Chapter Twenty-Three
Nobody’s at the quad when I reach the bottom of the steps, or at least I think that’s the case until Joey emerges from behind one of the pillars at the edge of it. He looks simultaneously pleased and dubious, a grimace attempting to be a smile on his face.
“You good?” I ask.
He shifts his weight between his feet, then stops walking halfway to me. “Okay, so—the thing is—I’m supposed to put this paper bag on your head. It’s a news bag! Get it?” he says, holding up said paper bag, which, sure enough, has news articles glued to it. “But um—that feels very strange of me, a very tall individual, to be doing to a much shorter individual in broad daylight—”
“Joey, for fuck’s sake! We talked about this!” calls Amara from behind the quad’s very large rock.
Joey holds the paper bag aloft, looking stricken. “Um—all right. Yeah, sorry, this is my first ever writer-napping, so I’m not sure how these are supposed to go—”
“Well, get with the program!” Amara calls. “You were the most recent writer brought on, this is your job!”
Joey lowers the arm holding the bag and says hopefully, “Can’t one of you kidnap her?”
“I’m the one who gets to spin her around while we do the song. Don’t take that from me,” calls Colby from another rock.
“And I lured her here!” Amara protests. “Must I carry the entire weight of Newsbag on my back?”
I walk over to Joey, teeming with so much excitement and uncertainty that I can feel myself shaking. “I will put the paper bag on my own head under one condition,” I tell him.
Relief floods Joey’s face. “Name it.”
“Tell me. Is Newsbag safe?”
Joey’s face bursts into a wide grin. “Not officially,” he says. “But unofficially? I think we’re good.”
I take the paper bag from him, my own grin so wide I’m half convinced my face won’t fit in the bag anymore. “All right,” I say, placing it over my head. “Writer-nap me.”
The paper bag smells like the breath of a hundred Newsbag writers before me; Colby’s rendition of the “Maple Ride Sweetie Song” is so terrible that it should be used as the soundtrack to a horror movie; the collective attempt of the Newsbag staff to get me back to McLaren Hall, with each of them taking me by the elbow to quiz me about the different “eras” of Newsbag ’s existence, is so disjointed that I nearly step on a squirrel.
It’s anyone else’s nightmare—and the most thrilling half hour of my life.
It ends back in the room we’ve held all our meetings in since the first, where I’m greeted with cheers and applause and Rowan and Amara’s latest batch of cookies, a celebratory Maple Ride Sweetie recipe made with maple syrup and candied pecans that allegedly goes back to the early Newsbag days of yore.
I stand there feeling like one of those award show clichés who are too busy trying not to cry to remember to give a speech at the podium. Joey helpfully prevents this by putting a cookie in my hand with the same ease he did on the first day, and Colby by thumbing under my eyes and saying, “We don’t let perfectly good mascara go to waste.”
I am hugged by no less than a dozen people when I finally reach Amara and manage to say, “I didn’t even do the third round.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” says Amara. “That piece you published this morning did more for Newsbag than all the alum articles in it combined. People are laughing, and people are pissed. ”
Rowan’s eyes are brighter than I’ve ever seen them, enough for them to look downright optimistic for once. “And your idea for a last limited-edition zine is generating so much buzz that the dean emailed us three times in a row asking to meet and ‘resolve the misunderstanding.’”
“A meeting we are taking our sweet time setting up, so Daisy can get her article published and really turn on the heat,” says Amara. “We’re gonna have the people in charge of the donor budget on their knees. ”
“God, I love it when you talk dismantling the administration,” says Rowan, snaking an arm around Amara’s waist.
Amara grins wolfishly. “Then you’re about to have one hell of an excellent semester ahead of you.”
While they’re making out I wander over to grab another cookie. Around me everyone is sharing links to the coverage we’ve started to get from other outlets, funny comments people are making in Instagram captions, the names of different notable writers and comedians who have gotten involved. I’m standing there soaking in every second of it, my heart full of joy and my mouth full of cookie, when Joey and Colby approach.
“She looks bewildered,” Colby says to Joey, analyzing me like a specimen.
The smile on my face wilts just enough that neither of them miss it. I have to ask it now.
“Am I only getting the role because Seb dropped out?”
Joey shakes his head immediately. “Nah. We didn’t even see his email resigning from the spot until later. We were getting inundated with stuff about the budget numbers.”
Colby positions the Newsbag hat on top of my head, fashioning it so it doesn’t come over my eyes. “You got this fair and square. Also we have big meetings about each writer before we bring them on staff. Four years is a long time to be stuck with someone, you know.”
I bite down a Seb-related smirk, because boy, do I ever.
“We wanted to get stuck with you even earlier, though, so we all held back last night after the zine went to print,” says Joey. He lightly bops my makeshift hat. “Unanimous decision.”
