Chapter 31
31
Natalia
senior year
Tomorrow’s the last day of school. The last day of my grade school career, where I will end it with the ceremonious packing of my lifelong belongings into multiple suitcases and boxes after the graduation that I’ve been waiting all year for. I’ve collected some of the belongings from my locker in my backpack, making it heavier than it normally is, leaving the rest for the following day.
I’m lugging the heavy bag over my shoulder to my car all alone because Lucy ditched me to hang out with her friends after school. With the school year coming to an end and her yearbook duties finally over, Lucy’s time in school has shifted from her studies to the mall’s food court for corn dogs and lemonade.
As I slowly approach my car, my focus more on the straps digging into my shoulders rather than what’s in front of me, I see Hayden leaned up against my car. I come to a stop a few feet away, finally dropping my heavy bag to the floor with a deep thud.
“Hey, Nat,” he calls as he sees me approach.
“Hi, Hayden,” I say. “Get lost on the way to your car?”
He pulls his hands away from behind his back, revealing a small disposable Tupperware container. He holds it up between us as I step closer, a small smile replacing the pained look on his face that I’ve been seeing more of.
“Happy last day of school,” he says, pointing the container at my chest.
“It isn’t the last day of school yet,” I say, taking the box from him.
He shrugs. “Close enough.”
I peel back the lid, peeking to see what’s inside.
“It’s vanilla cake,” he says. When I look up at him, I grin. So wide that I feel the stretch of my smile cutting into my cheeks.
“You made this for me?” I ask as a joke because he couldn’t have possibly made this for me. If anything, he’s merely keeping his end of the bargain: to let me taste test his next line of baked goods. But instead of denying it, he nods.
“I did,” he answers, a grim smile cutting across his face. “The vanilla reminded me of you.”
“Oh,” I whisper. “Well, thank you.”
I don’t mean to, but I stare at him a little longer than I expect to. I see the shadow that casts over his face as his jaw flexes and the creases that line the space between his brows deepen. I see the knot roll down the center of his throat before he reaches to give my arm a light squeeze. I see the Hayden that I normally see in class, the one that filled the boring time teasing me and making sarcastic jokes, fold inside him as that version of him is slowly replaced by the Hayden in front of me now. One who looks too uncertain of the future, of a life where our daily interactions will no longer exist. One who’s silently whispering his goodbyes to me.
“Yeah,” he finally answers, pushing himself off my car and walking away. “I’ll see you at graduation.”
I clutch the container in my hands, wrapping my fingers around it like a treasure. “I’ll see you at graduation.”
present
“Paging Dr. Garcia to ER, bed four. Dr. Garcia to ER, bed four.”
My fingers fidget with the handles of the brown paper bag containing two orders of warm chicken shawarma and a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.
After a lazy weekend of lounging at home and working through some emails to distract myself, Carmen called me from the hospital, begging me to bring her lunch after a grueling end to her shift that blended into another eight hours into the morning. Something about being short-staffed and having to work an ungodly amount of overtime.
After nursing a quick hangover, thanks to Hayden forcing liquids to hydrate me and a greasy burrito delivered to my doorstep, I collected my bearings and replayed every image etched into my mind, all of it blurred a little by alcohol. Flashes of Hayden brushing his hand against my waist, looking at me like his mind was at war, his smile twitching as if each personal thought he carried had some insinuation .
How am I back here? How are we back here? It’s like we’ve both unwillingly stepped into a time machine that led right back to that dance floor at prom, the last eight years not making either one of us an ounce wiser. Instead, we’re still those confused seventeen-year-olds, still so unsure about our feelings.
Maybe I’m looking too far into it, but I can’t stop thinking about the way Hayden touched me. Running his hands over my body through the thin material of my costume, causing a prickling that felt akin to pins and needles coursing over my skin. And the way he looked at me, so grim and searing.
I shake my head, almost as if I’m trying to shake the image of his piercing eyes out of my mind. I know I’m looking too much into this, whatever this is. And I need to let it go. All these lingering thoughts that are causing me to think that the way Hayden looked at me meant more, I need to let that all go.
