Chapter Thirty-Nine
The next day I find a note stuffed in my locker, sealed with a tiny piece of pink-and-gold polka-dot washi tape. Kristen’s curvy handwriting is annoyingly perfect, like it should be on wedding invitations. The sight of it, of a piece of her, nearly brings tears to my eyes.
Photography room at lunch.
When third period ends and we’re released for lunch, my palms are sweaty, and I’ve convinced myself she’s either going to forgive me or meeting in the art room is her chosen setting for some kind of artistic revenge. Knowing Kristen, it could go either way.
In the middle of the day, between art classes, the art wing smells like fresh paint, resin, and clay.
It’s refreshing and tickles my brain in a way that could inspire my creative side, under different circumstances.
I find Kristen sitting at her usual table, her Nikon disassembled next to her computer, her focus on her screen.
She doesn’t look up when I walk in. Not even when I plop onto the stool across from her and set my lunch box down.
“Hey,” I say, my voice small.
Her eyes cut to me. “I see you got the note.”
Her expression gives nothing away. She doesn’t seem mad. Though, she doesn’t necessarily seem happy.
“I appreciate you not taping it to my locker,” I say, paying close attention to her reaction.
She takes a breath. Her lips twitch, but she doesn’t smile. “I figured it’d be too soon,” she says simply.
“Indeed,” I say, praying she’s finding our pretend formality funny like I am, like we usually would.
“Vincent told me he ran into you.”
Again, her stone face reveals nothing about whether that’s a good or bad thing.
“Did he mention the part where he looked at me like I’d set his skateboard on fire?”
“He mentioned that he was surprised to see you,” she says, pulling her hands away from her keyboard. “He also said you told him the truth.”
I nod, that same tread lightly sense I had yesterday at Sheetz coming back to me now.
“Kris, I need to say this. I know I’ve said it before, but not like this. I lied. To Vincent, to Maurice, and to you. And even when I told you the truth, I didn’t give you a choice. I pulled you into my mess and put you in an impossible position, and I’m sorry.”
Kristen sighs and closes her laptop, like she’s folding down the wall between us. When her eyes meet mine again, they aren’t as guarded.
“While you’re right, that it was a crappy spot to be in, it’s not all on you.
Lying to my boyfriend wasn’t fun, but I don’t regret helping you.
You’re my best friend,” she says, leaning forward and holding out an open hand.
I slip mine in and give her hand a squeeze.
“When you told me what happened at Camp Refuge, I understood why you were afraid. I wanted to help you, and at the time I thought I was doing the right thing. So, yeah, you put me in a hard spot, but I chose to stay there.”
I didn’t know how much I needed to hear her say that, that—despite the mess—I didn’t force her too hard.
I was wrapped up in my fear and paranoia, and I couldn’t remember how much of her helping was being a good friend versus me limiting what she could and couldn’t say.
Knowing that she doesn’t regret helping me is everything.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice thick around the lump in my throat.
“I’m glad it turned out okay,” she adds, her eyes glassy.
“Me too,” I say, sucking in a breath.
Saturday morning, I’m up early to head over to Highland Park.
Hannah and I meet up with Mrs. Rubio and the rest of the committee to finalize setup and finish putting up decorations.
Half the committee works on hanging lights, streamers, and leaf and pumpkin cutouts all over the pavilion.
Vendors trickle in and check with Mrs. Rubio about their booth placements.
More and more of the field gets taken up with rides, games, and food trucks, the festival finally coming together.
Olivia and Hailey bounce around taking videos for our social media, one final push to gain attention for the festival.
By the time we leave around noon, my legs are sore, my hands are sticky from tape and glue, and my stomach growls loud enough to rival the carnival rides being tested on the other side of the field. But I’m happy, excited to go home and change and come back to everything being perfect!
Three hours later, I’m spinning in front of my bedroom mirror, taking in the dress Mom and I picked out earlier this week when we went to the mall.
It’s a burnt-orange-and-deep-red floral-print minidress with a ruffled hem that brushes my mid-thigh, poofy sleeves that sit just right on my shoulders, and a square neckline that is flattering without doing too much.
I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect dress for the Squash the Pumpkin Festival.
Kristen helped me match my eyeshadow to the blood orange red and now I can’t stop staring at myself.
“Jeez,” Kristen fake huffs when she walks back into my room. “You’re going to put all of us to shame. How am I supposed to compete with that?”
I turn around to find Kris leaning against my doorframe, her flowy cream-colored maxi dress hanging from her with effortless grace. The embroidered flowers along the neckline complement the turquoise pendant on her necklace and make the red of her lipstick pop.
I gawk at her, shamelessly admiring her, finding even the joke of her having to “compete” with me laughable.
