Chapter 1 Playlist End of an Era
LAST YEAR THE YEARBOOK club at my high school decided to add captions to everyone’s photos. You know the ones. That guy always sleeping during algebra is named Most Likely to Be Late to Class, and the popular girl with the always-fresh wardrobe is picked as Best Dressed.
Mom and Dad still talk about being voted Cutest Couple their senior year, so I know this sort of thing’s been around awhile. Kingfisher High just hadn’t done it before, I guess. I’m not sure why they decided to start, but I have to admit, most of them were pretty spot on.
Take my best friend, Kat. The caption below her picture says:
KAT BARLOWE
MOST LIKELY TO VISIT MARS
The guy Kat and I have crushed on forever got a good one too:
MYLES FORD
MOST LIKELY TO BE PRESIDENT
And me? Underneath my photo it reads:
AMELIA MADDEN
That’s it. I guess I’m not the best at or most likely to do anything.
Kat was furious on my behalf when she saw it. “What the hell? Why not Amelia Madden, ‘Best at Sleeping In’? Or ‘Most Likely to Save the Oceans’? This whole thing is stupid anyway. What does ‘Most Likely to Visit Mars’ even mean?”
“It means everyone at school knows that if you put your mind to something, you’ll do it,” I replied. “Even if you wake up one day and say, ‘I want to go to outer space,’ you won’t stop until it happens.”
She smiled for a split second, pleased with that assessment, but immediately frowned when she remembered she was mad.
I was the only one in our entire sophomore class who’d been left out.
I reminded her it could be worse. Poppy Adair had been named Most Likely to Sleep Through an Earthquake, which doesn’t really sound like a compliment. Plus they spelled her name wrong.
It was sweet that Kat was so defensive of me, but honestly I wasn’t that bothered.
I’m not opposed to flying under the radar, and I’ve always figured keeping a low profile is in my best interest. That way no one notices when I’m late to first period, if I have a huge zit on my forehead or get a questionable haircut (those bangs in eighth grade were not my best look), or the fact that I blush every time Myles Ford walks down the hall.
The girls people notice are also the ones they whisper about.
I’ll pass on that. I’d rather risk being ignored than judged. Not that I’ve done much to be judged for, but hey, there’s still time.
I flip through the yearbook now as I wait for Kat to get here.
I’m settled near my open window, which is my favorite spot in my room.
I have the perfect view of the ocean and can hear the rhythm of the waves as they meet the shore.
The sheer curtains my mom put up last year flutter with the sea breeze, and I tuck one behind my back to keep it contained as I turn the page.
I land on the Athletics section, which takes up a good chunk, and see Myles in several pictures on the pages for the basketball and track teams. I pause to stare dreamily for a few long seconds.
I might even be blushing, but if no one’s around to see it, did it even happen?
Under the radar, my friends. Trust me on this.
Myles’s older brother is right in the center of a collage for the homecoming football game, smiling big as he’s crowned homecoming king. He might even be cuter than Myles, if such a thing is possible. He’s leaving next month for college all the way in California.
But even though Matt might be objectively the handsomer brother, there’s just something so charming about Myles.
It’s not just his blue eyes and dimples.
It’s the way he’s genuinely friendly and thoughtful, and ridiculously popular without being arrogant.
When he learned that the school janitor’s car had broken down, he arranged a car wash to help raise money to fix it, and when Vice Principal O’Malley tripped and fell onstage during a school assembly, Myles was the first one to rush to her side to help her up.
I have no doubt that Myles will succeed his brother as school royalty.
He’s a year old than Kat and me, so he’ll be a senior this coming year.
Who will be his homecoming queen? Does it have to be someone who’s a senior, like him?
Probably.
I’m a junior, which in relation to the subject at hand is completely irrelevant, because even if I was a senior, it’s not like I’m cool or memorable enough to be thought of by someone like Myles Ford.
Case in point: Sometimes when I see people from school, it takes them a minute to place me, but then they realize, Oh yeah, you’re Kat’s friend.
