Carter
I shove four Swedish Fish in my mouth as I lie in bed looking at Maggie’s Insta grid.
She finally accepted my follow request when we got back together in March, but for a long time after the wedding, I resisted
checking it.
I really didn’t want to see her.
But last week, I got curious. Like, what has she been up to? How is she?
So I looked.
Since April, she’s posted exactly one thing:
A short video from an Angry Baby concert. It went onto the grid on July 19, just a few days before I checked. It looked like
they were in Shana’s backyard, playing a song I didn’t recognize.
“They don’t hide,” Maggie sang, her voice like an arrow to the torso. “They don’t hide from each other.”
After the first time I watched, I had to put down my phone and catch my breath.
Was she sending me some kind of message?
I’ve seen it a few times (or twelve) since then, and I watch again now.
I love the way her eyebrow rises when she sings.
I keep thinking she’ll post something else, a story at least, but she hasn’t.
I scroll down to January, linger on a selfie Maggie took with Shana and Ember during a rehearsal.
I hop out of bed and slide open my closet door.
I grab my camera from the shelf beneath my hanging clothes where I stashed it the night I got home from the wedding. Haven’t
really been in the picture-taking mood.
But I want to see Maggie.
I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at the small screen as I scroll through.
The first shots I see are from the wedding, minutes before I snuck up on Maggie and tapped her on the back. When I first peeked
into the backyard, I saw her standing with Shana and Ember, passing around a glass and laughing, lit up with joy.
She looks so beautiful. It makes my stomach hurt.
I keep scrolling through, and I find the shots I took in my bedroom earlier that week: first the selfies of the two of us,
then the shots of Maggie lying on the bed, staring right at me.
She looks simultaneously goofy and ethereal and breathtaking.
And suddenly I realize I’m not angry at her anymore.
I know she cares about me. It’s so obvious in the photos.
She wasn’t trying to mess with me. She was in an impossible situation, and she fucked up.
I fuck up all the time.
I put down my camera and pick up my phone.
Hey, I type. I really miss you.
I’m about to send it when it occurs to me:
I can’t do this to Maggie again.
She’s about to leave in a few weeks for her first year at Delaware, and I’m going to try to start things up again?
Why? So we can have a really painful goodbye, followed by a few tortured months of a long-distance relationship, followed by an even more painful goodbye after which I straight up forget her? Again?
That’s insane.
I gasp as the phone starts vibrating in my hand and, for a moment, I think it’s Maggie. Like we mind-melded or something.
It’s not, though.
“Hey, Mom,” I say, after I pick up.
“Hi, sweetie. Just my midday check-in. You doing okay? Have you eaten lunch yet?”
“I have,” I say, staring down at the almost-empty bowl of Swedish Fish next to me on the bed. “And I’m fine.”
“Okay, good. Maybe you want to get out of the house today. It’s beautiful out. Sunny but not too hot. And Dad’s at his conference,
and I won’t be home from work till six. So maybe go hang out somewhere with Bodhi.”
“Maybe.” For the first time in a while, I’m not just saying that because I know it’s what she wants to hear. Doing nothing
might be getting old. “Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“You know last month, when you and Dad were arguing? And he said that you’re, like, enjoying that I’m still living at home,
still a teenager. Is that . . . true?”
There’s a silence for at least five seconds. It feels really long.
“Carter, I don’t . . .” Mom sighs. “I don’t want this for you. Or for us. At all. But . . . I guess I also don’t want to spend
all my time wanting things to be different than they are. If that makes sense. This has been my reality—our reality—for a while now. And, though there’s a lot about it that feels awful and unfair, there’s also . . . some perks. You know?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I get that.”
“One of the reasons I called, actually,” Mom says, “is because I bumped into Shawn this morning when I was getting coffee.”
“Shawn?”
“The guy who runs Scoops ’n’ Sprinkles.”
Bodhi’s been working there this summer, and he’s been telling me at least once a day for the past week that some people are
about to leave for college and they would totally hire me again.
“He wasn’t sure if Bodhi had passed along his message.”
“Oh, yes. Many times.”
“You should think about taking the job. Could be fun.”
“Maybe, yeah.”
“And Maggie’s definitely not there this summer. I’m sure Bodhi told you that, but I asked anyway.”
“Oh. I . . . Yeah. Thanks, Mom.”
“Of course. Okay, I’ve gotta go. Love you. Step outside the house!”
“I will. Love you.”
As soon as the call ends, I go to FaceTime and scroll down to Bodhi’s name. I tap it before I have time to overthink.
“Hey, hey, my dude!” Bodhi says, picking up instantly. He’s got on his usual backward cap along with a gaming headset. “Did
you mean to call me or is this a butt dial?”
“Dude. I meant to.” It’s embarrassing that I’ve become such a recluse my closest friend can’t imagine me intentionally calling
him.
“Whoa! That’s great!”
“Yeah. Look, I . . . I’m sorry I, like, fell off the face of the earth the past two months.”
“Hey, that’s okay,” Bodhi says. “I know this Maggie stuff has been hard. I’m sorry I kept bugging you to do stuff even though
you obviously didn’t want to do stuff.”
“No, I’m glad you did.”
“Yo, shut up!” Bodhi says. I realize he’s talking into his headset microphone. “I need another minute!” He shakes his head.
“Sorry, Carter. Amir and Robbie are whining at me. I should go in a sec. You can join us if you want!”
“Thanks,” I say. “But I was actually thinking . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I might take that job at Scoops.”
Bodhi screams with joy so loudly, the sound glitches out for a second.