The Girl Most Likely To

Chapter Ten

I walked ahead of Danny during our short trip to the school to prove that I didn’t care what he thought about my plan. It wasn’t my fault that nobody confirmed my employment status before I was selected. Had Danny considered that before accusing me of being a liar?

I wanted to share this tidbit with Danny, but when I turned around, he was half a block behind me. I had enough awareness not to yell in a quiet, dark neighborhood. I could barely make out his face, but I recognized the clop of his steps and the shadow of his sagging shoulders from the faint reach of the streetlights. Here I was thinking that I was giving Danny the silent treatment, but he was doing the same to me.

What was I doing? Talking things out should’ve brought us closer to a resolution, but we weren’t any better now than we used to be. Instead of reconciling, talking had been like pressing on a bruise, checking to see if it still hurt. I had to rethink this. It wasn’t like there was a recipe to follow for apologizing, forgiving, and forgetting. I had to handle this with more care.

“Danny.”

We were nearing the entrance of the school gym and I wanted to smooth things over before we got swept up by other people.

Danny ignored my attempt to restart our conversation. As we reentered the gym, he swiped the backstage passes from my jacket pocket. “I’ll put these on the donation table.”

Well, this was going great. Danny wasn’t on my side, and Nat wasn’t here. I’d have to sit through this reunion on my own. But first, I made a pit stop at the restroom. Between the heels that were not made for walking and the large cup of milk tea, I needed to hide there to collect myself.

The gym restroom was utilitarian by design. The same decades-old fixtures and sterile subway tiles still made the point that this place wasn’t for gussying up. The only thing in the bathroom from this century was the automatic soap dispenser, but even that was half empty.

I wet a paper towel under running water and dabbed it against the sides of my neck. The coolness of the water permeated my hot and sticky skin. I could blame being overheated on the walk to the school, but I’d been simmering ever since the tiff with Danny. I couldn’t tell if coming back here had made me regress or if it was Danny’s presence that made my emotions run rampant, unfiltered and oversaturated, in a way that didn’t seem real.

“Get it together, Rach,”

I mumbled to myself.

A door from one of the bathroom stalls swung open as I was touching up my makeup.

“You’re back.”

Only Viv could step out of a bathroom stall like she was strutting through New York Fashion Week. She still had that X factor that drew everyone’s attention. She turned on the squeaky faucet to wash her hands. “I wasn’t sure if I was going to see you again.”

“It took longer than expected. It’s a long story,”

I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to explain. Viv and I never had the type of relationship where we’d confide in one another. We weren’t from the same social circle and acknowledged each other only when we had the same classes together. “I hope Mariana’s not upset that we took awhile to get back.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. Mariana was busy putting out other fires.”

Viv tore off a paper towel and dried her hands. “Some people who RSVP’d never showed up. I’m not sure there’ll be enough money to cover the event. Mariana was trying to cut costs by having it here, but I don’t know if that’ll be enough.”

That was shocking. Some Commonwealth alums lived out of state now, but a significant number of us had stayed local. They might not all be in Alhambra, but they were scattered around LA and Orange County. It couldn’t have been too hard for folks to attend.

Viv swiped her lips with fire engine red lipstick. “And then someone brought booze. We didn’t notice until people started dancing kinda sloppy.”

She chuckled. “It was funny, but you know. It’s against the rules.”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she rolled her eyes.

“How are we still sneaking booze at our age?” I mused.

“I know, right?”

Viv shot me a smile through the mirror. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your speech.”

I froze. “My what?”

“Weren’t you practicing your speech right now?”

Viv scrunched her nose when I didn’t reply. “Mariana wanted the honorees to say a few words. I thought she emailed everyone about it.”

I would’ve seen it if that was the case. I still checked my email regularly, even though the only messages I was receiving these days were requests to rate my recent online purchases. Maybe the message was sent to my old email. “I RSVP’d late,”

I said, thinking out loud. “It probably fell through the cracks.”

A chill ran down my spine. It wasn’t like Mariana to forget details like that. I was sure she would’ve told me to prepare some remarks. Had I known, I would’ve declined. What could I really say about my career now that it had come to a sudden halt? My last memory of having a job was leaving the FreeStream building with a security escort. That wasn’t the kind of uplifting anecdote anyone wanted to hear. I had to come up with something fast, but I wasn’t good at improvising.

