Chapter 3
three
“You know, this is the last time we’re going to be here as students.
” Violet dropped another binder onto the floor.
I cringed as the sound echoed through the empty hallway and pushed my sunglasses further up on my nose.
My headache had only worsened since this morning, and the fluorescent lights of the school were killer.
“Don’t say that, Vi,” I said. I hoped she thought I was saying it to stop her from going on a downward spiral about how this was the end of an era, but the truth was I didn’t want to recognize that this was the end of being students here.
As a whole, I wasn’t a very emotional person, but this felt big, and the more that everyone talked about how this was the end, the more that I felt like I might actually show some emotion in front of everyone else, which would ruin the persona I tried to have on at all times—I wanted the lasting impression everyone at school had of me to be someone cool.
“Besides, it’s not like we’re leaving forever.
We’re both going to be working here all summer. ”
I was working as a swim instructor again with the lessons running out of Bayshore’s pool, and Violet had just gotten a new job as a tutor.
The major benefit of it was that it meant we were both working at Bayshore and could go to work together.
While neither of us had cars, Jaxon did and he had already said he was all right with me catching a ride with the two of them every morning, which would save me a lot of time.
Violet leaned dramatically against her open locker door and stared at me wide-eyed. “Come on, Mads,” she said. “Aren’t you even a little sad this is all over?”
I shrugged. “I guess. But think of the upsides: no more of our worst teachers. Or 8 a.m. starts. Or listening to O Canada every single morning because that’s a thing for some reason.”
Violet frowned in thought. “Do you think the national anthem and all that still plays every morning during the summer?”
“It does,” I said. I held back a groan as I remembered my boss last summer that made us stand still for it every day like we had to do during the school year—those two minutes made a surprisingly significant difference in setting up the pool on time.
Violet’s face scrunched up. “That sucks.”
“You get used to it.”
“Evers!” Jaxon’s voice boomed down the long hallway, and I quickly slapped my hands over my ears as if that could retroactively stop me from hearing him.
“Jaxon!” I snapped as he came sauntering down the hallway. “Could you be any louder?”
Jaxon smirked at me. “Hungover, McKinnon?”
I just groaned and shook my head in response, my messy blonde ponytail hitting my back continuously. Jaxon had no leg to stand on to ask that, considering he was the one supplying all the drinks at the party last night.
“Don’t worry about her,” Violet said. She happily wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s neck and kissed him.
They held it for a little longer than I personally thought was necessary, but I couldn’t complain after how much I made Violet suffer through whenever I had a boyfriend.
Right now was one of the rare times that I was single. “How’s it going?”
“Not too bad,” Jaxon said. He eyed Violet’s locker, which was now only half full.
The whole thing was like a feat of engineering with her able to organize all her textbooks and notebooks by class while also having space for her jacket, backpack, two extra pairs of shoes, and her spirit clothes that she left here just in case she forgot about the spirit-wear day (which had never happened—as head girl, she always knew what was going on).
I felt like it had to have some magic spell on it for there to be enough space for everything.
“I still don’t understand how you kept your locker so organized for the whole year.”
“I perfected my organization system years ago,” Violet said. She let go of Jaxon and turned toward the locker as well, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m actually a little sad that I have to take it all apart now.”
“Look on the bright side,” Jaxon said. “You can look forward to organizing your dorm room next year. It’s like a bigger and better locker.”
Violet pressed her lips together, clearly trying to hold back a smile as she thought about that.
“I guess you’re right,” she said. She pulled another book out and dropped it on the growing pile. “Hey, have you checked your exams yet?”
Today was Exam Review Day, which meant that we could go around and see our graded exams. We’d already received our report cards, so the only benefit of doing it was to see what you got right or wrong on the exam.
Being the studious person she was, Violet had dragged me to every class to look at her exams before coming to clean out her locker.
Personally, I couldn’t care less. All that mattered was that I passed all my classes with high enough grades to keep my admission to university.
“Violet, I love you,” Jaxon said with a shake of his head, “but I think you may be the only student in this whole school who actually wants to look at their marks.”
Violet stuck her tongue out at him and turned back to her locker.
Jaxon grinned at her in the way that only a boyfriend does, and for a second I was hit with a wave of jealousy.
I had no idea where it had come from or why it was there.
I mean, it wasn’t like I wanted Jaxon or even a boy like him.
Sure, he was perfect for Violet, but he was a little too arrogant for my taste.
I guess it was just that... I wanted someone to smile at me like that.
I wanted someone to be so head-over-heels in love with me the way that Jaxon was with Violet.
I wanted someone to want to be with me for more than just a week or two.
I shook my head as if physically pushing away those thoughts and turned my attention away from the two lovebirds.
What was I thinking, anyway? I didn’t actually want that; I just liked the idea of it.
I knew myself well enough to know that a relationship wasn’t for me.
It wasn’t as if I’d been seeking something like that out.
I just ended up stuck with guys who only wanted to go out for a couple of dates before dumping me.
Actually, I was always the one dumping them on the principle that it was best to end things when they were still going well instead of letting the relationship crash and burn.
I wanted boys to remember me at my best and to wonder what it would have been like to have me for longer.
“Why did they make Exam Review the day after graduation, anyway?” I asked, trying to take my mind off it. “They had to know nobody would come.”