“Okay,” I say, drawing the word out as I gesture to her whole fit. “Boho queen has entered the chat.”
When Hannah and Vincent arrive, my parents insist on taking pictures of us on the front steps, framed by Mom’s pumpkins and her slightly lopsided bundles of dried wheat stalks. Dad claps Vincent on the back and Mom dotes on Hannah, smoothing her flannel and fixing the collar of her jean jacket.
“We’ll catch up with you guys later,” Dad says as we start toward the car. “And you two,” he points to Hannah and me, “Don’t forget to take it all in. It’s your festival after all.”
By the time we park and make it past the ticket booth, the festival is in full swing. The smells of fried sweets and kettle corn fill the air; the flashing lights from the rides douse the crowd in an array of colors, making the festival feel like a portal to somewhere new.
Every year, my first stop is for funnel cake.
Hannah and I share a steaming plate, careful not to get powdered sugar on our clothes.
Then we all go to the hay maze, stopping to take pictures when Vincent climbs on top of the wall because he gets impatient with how many dead ends we come to.
Hannah and I play the pumpkin basketball game, getting forced into a picture for the committee Insta story when Olivia runs into us.
We meet back up with Kristen and Vincent when their ride on the Ferris wheel ends and find a stand selling pumpkin shakes.
Kristen and I immediately want to try them, but Vincent and Hannah aren’t convinced.
They watch us, and I watch the shake travel up through the bends in my twisty straw until thick, cold cream passes between my lips.
Pumpkin, vanilla, cinnamon, and honey swirl in my mouth, caressing my taste buds with an autumnal warmth carried on the chill of a shake.
“It’s brilliant!” Kristen tells them.
“God, that’s amazing,” I say before taking a bite of the apple-cider Danish Hannah is holding in front of my face. A great combination.
The sun dips low, casting long shadows across the field, making all the lights brighter and raising the general energy of the night.
“It’s almost six,” I tell everyone, signaling that it’s time to head to the pumpkin chucking area.
We join the line. Up ahead, there are piles of pumpkins waiting to be picked over. For the sake of fairness, there are three weight classes for the pumpkins: small pumpkins for little kids, medium pumpkins for most people, and large pumpkins for the heavyweight toss.
Within a matter of minutes, five couples are lined up, including Kristen and Vincent, Hannah and me, and Hannah’s younger sister Jess and her best friend, Amber. We pick our pumpkins from the medium pile and stand behind a painted white line, waiting for the whistle.
Traditional pumpkin chucking uses slingshots and catapults, but in the interest of keeping things simple and safe, our pumpkins get hurled by the sheer power of two people working together.
“Are you ready?” I ask Hannah, noticing her looking down the field with her hands on her hips.
“I think so. We’re just, like, hurling it that way, right?”
“Yep,” I say, laughing a little. “It’s fairly simple.”
She nods, looking down the field again like she’s unsure.
“Hey.” I reach for her hand. When she takes mine and looks at me, I lean in for a quick kiss. “I’m happy we’re here, doing this together. And to think, you were going to finish high school without chucking a pumpkin.”
Her cheeks catch those warm, rosy undertones when she smiles. “Unfathomable.”
“Did I ever sincerely thank you for saving the committee?”
“I think so. At least, you have thanked me… I think…”
“Well, let me just say that despite everything, despite how this semester started, I am glad that you stuck around, even when I didn’t make it easy—”
“You’re well worth the wait, Clarity,” she says, looking at me, admiration sparkling in her eyes.
Gratitude, admiration, love, swells inside me. She believed in us even when I couldn’t.
She matters to me, and I matter to her.
She loves me and I love her.
“You’re well worth the fight,” I say.
A whistle pierces the air. The man in charge of the booth recites the rules quickly and instructs us to pick up our pumpkins and wait for his mark to chuck them.
I look over my shoulder behind us, where there’s an area for spectators, finding my parents at the bottom of a set of portable bleachers. They wave, and I smile when I see Mom hold up her phone.
Hannah turns too, and I whisper for Kristen and Vincent to look over so that she can snap a picture with us and our pumpkins, chucking for the last time as Ridgeway high schoolers.
“READY?” the man bellows.
We turn back to face the field, then brace ourselves.
“On the whistle!”
I look at Hannah in front of me, the way her orange-and-red flannel lies open, the way her hair hangs down and her eyes are focused. She is so much to me. For the singular fact that finding her allowed me to find myself, she will always mean so much to me.
The whistle rings out, piercing the air, filling me with a flighty, excited kind of nervous feeling.
We lock eyes. I smile. Hannah smiles. We rear back, swinging our arms, pulling the pumpkin high, then letting the weight pull our arms down, using the momentum as we come forward.
Together.
We let go and watch our pumpkin soar.