Chapter Twenty-One
I turn and wave goodbye to my mom after I knock on Rowena’s door. When she drives away, I realize how strange, almost anxiously naked, it feels to be here—to show up—without Hannah. But that anxiety is dashed when the door opens and Hannah is looking at me, smiling.
“Hey,” I say, stepping past her.
“Hey,” she says. Her voice is quiet and gets swept away by the laughter coming from the kitchen.
I know my way from last time and round the island, setting the extra baking sheets I brought with me down on an empty spot among the gathered supplies.
I see an apple-cider candle lit on the counter, and when I stand next to Hannah across from the other girls, I catch the scent of chai wafting off the steam rising from the ocean-print mug in front of her.
Rowena picks up her pen and opens her laptop. “Now that we are all here, let’s get down to business. Olivia and Hailey have a great idea.”
Olivia and Hailey are sitting across the island from Hannah and me, with Rowena on the end. We all focus on them, Hannah picking up her mug and resting her elbows on the counter to get comfortable. She shifts just enough that our arms are almost touching.
“As your codirectors for all things publicity and marketing related,” Olivia says, glancing at Hailey, “we feel like it’s time to up the social media game of the festival committee by making an Instagram account.”
“Which we may or may not have already created,” Hailey adds, pretending to look guilty by glancing everywhere but at me for a moment.
Then, she explains, “We think it’ll be a great way to get the attention of kids at school who aren’t, like, tuned in to school news, you know?
Like, they might not care about the flyers or listen to the announcements—I mean, I ignore that stuff—but we can follow students from the account, and ideally, they’ll follow us back.
It’ll be a fun way to engage with our classmates and get everyone hyped for the festival. ”
“I think that’s a great idea,” I say, relieved and elated.
I honestly didn’t have any expectations for the field hockey team’s involvement in the committee beyond them at least being extra hands when it came time to decorate, their primary function being as a placeholder to have enough students to keep the committee active. But this… goes above and beyond.
“If we get the word out on social media, I think we could have a bigger turnout this year,” I admit.
“Maybe even the biggest turnout,” Olivia points out, all smiles.
“Well, if you’re on board,” Hailey says, looking between Hannah and me, “we think a picture of our copresidents would make a great post.”
“You mean… a picture of us, like, together?” I ask, self-conscious.
My hair is thrown up into loose, frizzy twists, I have no makeup on, and I’m wearing a red sweater, which is undoubtedly washing out my complexion…
and in all the time that we spent together at Camp Refuge, Hannah and I never took any pictures together.
And yeah, this picture wouldn’t necessarily capture what we are… But it would still be a picture.
“Yeah, is that cool?” Olivia asks, already holding her phone up.
“As long as you don’t mind that I look like a mess,” I say sheepishly.
“Oh my God, Clarity. You know you’re, like, gorgeous, right?” Rowena asks, reaching over to shake my shoulder like she’s shaking sense into me.
I can’t help but blush a little, from the compliment and because of all the attention.
“Clarity, you always look amazing,” Hannah says beside me, her voice soft. “Besides, people will be torn between your beauty and my red-ass face.”
“Isn’t your face always red?” I ask, looking at her closer.
“OH! Burn,” Hailey erupts, laughing.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” I rush to say when Hannah covers her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. I just mean, like, there’s always these, uh, undertones.”
Hannah pulls her hands away from her face, thankfully laughing and not hiding in embarrassment.
“Well, right now, my face is red because of Rowena,” Hannah says, pointing a finger at her dramatically. “It’s her fault.”
“Oh, come on—”
“No, tell our dear president what you did to me,” Hannah demands, everyone cracking up.
Even though I don’t know what happened, I find myself cracking up too. Maybe it’s the energy in the room, the way that even though they’re all on a team together and I’m not, they still include me. They make me feel included… which is more than Kristen has been doing lately.
Although I can’t say I’ve tried as hard to include her in this new version of my life either. Since camp, we haven’t texted each other as much, and I didn’t ask her if she wanted to be on the festival committee; I didn’t give her a chance to help me save it.
And here I am on a Saturday, hanging out with a group of girls who, before this year—before Hannah—wouldn’t have glanced my way.
For a second, I wonder if this is wrong, me being here.