I look up just in time to see Carmen walking toward me wearing navy-blue scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. I stand to greet her.
She sighs as she smiles, embracing me in her arms. “Thank God you’re here. I’m starving.”
“I have just the remedy,” I say, holding up our lunch between us. I force a smile, shifting my thoughts from Hayden to being present as I see how my frazzled sister needs some extra support to get her through the last hours of her shift.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her brows drawn together with concern.
I nod, my smile widening in an effort to convince her. “Yeah, I’m just hungry too.”
“Come on. We’ll eat in the cafeteria.”
Carmen is eating her second cookie, the wax wrapper that once held her shawarma sitting on the table in front of her when she looks at me.
“So,” she starts.
My brow furrows, waiting for what this “so” is insinuating. “So…”
“What’s going on with you and Hayden?”
I let out a nervous laugh with an unconvincing smile. “What are you talking about?”
Her smile grows, her eyes focusing on a loose chocolate chip hanging off the edge of her cookie. “I saw the way he looked at you.”
I lower my face, staring a little too hard at the crumpled napkins in front of me. When I don’t say anything, Carmen continues. “Actually, David noticed how he looked at you. Said you two make a cute couple.”
“Nothing’s going on, Carmen,” I deny rather begrudgingly, not helping my argument. “We’re just friends.”
“Okay.” She shrugs, popping the remains of her cookie in her mouth. “If you say so.” She doesn’t sound the least bit convinced. If anything, her words sound like an appeasement to my denial.
I sigh deeply, and that gets Carmen’s attention.
“You can talk to me, you know,” Carmen says softly.
Her hand reaches across the table and covers mine. I can feel the roughness of the cookie crumbs on the pads of her fingers rubbing into the back of my hand. When I finally look up at her, I groan, bringing my face to the hard table. My shoulders slump along with my head, and I hear Carmen lightly chuckle at my dramatics. “That bad, huh?”
“Carmen,” I whine. “I don’t even know what’s going on. ”
She places her hands back in front of her, intertwining her fingers and patiently waiting for me to continue. And so I do. I tell her everything. Our agreement, our unspoken past that either one of us refuses to bring up, Hayden’s mild obsession with random hookups and a specific dating app that seems to haunt me. And my broken heart that seems not as broken as before. In fact, the temporary Band-Aids are starting to wear thin and unnecessary. The wounds are healing and leaving behind healthy scars, a distinct reminder that I’m stronger now. And it’s all thanks to Hayden.
When I finish, Carmen whistles. “Nat, that sounds kind of complicated.”
“It really shouldn’t be, right?”
Carmen shrugs. “I mean, yeah. It shouldn’t be.”
I lay my palms on the table, determined to move on from this. Intent on reverting back to what all of this is: two friends helping each other.
“Maybe you two should talk about it,” Carmen suggests in a soft, cautious voice. “Before it becomes even more complicated.”
I nod, shifting my gaze from my splayed-out hands to the unanswered questions of what all this means scattered around me. My phone rings, the light buzzing interrupting my wallowing. When I extract it from my purse, I see Hayden’s name flash on the screen.
Speak of the devil. The devil with a flirty smile and warm hands.
“Hello?” There’s no answer on the other side, just the soft ruffle of movement and background city noise. “Hayden? Are you there?”
Still no response.
“Hayden?”
“Nat,” he finally calls. His rough voice is weak, devoid of energy or life. “I, uh…my dad…” His voice trails off. I stand to walk away from Carmen and the clamor within the busy cafeteria. I stop short of a glass wall displaying a grassy lawn which I find so peculiar in the middle of the city.
“Hayden, what happened?”
“My dad’ s…He’s—” A muffled sob cuts off his sentence. “He died this morning.”
Everything seems to stop around me. Utensils held mid-air as they make their way into the mouths of hungry hospital workers. Kitchen doors that swing open but stay stuck, giving me a glimpse of the hectic kitchen. And my heart. It feels numb. Like it actually stopped beating and is sitting in my chest as a hardened muscle while I process Hayden’s words.
His dad died.
“Hayden, are you at home?” I manage.
He sniffles before answering. “I’m at work, but I’m going home right now.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”