Chapter Six
In history, Mr. Fuller lectures about the Civil War.
Kristen and I sit at one of the back tables by the windows.
The light is better, and the sun gives us a warm break from the school’s air-conditioning.
Plus, since history is the last period of the day, it’s always nice to be able to look outside and see what we’ll be walking into when we leave.
Summer isn’t over yet, and right now the sun is shining in a clear blue sky.
“Do you want to hang out after school?” I whisper. “We could get Starbucks and have a sleepover.”
We almost always go to a café, to the library, or for frozen yogurt after school.
We settle in at a table and do our homework, getting it out of the way instead of procrastinating.
My dad gave me a twenty this morning when he let me know that he and Mom are both working overnight at the hospital.
I figure if Kris and I do our homework first, we can make the most of a classic pizza and movie night.
The bell rings. “I’m not really in the mood for Starbucks,” she admits, shoving her pencil into her ballerina bun as we make our way out of the classroom.
“Maybe we can stop by Lulu’s for frozen yogurt? Then head back to my place and order a pizza?”
“Orrrr,” she says as we weave in between students on our way to the senior hall.
We come to my locker first and Kristen leans against the one next to mine, watching the mass exodus for a moment before looking at me.
“We could go back to my house,” she says. “Meet me at the field house, okay?”
“Sure.”
She says, “Cool,” absentmindedly, her gaze fixed on something down the hall. I turn and watch her walk away until she disappears around the corner.
I shift my focus and almost immediately—reflexively—spot Hannah at her locker.
She twists her lock and shoulders her field hockey gear.
When she looks up, she sees me immediately.
In a different universe, this would be okay.
This moment would be a shared secret between us, knowing that we’d see each other later outside school. But right now, this is bad.
I quickly look down even though she’s already on her way over to me.
“Do you have a minute?” she asks, leaning against the locker next to mine. I start rushing to put my textbooks in my backpack.
“You sound like a broken record,” I say quietly. I can’t help but glance around me. We’re out in the open, Hannah standing so close, close enough for people to make assumptions about us.
Hannah is out at our school. While we don’t look like a couple to the naked eye, all it would take is one slip up: a touch on the arm, a twine of her fingers in mine, to suggest that we’re something more. And that suggestion would spread way faster than any church gossip.
I zip up my bag, ready to make my escape.
I already know that if we talk, I’m more likely to give in to emotion over reason.
Hanging out with Kristen, keeping my mind far away from Hannah and our memories, is the perfect precursor to a detached text explaining all the reasons why not pursuing a secret relationship is the right, smart decision.
Hannah grabs my wrist. Her touch is warm, familiar, and startling.
“Clarity, would you just look at me?”
Her eyes find mine. I will her to read my mind, to know that I don’t know the answers.
In middle school, I used to dream that a guy would look at me like this, care about how I felt or what I thought.
To focus on me like my attention was the only thing that really mattered.
I wanted it because that’s what it looked like in movies, and the girls at my school always seemed more interesting when they had a boyfriend.
But I stopped daydreaming and mildly obsessing over romance and relationships, over yearning and desire, early in high school, when I started loading up on honors classes and didn’t have the bandwidth for much else.
This summer was the first time I really slowed down and opened my eyes.
I saw what I wanted for the first time. I got a taste of being happy, of looking at the world through the shared lens of a relationship.
But it’s too much, it comes with too much.
“Hannah, I can’t do this right now,” I say, closing my locker.
“I need an answer today.” She blocks me with her body. Towering over me, she uses her broad shoulders to create a wall between me and the rest of the world. It used to make me feel safe and protected, but now all I feel is cornered and trapped.
“I have to catch my ride.”
“Hannah!” someone calls.
She turns around, and some of her teammates are down the hall.
“Today’s our first scrimmage of the season,” she says, refocusing on me.
“Well, sounds like you have a game to get to.”
“I probably won’t get any playing time since I missed preseason.”
One of her teammates is holding her field hockey stick over her head, trying to touch the ceiling but coming nowhere near it. Another teammate is riding piggyback on a short but stocky girl with really nice locs. They look like they’re having a lot more fun than us.
