Chapter Sixteen
I queue up the music as Kristen peels out of the school parking lot.
Sweat pools under my thighs, making them stick to the hot leather seats.
This drive is the first time I’ve relaxed since Mrs. Patricia’s ambush yesterday morning.
With the Kid LAROI blaring from the speakers, I roll down my window and welcome the warm air and the smell of fresh-cut grass.
“Snoopy, stick your head back in the car,” Kristen barks, turning down the music.
I stick my tongue out at her, happy that we’re going to hang and do homework, just the two of us, like old times.
“What’s up?” I ask, knowing Kristen doesn’t turn down the volume of our after-school “musical meditation” for no reason.
“I talked to Maurice the other day,” she says, glancing at me.
“Oh?” I focus on the passing scenery to avoid her gaze.
Maurice texted me a little over the weekend too, but I was able to politely avoid him with the ever-true excuse that I was busy.
Busy daydreaming about what my first real date with Hannah will be like, then spiraling over the first Sunshine Saints meeting, and then recapping every minute of the meeting with my girlfriend…
I keep thinking I imagined the end to Friday night and am going to wake up to find me asking Hannah to be my girlfriend was all a dream.
I figure that’s partly because we haven’t been able to spend much time together, and when we did see each other today, it wasn’t like we could be together.
No hugging, no stolen kisses in between class or holding hands by our lockers—not like the couples I’ve found myself noticing a lot more around school.
But I caught her eye after lunch. I was alone at my locker, putting my lunch box away.
And Hannah was alone at hers, trading books for her next class.
For a second, we just stared at each other, and it hit me that this was the first time I was seeing her in person since Friday.
I smiled. She winked and mouthed, Hey. Then a couple other students stopped at their lockers, taking up the space between us.
I was nervous that a secret relationship would cheat me out of special moments.
All the dodging and hiding would amount to something less.
But I loved having this tiny piece of existence that only the two of us participated in.
That moment wasn’t stolen so much as it was something we created just for us.
“He said he’s looking forward to seeing you at the skate show,” Kristen says, her tone leading.
Maurice is the reason Hannah and I can be together, and if there’s any hope of our plan actually working, I can’t avoid him forever.
“I’m excited to see him perform.” It’s not entirely untrue.
Kristen pauses, and when I look over, she’s giving me one of her unimpressed glares. “When he said that, I said, ‘Surely you’re not waiting until the skate show to see her. That’s so far away,’ and he said that you said you’re ‘busy.’ ”
“What, so he’s reporting back to you about me now?” I thought the last thing I wanted was a boyfriend, but I was wrong. The last thing I want is an immature little snake.
Kristen shakes her head. “No, Clarity. I asked him what he thought about Friday. I was trying to do recon for you. And either way, you can’t be busy until the skate show—”
“Kris, I didn’t say I’d be busy until the skate show.
I was busy this weekend. I was working on the festival, and you know I’m teaching Sunday school now.
I’m not going to be busy every day for eternity, but I am busy.
” My words gush out. What I really want to say is that if she’s going to nag me about Maurice, I’m not going to give him a chance.
But unfortunately, it’s more important than ever that I make this work so that Hannah and I can be together in peace.
“I know you’re busy,” she relents. “I just know that you’re nervous about all this and I don’t want you to avoid it.”
The knot in my stomach tightens. Words bubble to the surface, but nothing is safe to share.
The only reason her worry and interference are piling on the pressure is because of my relationship with Hannah.
Kristen would never want me to force anything with someone I don’t like, but I can’t tell her the whole truth yet.
Instead, I just nod. “I appreciate that, Kris. Like I promised, I’m giving him a chance. I’ll figure it out,” I say, and force myself to smile.
She gives me a side smile and refocuses on the road.
As my best friend, Kristen has always been able to sense when I’m off.
Whether I have a crush, if something or someone is bothering me, or even when I’m just tired from a bad night’s sleep.
As much as I’d like to think I’ve perfected my poker face, it occurs to me that she just might not see those things anymore. She might not see me.
Kristen parks behind my mom’s car in the driveway. Inside the house, I call out so that we don’t accidentally scare her.
“In the kitchen!” she shouts back.
Kristen leads the way. Watching her cross my living room, careful not to step on the fancy carpet that as little kids we were trained to avoid like lava, I realize how long it’s been since she’s come over to my house.
“Kristeeeeeen,” Mom coos when we come through the kitchen doorway. She opens her arms, spreading out her butterfly-print scrubs in full glory, and Kristen folds herself into a hug.
