants with a scrub shirt featuring kittens chasing balls of yarn, and was filling a pan with water at the sink as she turned to look at Maya.
“Hey. What’s up?”
Maya shrugged.
“Just got this text from Lindsay. Do you mind if I walk over later and see what’s going on? It looks like she wants Connor to come in, too.”
Her mother smiled and turned away to set the pan on the stove, turning the knob to the high setting before wiping her hands on a towel on the counter and reaching for Maya’s phone.
“Oh, sure. I wonder what news she’s talking about?”
She offered the phone back to Maya, and Maya looked at it once again before shrugging again.
“No idea. Do you want me to watch that while you change?”
Nodding, her mother touched Maya’s shoulder briefly as she walked by, headed toward the stairs to the second floor and their bedrooms.
“Can you put a salad together, too? Thank you.”
Maya would have liked to say this was the usual routine, but her mother’s work schedule was erratic, and she often picked up extra shifts. Sometimes it was overnight, other times early morning to mid-afternoon.
No matter what, though, Maya knew she had to take care of a lot of the household chores so her mother could rest in-between shifts, and with their small house and just the two of them, it wasn’t that overwhelming, except when she wished she could have more time to rest herself.
Her mother’s work was definitely more exhausting than the work Maya did volunteering at the library, so she understood how much her mother needed her help. How much the hospital and patients needed her mother’s skill and patience as a nurse. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to study in college, altho
ugh she didn’t want to do anything in the medical field.
The idea of holding someone’s life in her hands . . . she didn’t have to imagine that responsibility. She saw it every time her mother came home with a tear-stained face, eyes red from crying, knowing that as much as her mother kept her professional stance while on the clock, the drive home was sometimes marred by the emotional upheaval she took personally.
Maya would be concerned if her mother didn’t take her work personally. It would be inhuman to be unaffected by hurt or sick children, especially those who couldn’t be saved no matter what her mother and the other medical staff did to help.
No, Maya knew that her fate was entwined with books. Sometimes she found a reflection of her own feelings and dreams in the stories she read, other times reading was a distraction that revitalized her. Often she found hope, or new ideas to inform her own decisions in real life. Characters to love or hate, opinions to support or rebuke . . . books had everything anyone could ever need, especially for those who had difficulty making real-world connections with others, like she always had.
Except when it came to Connor.
Her phone hummed on the counter, where she had left it to pull out lettuce and other vegetables from a drawer in the refrigerator.
Connor, of course.
We going?
The photo by his text made her smile. She had chosen it for that very reason, so that every time he called or texted she would see his goofy face, the eyes that promised so much more than everyone expected of the star athlete who was the force behind two state basketball championships.
She knew that she was the only one who asked him about the books he was reading, or the classes he would be taking at Ohio State in the fall.
Her smile didn’t fade as she tapped out a response, her focus on the photo of Connor’s face, as she had caught him in a laugh that was real and open, not like the movie star ones he flashed for newspaper photos.
Is seven good?
She imagined him arranging his textbooks on the desk in his room, settling his backpack in the same place on the floor just inside of the door as he always did, before changing into sweats and a t-shirt to shoot some hoops behind his family’s garage before dinner. By seven, he would have eaten dinner, have his homework finished, and maybe have time to grab some ice cream after going in to see what news Lindsay had for them.
It’s a date.
With that settled, Maya returned to preparing dinner, but her thoughts remained on Conner’s choice of words in that text. Tearing lettuce into small pieces over a bowl, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that she and Connor were friends, best friends, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that by turning into one of those groupies at school, hanging on him and waiting for a kiss.
When her mother stepped up beside her, she almost jumped, laughing nervously when her mother asked her if she was okay. The idea of kissing Connor made her feel decidedly not okay.
Connor had finished setting his homework up so he could start on it right away after dinner when Maya answered him. She knew his schedule so well that seven was perfect, enough time to blow off some steam, just him and the ball, manage dinner with his increasingly overbearing parents, and get homework out of the way before focusing on Maya.
Which he had been doing in a very not ordinary way lately.
Loralee, most likely to win the dubious prize of prom queen, had been hassling him before lunch today, literally hanging from his arm as he tried to be polite, waving his hand in the air so Maya could see him in the crowd. They had been sitting together during school lunches for almost six years now, and that wasn’t going to change because he had acquired a very unnecessary and very unwanted celebrity status.
All he could think of as Loralee cooed at him, her words blurred in his ears, was that he couldn’t wait to tell Maya that his long wait to get the e-book of Clive Cussler’s latest sea adventure was over since he got a text saying it had been automatically checked out to his library account.
“So can we go?”
When Loralee stepped in front of him as she asked, one hand on her hip, he had been able to tell that she knew he hadn’t been paying attention to her but didn’t want to appear annoyed. No one wanted to upset him, everyone wanted to be his best friend. That role was taken, as far as he was concerned.
“Sorry, Loralee. It’s hard to hear with everyone in the hall at one time.”
She reached for his hand, her perfectly polished long nails touching his fingers gently, but he didn’t respond with his own. Her smile revealed no trace of disappointment or awareness that he wasn’t interested.
“I asked if we could go to the prom together. My parents will pay for a limo and dinner, everything. There’s no reason to say no, right?”
His gaze had lifted to where he caught Maya’s, her frown as she recognized Loralee bouncing on the balls of her feet in front of him. Yeah, there was a reason, and she was about ten feet behind Loralee, not nearly close enough.
“I’m going to have to pass. Sorry, Loralee. I’m sure you can find a better date than I would be. I’m not a dancing sort of guy.”
He didn’t hang around to see her response, and as he thought of it now, the look on Maya’s face when he reached her just inside the cafeteria doors, he wondered if Maya’s frown had been disapproval or something else.
If it was something else, what?
College was only months away but seemed so far off, and although they were both staying in Ohio, he and Maya would be apart. He couldn’t imagine not showing up at Maya’s house on long nights when her mom worked an extra shift, helping her fold laundry and falling asleep together on the living room sofa while studying for exams.
Being able to talk to Maya’s mom about anything, back when his parents were understandably wrapped up in grief over Danielle and unable to help him work through his own feelings. Maya and her mom had helped him figure out what he wanted to study in college, what he wanted to do for the rest of his life after.
“Hey, I’ll be out back.”
He waved at his father as he walked through the kitchen to the sliding glass doors that opened to the back patio, noting briefly that his dad seemed to be preparing steaks for the grill. He thought about inviting Maya over to eat, but remembered that her mom should be home now and they would be having dinner together. His dad made a humming sound that sounded like agreement, and Connor stepped outside, grabbing a basketball that was in one of the lawn chairs.
When he was younger, his mother had always yelled at him for leaving balls everywhere in the yard, but since he started high school, she hadn’t said a word. He always made sure to pick them up when his dad was going to mow the yard, though, even if neither of his parents made a point of reminding him.
It would have been obnoxious not to, and somehow, would have made him feel guilty, because he knew that they never said anything negative to him or asked him to do anything aside from school and basketball, because of what had happened to Danielle. He owed it to her memory not to take advantage of that.
His first shot when through the hoop seamlessly. The second the same, and the third. It was almost too easy, and not really the distraction he needed after all. His thoughts wandered back to Maya and her pressure on him about the prom.
What was it about girls and the prom anyway? Just another night, an expensive one that somehow made it into all the teen movies and looked like an all-around uncomfortable situation. He wondered what Maya would look like in one of those fancy dresses. No more beautiful than she did in jeans and a t-shirt, he was sure.