My throat is thick by the time I finish my bite of cookie. “Well,” I manage, trying not to get too sappy but failing spectacularly. “Thank you. I’ve wanted to write for Newsbag for so long. I’m probably going to need all four years to believe this is actually happening.”
Amara comes up from behind and hooks an arm around me so firmly that it’s clear she was eavesdropping. “It’s not just your writing. You’re clicked into this place. You’re open and empathetic and know how to connect with people, make them feel like they’re part of a larger whole.” She gestures out with her other arm to the room, where the excitement is still so palpable I can feel it like a charge in the air. “I mean, shit. I think the results speak for themselves.”
The words feel like they’re uncurling some last part of me I held in reserves. Like I’ve spent this entire time growing out of the boundaries I made myself fit into in high school, and now I’m finally feeling myself bloom. Now I’m not just myself, but proud to be—every part of me. The loud and disruptive and messy and wild. The things that make me a Brighton through and through, and the things that make me just Sadie, a person I’m learning more about every single day.
We all have to disperse a few minutes later for classes and to continue coordinating all the alums and other news outlets reaching out for quotes. Amara tells me to keep my phone charged and at the ready, because people are already starting to ask about my piece. I still feel like I’m walking on a sunbeam that carries me all the way to Pancake It or Leave It, where I can see Seb chatting animatedly with Daisy in the window. He turns the moment I come into sight, already grinning before his eyes fully land on me, like he sensed me coming from half a mile away.
I only saw him an hour ago, but that doesn’t stop the flood of relief when I walk through the door and he’s already standing to meet me. It isn’t just that he’s back on campus and we’re on even footing again. It’s that from now on, we always will be. That every time I pass Seb on the main path or sit next to him in the library or find him in Pancake It or Leave It, I can look at him and just— be.
Seb was wrong before, is the thing. We weren’t always our true selves around each other. There was always one thin protective barrier between us. The pretenses and the competitions and little white lies we told ourselves, always at odds for the sake of keeping each other close. For the sake of keeping us from being the people we are now: unabashedly, ridiculously happy to see each other, for all the reasons in the world and no reason at all.
Daisy grabs her laptop and switches tables with a quick wink as Seb steps forward to wrap his arms around me. “Hey, you,” he says into my hair, unmistakably proud. “I see you survived your kidnapping.”
“Hey,” I say back, squeezing him hard. “That I did.”
Seb pulls away just enough for me to see the gleam in his eye. “Well, as the official winner of our harrowing Newsbag competition, I can offer you one of two prizes: an ‘I crushed Seb’ victory kiss to really stick it to me, or an ‘I feel sorry for Seb’ pity kiss to help ease the blow.”
I lean in and kiss him. It’s soft and sweet and feels less like I’ve won something and more like I’ve finally laid my armor down. From now on, whatever Seb and I get up to, we’ll be doing it together.
Seb’s eyes are so warm and open when we pull away that I can’t help basking in it like a plant reaching for the sun. He tucks a loose strand of my hair behind my ear. “So which one was it?” he asks.
I raise my eyebrows at him. “You’ll probably have to kiss me again to find out.”
He laughs and does just that, grabbing me by the waist and dipping me slightly, a victory of his own. It’s a swooping, breathtaking crackle of a sensation, but when we pull apart, I’m the one laughing.
“Hmmm,” says Seb. “Do I want to know the punch line of this joke?”
I lean in, setting my forearms loosely on his shoulders, clasping my hands around the back of his neck. “I was just thinking about the last time I allegedly defeated you, and you popped up on campus anyway,” I tell him. I’m close enough to see the faint crinkles of his smile just under his eyes, close enough to that familiar gleam of mischief that I almost lose my trail of thought. “I can’t believe it was only a few weeks ago I was crossing my fingers for a wormhole to open up on the sidewalk and spit you back home.”
“Aw, c’mon,” Seb teases, tilting his face closer to mine. “You didn’t want to kiss me even a little?”
My cheeks start burning despite the fact that I have, in fact, kissed him plenty of times this morning and plan to do so many more. But before I have to cop to anything, Betty lets out a sigh so long-suffering it could knock one of the walls to Pancake It or Leave It down.
“I thought your whole ‘just kiss already’ bit was a pain in my ass,” she mutters, turning back to her grill to plate a round of pancakes. “Turns out this is ten times worse.”
Daisy looks up briefly from her laptop. “Be nice to the emotionally charged teens.”
“She likes us, deep down,” says Seb, nodding toward Betty’s grill. “See? Betty made these to celebrate your new role out of the sheer goodness of her heart.”
When I take a step to peer over the grill, it looks like a Funfetti cake was murdered on it. Sure enough, there’s a massive stack of sprinkle pancakes on the side, freshly buttered and about to be drowned in syrup.
That doesn’t stop Betty from leveling Seb with a look that could cut someone in half. “I made these because he made a ridiculous puppy dog face at my wife, who then made a ridiculous puppy face at me.”