“It’s been so long,” Kristen says.
I set my backpack on a barstool and start unloading my books onto the counter.
“I was just thinking about you, well, both of you,” Mom admits.
“Why?” I ask.
Kristen joins me at the breakfast bar and starts unpacking her homework too.
On the other side of the island, Mom pulls a piece of paper from the pile of mail she had been sorting.
I didn’t know Mrs. Rubio already sent out the first wave of flyers, but in large pumpkin-orange print is a request for chaperones for the Ridgeway High School Squash the Pumpkin Festival.
“Are you girls still going this year?”
“Mrs. Jones, what kind of question is that?” Kristen asks, feigning incredulity with a gasp.
“Well, I didn’t know if being seniors meant you were too cool for this sort of thing,” Mom says, shrugging. Though I can tell from the smile on her face that she knew we were going all along.
“Of course we’re going. Clarity is planning the whole thing, so clearly it’ll be the best one yet,” Kristen reasons, shooting me a proud glance.
Mom opens her mouth but then closes it. She looks back and forth between Kristen and me, a conspiratorial smile playing on her lips.
“What?” I ask, the silence becoming uncomfortable.
“Are you guys gonna bring dates?” she asks.
“Mom.” I nearly choke.
“What? I feel like that’s a fair question.”
“It wasn’t a fair question last year,” I remind her. There’s no reason for her to think anything has changed.
“Well last year you were juniors,” she says, like that makes it obvious.
“And this year we’re seniors, and next year we’ll be freshmen,” I say, mocking her tone and rolling my wrist to mimic her hello, duh gesture.
“Clarity,” Kristen jumps in, swatting my arm. Then to my mom, she says, “I have a boyfriend, so I’m bringing him this year, and Clarity’s date is a work in progress.”
Mom reels back, her whole body seeming to light up. “Oh my gosh!” she gushes. “That’s so exciting.”
Kristen starts giving her a download of her relationship with Vincent—minus the backstory.
As Mom leans in closer and closer, she looks more and more like a high schooler hanging on the end of a thread of juicy gossip.
It’s weird, but also funny. A surgeon acting like a high school girl.
I wish she could be like this more, that we could talk, even gossip, more…
“But, like I said, Clarity’s date is in the works right now,” Kristen says, pulling me back in with a slick grin.
“Wow,” Mom sighs with a faraway look, the one that she started doing at the beginning of summer when finishing junior year meant I was officially a senior and the ensuing year would be a time of lasts. “So instead of chucking pumpkins together, you’ll be chucking them side by side with your guys.”
The little bit of rhyme mixed with the heavy-handed sentiment nearly makes me vomit on the countertop. Instead, I stifle my discomfort with a cringe, making Kristen laugh.
“You know, when I was in high school, we had our own fall festival. It was usually around Halloween too. There was something about senior year, and my last festival in town before moving away from home, that made me want to make it memorable,” Mom says.
“Did you have a date?” I ask, genuinely curious but also turning the spotlight back on her.
“I went with a boy from Bible study. Don’t tell your dad, but he was cute. Like, whew.”
Kristen leans in closer, begging for more details.
“I always figured Bible-thumpers were a little too conservative for teen dating,” she confesses, glancing at me.
“Bible-thumpers are people too,” Mom says, amused. “And ‘Bible-thumping’ teens are still teens.”
“Touché,” Kristen relents.
“If anything, finding a like-minded soul at that age made it easier to be in a relationship without being tempted against my faith. And, beliefs aside, having similar views can help make any relationship stronger. Creates a consistent path,” Mom adds.
Her words start to sink in, but they stop, suspended just beneath the surface. Sharing beliefs is one thing, but with my old beliefs conflicting with who I am now, I’m not sure what my current beliefs really are… or who—Kristen, Mom, Dad, Hannah, Jameson—shares them with me.
“I know your date is a work in progress, Clarity, but let the record show I’m rooting for Jameson to be your date,” Mom says, pulling an orange out of the fridge and beginning to peel it.
She starts chewing the first wedge but doesn’t stop talking.
“You guys have known each other forever. I always thought it would be cute if you got together.”
I feel my face get hot, and all I can do is smile awkwardly. I catch Kristen watching me, and she raises her eyebrows; she feels the same. She knows Jameson and I didn’t happen over the summer like we’d hoped, but she doesn’t know why. And she doesn’t know that Jameson and I aren’t friends anymore.
Oh, how things have changed.