“It’ll be fine. It doesn’t have to be long,”

Viv reassured me as she gave herself one final once-over in the mirror. She must’ve seen the panic on my face because she said, “I have some rosemary essential oils. That helps with anxiety.”

“No thanks.”

I didn’t want to smell like a roast chicken for the rest of the night.

“Maybe Danny could help you,”

Viv suggested.

My ears perked at the wink-wink in her voice. “What are you getting at?”

“What?”

Viv said innocently. “I noticed you two hanging out again. It’s not a secret that you two broke up on Awards Night. Everyone heard you,”

she said easily, oblivious to how horrifying it was for me to learn that there was a collective memory of that incident. So horrifying that I didn’t bother to clarify that Danny and I never dated. It was our friendship that broke up, and that hurt worse. “He’s single. So are you, aren’t you? I sort of noticed that the pictures of your engagement disappeared.”

I didn’t even question Viv’s eagle eyes. I might not have posted much on social media, but Josh did when we were together. Our engagement announcement drew lots of responses, mostly from his college friends and coworkers from his accounting firm. It wouldn’t have been too hard for some of my high school friends to see it then. The announcement was splashier than the news that we called things off. In lieu of a joint statement, all posts about us quietly disappeared from Josh’s Instagram in a matter of days.

“Danny and I are just getting reacquainted,” I said.

“Okay,”

Viv said, making her way out. “Whatever you say.”

I didn’t like Viv’s extra coy tone one bit, but I didn’t have the time or capacity to worry about rumors when I had to come up with something positive to say about my nonexistent career. Leaving the restroom, I looked for a quiet place to think but somehow got caught up in a mob of people traveling down the hallway like a school of fish. Mariana was at the forefront, leading the group to turn the corner, past the athletic trophy cases.

“Thanks to the passing of local bonds back in 2017, some facilities have been updated over the years. But it wasn’t enough to keep up with budget cuts,”

Mariana recited while walking backward like it wasn’t the first time she’d said this that night. “This means—”

Mariana looked over her shoulder and spotted me. “Rachel! Glad you could join us,”

she said, similar to a teacher when a student shows up late. The callout had heads turning to me. “We’re going to see one of the smart rooms on campus.”

“Rachel?”

“Daaaang! Rachel Dang!”

I’d recognize those voices anywhere. They belonged to Nelson Kwan and Felix Guzman, who were part of Danny’s clique. I hung back and found them at the tail end of the tour group with Danny, who averted his eyes after an acknowledging glance. The silent treatment was still on.

Nelson looked about the same, except he’d traded in his ironic graphic tees for a button-down and tie. Felix was still tall and lanky but was now rocking a bald head.

I must have been staring at his missing hair a little too hard, because Felix rubbed the top of his head, giving it a shine.

“I shaved it off on purpose,”

he said, looking more sheepish than I’d ever seen him.

“Yeah, because it was almost gone,”

Nelson chimed in with a full-body snicker. That earned us a few shushes from the folks up front. Felix, the quiet one of their group, gave Nelson a friendly shove in the shoulders.

“Sorry. I—”

I shook my head. How could I be so rude? “Hi,”

I said, trying to start the conversation over. “It’s been a long time.”

I tried to go in for a hug, but both of them gave me a wave instead. I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t like we were close friends. They were always off in their own world, hanging by the same table in the quad near the cafeteria or getting an earful from teachers whenever they skated through the walkways. They caught me up with what they’d been up to as quietly as they could. Felix was a city planner in Fullerton and was married with three kids. Nelson was single and taught kids how to play guitar since a back injury forced him to end his general contractor career early.

“The pay isn’t as good, and I have to hear ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ a hundred times a day, but it’s low stress and flexible, so I can help out my parents now that they’re older,”

he explained rather articulately. I wondered if he said this often.

“That sounds nice,”

I said, unsure why Nelson had a chip on his shoulder. I remembered him bringing his guitar to school and garnering the adoration of many girls who wanted to be serenaded. But Nelson shrugged it off and split off when we entered the classroom where I once took a Spanish class. The classroom now resembled a computer lab. Each desk had its own laptop, and the wall had what appeared to be a digital whiteboard with “Welcome Class of 2003”

scrawled across it.

“You are all standing in a math classroom,”

Mariana announced once everyone was inside. “It’s outfitted with the most current technology. Hopefully, we’ll raise enough money tonight to transform a few more rooms like this one.”