I put a hand to my chest. “Betty, I’m touched.”
“Yeah, yeah. Congratulations to all three of you for being big fucking nerds,” she says, gesturing to us and to Daisy, who is typing at record speed with a faint smirk. Betty plops two plates in front of me and Seb with a graceless clatter, then points the spatula at us menacingly. “You better eat every last bite of these. Damn sprinkles are making my restaurant look like it’s run by circus clowns.”
We spend the next few minutes following that directive to a T—it turns out getting kidnapped is in fact very appetite-inducing business—but once we start to slow, I notice Seb glancing down at his phone. It’s a text from his dad. An innoc uous one, judging from the quick answer Seb gives, but I don’t miss the look on his face—determined, hopeful, and a touch uncertain.
“So now that you know you’re staying—what’s the plan?”
He moves his phone to the side. “Well, first of all. Switch my major. Turns out I don’t particularly like math when I’m not using it to taunt my local nemesis,” he says with a pointed smirk.
“Math was the real villain all along,” I agree. “And then?”
“And then—maybe start something of my own.” Seb is watching me carefully, like my reaction means enough to him that he doesn’t want to miss a flicker of it. “Not a zine like Newsbag, but an online presence of some sort. A place where students can share stories and find resources and get more of a bird’s eye view on everything happening on campus. But not university-affiliated, so we don’t have to rely on their resources. I’m thinking—part friendly ear, part human interest, part watchdog.”
I can tell from the way the words gather speed that even if he hasn’t been thinking about this a long time, he’s thought about it hard. In true form, when Seb has an idea, he throws his entire heart into it.
As Seb talks about it, I’m already envisioning it—the two of us working side by side, chasing separate dreams and supporting each other along the way. This feels like the natural conclusion we should have seen coming all along. We always pushed each other to do our best to crush each other. Now we can push for the sake of each other.
“Careful,” I say. “You might do something wild, like piss off the dean.”
Seb lets out a dry laugh. “I’ll take my chances.” He nudges my foot under the table the way he has so many times, but keeps his sneaker on top of mine, the light pressure of it grounding and sweet. He lowers his voice to ask, “So what do you think?”
He must already know from the way I’m smiling, but I tell him anyway. “I think I’m going to be very proud to see it come to life.”
Seb ducks his head, endearingly, bashfully pleased. “Well, good,” he says. “Because honestly—I wouldn’t have had the idea for it if it weren’t for all the stunts you helped pull off. And I’d hope when you’re not busy being a Newsbag rock star that you might want to contribute, too.”
I grin. “Sure. And if I’m not available I’ll see if Jerry’s got time on her calendar.”
Seb leans toward me with a conspiratorial grin. “You know, Jerry’s good,” he says. “But Sadie’s a whole lot better.”
I almost laugh again, thinking of all the scenes I’ve caused in my few weeks here. Flying mozzarella and Alphabet Party jumping, having it out with Marley on the phone and tackling Seb in broad daylight. Laughing harder than I ever have and feeling deeper than I’ve ever felt and reaching in to find courage I always knew I had but never knew how to harness.
“Sadie’s just a whole lot, ” I counter.
Seb grins. “Lucky for us, you’re only going to be a whole lot more.”
There’s a strange new thrill in the way I don’t just seize on those words but want to live up to them. I spent so much of my life stubbornly certain that my role was to be quiet and responsible, to smooth out other people’s angles. To be easy and predictable, steady and good, and always, always trying to control anything around me that wasn’t. I blended into crowds. I made myself fit. But I’ve never been a part of communities like I am now—not just in Newsbag, but the entirety of Maple Ride. With the family I finally opened myself up to, and the family I’m starting to build here, one day at a time. With my own heart that I’ve tried to ignore the rhythm of for so long that it’s a relief to finally let it lead me, to let other people hear the beat of it, too.
And with this boy who was always a home to me, even in the moments we were determined to knock it down. Moments we always knew the shape of each other better than all the shapes we were pretending to be and never let the other hide for too long. Moments that brought us both here, standing on the edge of four years and an entire lifetime of dreams we aren’t racing against anymore, but running toward.
Seb reaches out across the table and takes my hand, squeezing it lightly. “So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?”
A few weeks ago the answer to that question might have terrified me. I have to call my family and tell them about what just happened with Newsbag. I have to help navigate this viral stunt I pulled that’s only spreading more and more by the second. I have to talk to my heroes both on campus and beyond it to make sure this home within my new home is safe, and face an angry administration, and start working all over again to make sure we don’t lose momentum just because we’ve won the figurative battle and not the war.
But now the question makes me smile. I reach across the table and snag Seb’s last bite of pancake, grinning as I tell him, “Good chaos.” Grinning because I know that’s not just the plan for the day, but every single one to come.