“Come on, Hannah Banana,” they say, sounding more like a cheer.
“This conversation isn’t over, okay?”
“I’ll text you,” I reply, looking down at my shoes to avoid her insistent eyes.
“Aah, so I won’t be blocked anymore?” She arches her brow.
Before I can respond, her teammates start howling like wolves, so loud that it echoes down the now near-empty hallway. She turns and jogs away. Once they disappear, I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My wrist buzzes.
HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! It’s Mrs. Patricia from church! Just wanted to reach out so that you’d have my number. So excited to have you on board for Sunshine Saints.
I take a deep breath. I still have time before I have to face that music.
I head toward the field house, stepping outside at the first exit I find and cutting through the back parking lot on the path that leads to the sports fields.
I walk along the edge of the football stadium, seeing the Ridgeway Ravens warming up with sprints through the bleachers.
When I come around the ticket stand, I stop.
The sight of Kristen leaning back against the field house, staring up into Vincent’s eyes, hits me like I just walked into a glass door.
I watch him tip his forehead against hers before stealing a kiss.
It’s like watching open-heart surgery—disgusting, nauseating, and potentially deadly.
Kristen’s voice echoes in my mind, telling me Vincent isn’t going anywhere. Maybe I was wrong to assume Kristen and I would be hanging out alone.
“Hey guys,” I call out. I remind myself to smile. I want to get back to Kristen’s and my version of normal, and I guess, somehow, Vincent has to fit into that.
“Hey, you ready to go?” Kristen asks, smiling and stumbling a little as she tries to catch her breath and balance against the wall of the field house.
“Yep,” I say, trying not to be awkward.
We start walking past the rest of the fields behind the school.
Like field hockey, the girls’ soccer team has their first scrimmage today.
We pass boys’ soccer and the cross-country team doing warm-ups.
The football team starts stretching, calling out each move before proceeding in one synchronized line.
“Never realized how big Ridgeway is on sports,” Vincent admits, looking out over the fields. He has a green-and-blue flannel tied around his waist. His black jean shorts are an old washed-out pair that he cut at the knee. I like his checkered Vans, though I’d never tell him.
A waist-high fence marks the perimeter of the field hockey turf. Our team isn’t out yet, but Cuyahoga Falls High School is already doing their warm-ups. I try to imagine Hannah out there, running sprints and stretching in the fresh-cut grass. I feel a pinch in my chest.
Kristen picks up the pace now that the woods are in view. The shade from the trees offers some relief from the sun. Vincent takes the lead, and we shift toward the fence that separates the Haverford Tree Farm from the school property.
Once we’re on the other side, Kristen and Vincent interlace their fingers.
Kristen’s parents have a no boys when home alone rule, a rule that she struggled with a lot when she started dating Tyler Scheen in eighth grade.
Nevertheless, she listened. When we come out of the trees and walk up the empty driveway, I realize that old obedient Kristen drifted away over the summer as well.
I look at their hands, seeing Kristen’s yin-yang ring.
Hers is silver and mine is gold. I glance at the black-and-white circle on my finger and wonder if this is what we are becoming.
Two separate entities, opposites that somehow fit together.
What happened to all the things that used to make us the same?
I could’ve reached out more over the summer. I should’ve. At first, I thought something was up because Kristen hardly seemed to notice. I mean, she wasn’t reaching out either. But now I know she had her own distraction.
A sense of pride washes over me when Kristen’s chocolate lab, Skittles, runs past them to greet me.
At least she knows where her loyalty should lie.
We follow Kristen and Vincent into the kitchen.
Vincent gets a glass from the cabinet and grabs a Crystal Light packet from the pantry, already familiar with the layout.
“You gonna take a load off or nah?” he asks, his attention zeroed in on the bottom of his glass.
He stirs his lemonade with a spoon, the metal tapping the wall of the glass rhythmically, almost hypnotically. He glances in my direction, brows raised slightly as if to reiterate his question. I look at Kristen, noticing they both left their bags in the entryway.
He’s talking to me.
“Yeah,” I say, draping my bag over the back of a chair.