“Wow, this is amazing, Mari,”

said a man who might’ve been on the water polo team. I wasn’t sure because I wasn’t accustomed to seeing any of the water polo team with clothes on. “This is so different from when we went to school.”

“Dude, if we’d had this when we were in school, we would’ve surfed the internet during class,”

Nelson said from across the room, where he’d been keeping close to Danny. I’d taken a few steps to regroup with them, but then Nelson pulled Danny into the far corner, to do what, I wasn’t sure. Reminisce about matrices?

“There’s software on each laptop to make sure it’s only used for educational purposes,”

Mariana said.

“There’s always a workaround,”

Nelson replied. “Kids are smart. They find a way.”

“That’s true,”

I said. “My assistant could get past any paywall or firewall to get what she needed. She actually figured out which Netflix series was getting canceled days before the news hit.”

I probably should have asked Zoe how she did that, but I didn’t want to get implicated in any secretive things she was up to.

Nelson didn’t appreciate me adding my two cents. I was only trying to back him up, but he didn’t seem to take it that way. He all but ignored me as he approached the whiteboard and popped the cap off a red marker to draw a smiley face.

“Don’t let Nelson bother you,”

Felix said when I returned to my corner of the room. I must’ve made a face. I’d been told that I made a long, stony face whenever I didn’t get the result I wanted.

“What did I do to him?”

I already had one person mad at me. I didn’t need another.

“Nothing. He’s being protective of Danny.”

I assumed that meant that they were still close. “Why?”

“Because you really messed him up back then,”

Felix stated, like it was a well-known fact. “He didn’t want to talk. He wouldn’t come hang out. He moped around up until he moved. You broke the man.”

I’d expected Felix to accept Danny’s version of events, which probably painted me as a villain. But it landed like a blow to learn that I’d ruined Danny somehow. I hadn’t thought about Danny’s feelings in those terms. Back then, Danny never gave the impression that he cared enough about things long enough to let them bother him. It was becoming more and more obvious that I’d been wrong.

Felix popped his head up to make sure there was no one nearby before he said, lowering his voice, “We don’t want to see him get hurt again, especially after his divorce.”

Divorce?

Everything that had happened before this conversation evaporated from my consciousness. Why did the fact that Danny had been married affect me at all? Our lives had moved in different directions and I’d had my own fair share of relationships. Of course the same would go for him. I guess I hadn’t fathomed that Danny might have one relationship that he thought at the time could last forever.

I had to know who this person was. How did they meet? Did they meet online? Or did they have a meet-cute like something out of the movies? Was she out walking her dog when the leash tangled Danny and her together? Or was it one of those situations where they had to marry or else she’d forfeit a large inheritance? I had to know.

Felix must’ve registered the surprise on my face because he quickly backtracked. “Damn it. I thought you knew. Everyone seems to know everything these days with social media.”

He rubbed the top of his head again, giving it a good buff. “Forget I said anything. You didn’t hear anything from me.”

This night was getting really confusing. Viv was rooting for me, and Nelson wanted me to scram. What a homecoming this was turning out to be. LA might not always love me back, but at least I didn’t have to deal with people having opinions about my personal life, past or present. The worst part was that Danny was right. Why did I care so much about what people thought?

As the group made its way back to the gym, I overheard someone go on and on about their 401(k) and someone else about the rental property they were fixing up. Somewhere in the mix, Mariana referred someone to her chiropractor. It was a lot of grown-up talk coming from people who used to recap the latest Smallville episode during passing period. I didn’t have anything in common with anyone here anymore. I should’ve followed through on my promise and forgotten about high school. If I left now, I could pretend this night never happened and go back to my messed-up life. My real life.

With not much light from the half-moon, it was dark in the quad. I could slip out of the group and leave the school without anyone noticing. I gradually slowed my pace and fell behind everyone. Once I was a few feet away from them, I made a break for it, turning sharply to cross the next quad, the one that faced the school entrance. My parents’ house was a short five blocks away. I would be home in no time. For a second there I thought I was going to make it, but soon I heard footsteps catching up to me.

“Rachel,”

Danny whispered as if classes were in session. “Where are you going?”