While I could’ve invited Kristen, it’s not like she doesn’t do stuff without me.
Plus, her overprotectiveness about the field hockey team joining the committee has turned rude.
I wouldn’t want to invite her only to give her more material for mean comments.
The field hockey team aren’t random girls she can judge. They’re my friends.
And even though I’m not out to the team, and I have no desire to be out to them, knowing that they accept Hannah and Rowena and the other teammates who are gay makes me feel less on edge, less like I have to hide.
I listen as Rowena confesses to not reading the ingredients of a face mask that she encouraged Hannah to use during their sleepover last night, which made her break out and has left her face red.
Hannah and I lean closer so that Olivia can take the picture. I try and fail to ignore her warmth, the feeling of her arm wrapped around my back, and the faint smell of her shampoo trying to tease my mind into a flashback of my hands tangled in her hair at the bottom of her stairs yesterday.
“You guys are so cute,” Olivia says, holding her phone out so we can approve the pic.
“We are,” I murmur.
We spend the afternoon churning out batch after batch of sugar cookies, Rowena and I taking the lead on decorating the fall- and Halloween-themed shapes while Olivia, Hailey, and Hannah mix more dough.
When it’s just Hannah, Rowena, and me left, we collapse on the living room floor with a plate of cookies on the coffee table. Hannah and I stare at the ceiling in blissful silence, and I imagine what it would feel like to slide my palm across the plush carpet to hook my pinkie with hers.
The sound of typing cuts through the quiet, and then Rowena flips her laptop around to show us an email from a recruiter at Rutgers offering her a field hockey scholarship. “I’m still waiting on University of Iowa, University of Pennsylvania, Ohio University, and Harvard.”
“You’ve already submitted your applications?” I ask, a little panicked. “I haven’t sent in a single one.”
“It’s still early,” Hannah assures me, then she tilts her head toward Rowena. “She’s just an overachiever.”
Rowena rolls her eyes but looks at me expectantly. “Where are you thinking of applying?” I recite my list, catching the side-eye Rowena shoots Hannah at the mention of Pitt. I could’ve guessed Rowena already knew where her best friend was applying.
The first thing Rowena says is “It would be so cool if you guys ended up at Pitt together.”
Before I can ask why, Hannah says, “The chances of that happening are so slim though, Row. With her grades, Clarity is Princeton bound.”
I know she’s trying to compliment me, but I don’t like that she’s been downplaying the possibility of us going to the same school since she brought it up yesterday. Even though it started as a joke, I thought we got serious, at least about the idea itself.
Not lingering too much, I tell them, “That all depends. Grades might get me in, but money could easily keep me out. Princeton would be hard-pressed to give me a scholarship, and my goal is to go somewhere that gives me something.”
“Very, very true,” Hannah agrees. “Still, they’d be stupid not to do whatever they can to get you.”
“And, hey, if you don’t, then you could always go to Pitt. And then you,” she says, looking at Hannah, “could go to Pitt, and you both would be at the same school! Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
“Maybe,” Hannah says. “It’ll be a miracle if I actually apply anywhere considering how much these essays are killing me.”
Hannah goes upstairs to use the bathroom before we head out, leaving Rowena and me alone to clear the coffee table and take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher.
I hand her the mixing bowls and rubber spatulas since she knows where they go, but my focus splits between what I’m doing and what I’m thinking.
Rowena didn’t mention the chance of her and Hannah possibly getting into Ohio University.
She and her best friend might get accepted to the same school, but it would be cooler that Hannah and I—a random girl who is copresident of a club her best friend joined five seconds ago—end up at the same university.
“Hey, Rowena,” I say quietly, casually.
“What’s up?” she asks before bending over to blow out the candle on the counter, the smell of smoke mixing into the apple-cinnamon air.
“What did you mean earlier, when you said it would be awesome if Hannah and I both go to Pitt? Like, why would it be so great?”
“Oh.” Her brows draw together in confusion.
She cocks her head to the side like she doesn’t believe that I don’t know.
“If you guys go away to the same college, then you can be together, like you were at camp. You wouldn’t have to worry or be in the closet the way you are here, like, if you don’t come out before then. ”
“How do—you know?” I say, choking on the lack of oxygen entering my lungs.
“Was I not supposed to?” Rowena asks.
“Clarity—”