Sure, we all had to be here to clean out our lockers (except for those people who thought ahead and cleaned out their lockers before exams), but that wouldn’t make a bunch of hungover teenagers any more likely to go look at their exams.
“The idea was to make people think twice about whatever they were going to do at the graduation after-parties,” Violet said. Of course, the head girl would have the actual answer to my question. “Since they have things to do the next day.”
“And they didn’t stop to think that not enough seniors care about Exam Review for that to have any sort of impact?” Jaxon asked.
Violet shrugged. “I tried to tell them, but they thought I was wrong. Because why bother listening to the student representative about student issues, right?”
“The faculty is stupid,” Jaxon said. “They didn’t even make today the last chance to clean out lockers either.”
“It’s not?” I asked. I glared at Violet, who looked away sheepishly. She’d told me we absolutely had to clean out our lockers today to convince me to come with her. If I’d known that wasn’t true, I would have stayed in bed all day.
“I wanted you to come to Exam Review Day with me,” she said. She held up her hand with her index finger and thumb close together. “It was only a small lie.”
I rolled my eyes, then immediately regretted it as a wave of nausea rolled over me. The second that I felt better, I was going to kill her.
“Miss McKinnon!” I instinctively straightened up at the sound of Ms. Moscowitz’s voice carrying down the hallway. She marched toward me. “Why are you wearing sunglasses indoors?”
“It’s the new style,” I said in a deadpan. “Haven’t you heard?”
“Just because it’s a non-uniform day does not mean you can ignore all dress codes,” Ms. Moscowitz said. “Sunglasses off. Now.”
I didn’t know why she was getting so up in arms about it.
It wasn’t like today was a real school day anyway, and I had already graduated.
Really, I wasn’t even a student anymore.
Was now really the time to pick this battle?
On any other day, I probably would have fought it, but I was so not in the mood to get yelled at right now.
So I sighed and slowly slipped them off my face, squinting my eyes.
At least the lights inside didn’t feel like they were burning my retinas as much as they had before.
She continued to stare at me until I put them away in my backpack, then nodded in satisfaction and walked off.
I glared at Violet again. “Yeah, just a small lie with absolutely no consequences.”
Violet shrugged with one shoulder and smiled a little. “Next time, maybe you should check the schedule for yourself.”
Jaxon laughed. “Don’t feel bad, McKinnon. She did the same thing to me. I only found out because Eli just told me.”
“You two need me to keep your lives on track and you know it,” Violet said, waggling a finger at the two of us.
Jaxon moved behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his chin on her shoulder. “As always, you’re right.”
I felt like somebody was squeezing my heart so tight that it might shatter into a thousand pieces. Why did I want what they had so badly? I shouldn’t have.
Violet looked at me with concern. “You all right, Madison? You look a little sick.”
I forced a smile. “I’m fine. Just dreading cleaning out my own locker, that’s all. It’s basically a dumpster.”
Jaxon laughed. “You and Sabrina are the same. Except she has a boyfriend to help her with hers, so…” He kept talking, but I felt like I couldn’t hear him anymore, even as I saw his lips moving.
I shifted my gaze to the floor and tried to turn my attention toward anything but the fact that everyone seemed to be in a relationship other than me.
Violet had been joking in the car when she said three weeks was like a lifetime to me, but she wasn’t totally off either.
I was closing in on a month without a boyfriend, and the last time that had happened had been back in the tenth grade.
.. when I felt like there was no way I could be in a relationship again—no matter how short—after knowing what it felt like to kiss Charlie Owen.
It was all well and good to go around dating every boy in sight when I didn’t know what I was missing, but once I experienced that…
I knew nobody would ever compare to him.
Of course, I eventually started dating again, but that thought had never left the back of my mind. Every time I kissed somebody new, I hoped that maybe they would be the one to be better than the rest, but it never happened. Nobody ever compared to him.
I’d been in such a state of disbelief after Matt had told me the truth that I immediately went upstairs to find the paper for myself.
It had been right there on the coffee table, lying on top of mine as if I was meant to find it, destined to know who the boy in the closet had been.
After making sure that Jaxon and Violet were still distracted, I pulled out my phone and took off the case, allowing the little scrap of paper to fall out into my hand.
CHARLIE OWEN
I always loved his handwriting. I especially loved it next to mine.
+ Madison McKinnon, seven minutes in heaven. Falcon High homecoming party.
The best kiss of his life.
I flipped the paper over and read the passage on the back as if I didn’t have it memorized already. The promise I’d given myself that night as I struggled to fall asleep.
I’ll tell him after I graduate. Matthew won’t be mad anymore by then.
Back then, it felt so far away. Like it would never really happen.
But now that it was staring me in the face, I knew I was wrong about Matthew; he would care.
He would kill me if I told Charlie. But I had a feeling that keeping the secret would kill me too—it already was killing me, clawing its way through my body, breaking my heart every day of my life.
It was a slow and painful death, and I wasn’t sure I could live with it any longer.
“Two months,” I whispered to myself. “I’ll give myself two months.”
Charlie Owen would know it was me in that closet by the end of the summer.
Regardless of what happened after my confession, at least then I could go off to university knowing I had done everything in my power to win over the boy of my dreams—no matter what my brother thought of it.