What was I doing? Standing in the middle of the hallway, facing the entrance of Commonwealth, I was reminded of the person I used to be. I used to roam these halls like I owned them. There wasn’t anything that could have knocked me down. I’d look at a roadblock as a challenge to overcome. If it required hard work, I’d give it 110 percent. If I was stuck, I’d retrace my steps and take a different route. If there wasn’t a path, I’d forge one.

But that was then. Life had knocked me down, and somehow I was coming back to Commonwealth neither smarter nor better. I didn’t know who I was anymore.

“You were right. I shouldn’t have misled everyone tonight.”

I cleared my throat, hoping my voice was coming out calm, even if it wavered. “Coming here was a bad idea.”

“So that’s it?”

he asked, stepping around me until he stood between me and the exit. “You were going to bail and disappear for another twenty years?”

It looked that way, didn’t it?

“What do you want me to say? I just had a shitty day on top of an already shitty year. I’m going through a tough time, if you couldn’t tell.”

I struggled to keep my voice down. Emotions were rioting in my body, confusing my fight-or-flight response.

“I can,”

Danny said, matching my frustration. “But I can’t talk to you when you’re being like this.”

“Like what?”

Danny held up his hands, surrendering. “I can’t have a normal conversation with you. I have no idea how you’re going to react.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I don’t have it all together all the time!”

A tear escaped from my eye. What a time to not have tissues on me. I wiped my face indelicately with the back of my hand. “I’m kind of in the middle of a personal crisis. I’m sorry I’m not making the best decisions!”

“That’s not what I’m saying, Rachel.”

Danny ran his hand through his hair. His chest heaved with deep breaths, like he’d been running. “You just—you just—”

Danny, honest to goodness, growled so loud, I jumped back. “I can’t even think straight. That’s how much you frustrate me!”

“Same to you!”

I paced a few steps to work off some steam. As much as we tried, we were still the same, weren’t we? We always riled each other up. “Why are we doing this to ourselves?”

I asked when I was calmer. “I shouldn’t have come.”

Danny closed his eyes as he tilted his head left and right, like he was trying to relieve the tension in his body. Everything about him was tight, from his suit to his stony face. Danny dug a finger into the knot of his tie, loosening it as he swallowed hard. “Then why did you?”

I didn’t want to admit that I only came because I thought Danny wanted to be friends again. In my fantasy, Danny would’ve apologized profusely for complicating things when he kissed me, leading me to believe we were something we weren’t. But I was the one who had ended things in spectacular fashion. At this point, it didn’t matter so much who apologized first and for what. If I held on to this grudge, we’d stay stuck, forever still images from each other’s past.

“Because I’m sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry I ‘messed you up.’”

“Where’s this coming from?”

Danny asked, crossing his arms and holding them protectively over his chest.

“I talked to Felix.”

“I’m going to kill him,”

Danny said under his breath. He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the waves. “So Felix told you that and now you’re suddenly sorry? I had no idea you held his opinion so highly.”

“No, that’s not it,”

I insisted. I waited until the sound of my pounding heart receded enough to be able to hear my own thoughts. “I’m sorry I was too selfish to be a good friend. I said some shitty things to you, and I regret it deeply. And I’m so sorry I pushed you away when you were one of the most important people in my life.”

I hadn’t planned on being that honest, but the words spilled out. Danny stared, mouth slack, devastating me with his dark brown eyes. I wished he’d say something instead of making me wait. Silence is the worst answer after you’ve poured your heart out.

“I’m gonna—”

I tried to sidestep around Danny, but he blocked my way.

“You were going to leave after saying that to me?”

Danny’s eye twitched. He was annoyed with me. We couldn’t get anything right tonight. It was too much to hope that a single night would magically make everything better.

“Why are you yelling at me?”

I desperately wanted to know, because we’d gone through too much shit tonight to turn on each other.

“Because that’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me, and I felt that way about you too! Goddamn it, Rachel. Do you know how many nights I stayed by my computer, waiting for you to sign on? Or stared at the back of your head in class, hoping for a glimpse of your face when you turned around to pass papers back?”

An overwhelming swell of emotion wiped my mind of any words. I had no idea what to say when all I wanted was for Danny to repeat what he’d just said, over and over, until it healed the teenage part of my heart.

“Hey!”

a deep voice shouted from the distance. The person had a flashlight and waved it in our direction. “What’s going on over there?”

Naturally, I did what every rule-abiding and former top student did at the hint of trouble. I grabbed Danny’s hand and made a run for it.