I just smile and nod, because:
1. It’s true—Kat’s like my other half and we’re rarely apart, and
2. Kat thrives on being the star of the show, and we both like it better that way.
I keep scanning the pages and find a picture of Kat executing a wicked serve as the star of the tennis team.
Well, she was the star of the tennis team.
Still would be, I guess, if she was staying around.
They made it all the way to State last year, mostly because of her—and I cheered her on from the sidelines the whole way.
I don’t really understand tennis, but I know that Kat was one of Kingfisher’s best players.
I quickly turn the page, refusing to mope—not when we’ve got such a fun night ahead of us. I can cry and wallow tomorrow after she leaves, and the day after that. In fact I’ve got a whole, lonely summer ahead of me.
Finally I find some photos of Kat and me together.
We’re at the top of the Arts and Music page, holding up our creations from ceramics day in art class.
Kat’s taller, with stick-straight white-blond hair that stands out way more than my auburn waves.
She’s wearing her favorite pink skirt that’s too short for school but that she never got in trouble for, while I’m in my standard T-shirt and shorts.
She’s holding up a bowl, and I’m holding…
I think that was supposed to be a vase? I glance at my closet, wondering if it’s buried in there somewhere beneath shoes and stuffed animals I don’t sleep with anymore but can’t seem to get rid of.
We’re also in the STEM section, in action at our table for the science fair.
The project (Why Do Some Marine Organisms Glow?) was my idea, but Kat did most of the talking—and this photo made the cut because she’s mid-sentence while explaining the bioluminescence phenomenon to the school principal.
Since I’m the science geek, we initially agreed that I’d be the presenter, but after nervously stumbling over my words when the first judge stopped by, Kat thankfully took over.
My favorite picture is the one of us outside at lunch, laughing.
Halfway through the year the head cafeteria lady came back from maternity leave suddenly obsessed with making the school menu healthier.
Burgers were replaced with sweet-potato patties, and Breakfast-for-Lunch Day—which used to be my favorite because hello?
Biscuits and gravy?—became oats with hard-boiled eggs.
The day this picture was taken was the first Turkey Dog Tuesday. (RIP, Taco Tuesday. We loved you.) The meat (I use that word loosely) was so dry and bland, we couldn’t eat it, and Kat tossed it into the trash.
“What’s Mrs. Yates thinking? That turkey is seriously fowl.” Kat froze with a ridiculous smile on her face, waiting for us to laugh. “Get it? ‘Fowl’ because turkey’s a bird?”
I burst out laughing, and we moved straight to that wheezing, silent laughter when one of the guys sitting with us said he still didn’t get it.
The funniest part isn’t captured in the picture, but I’ll never forget it.
We’d just caught our breath when Kat tried to make a gobble sound, and it was so ridiculous, I laughed hard enough that lemonade came out of my nose.
Everyone else looked at us like we were crazy, but our friendship has always been like that—the two of us in our little bubble, us against the world.
“What’s so funny?”
I look up to find Kat in my bedroom doorway. She’s wearing a yellow sundress that goes perfectly with her hair, and a sheer white long-sleeved shirt tied around her waist.
I grin and hold up the yearbook. “Remember when you turned me into a human lemonade fountain?”
She laughs. “Who could forget?”
I set the book aside and stand up, smoothing the front of my favorite cutoff jean shorts.
I considered wearing a dress tonight too—to pretend to be festive and celebratory for Kat’s last night in town, which is the opposite of how I feel—but in the end I decided to wear what I’m most comfortable in.
Shorts, a tank top, and Birks. I’m nothing if not consistent.
“You sure you still want to go? How will you survive without Turkey Dog Tuesdays?” It’s totally too late for Kat to change her mind, but I wish she would. I put on my biggest, most convincing smile. “Fowl, yum.”
Kat theatrically puts a hand to her heart. “Don’t make this harder than it already is!” Then she adds in a more serious tone, “Being away from you is the part I might not survive. Promise me again we’ll text every day.”
Yes, Kat’s leaving me—and sooner than she even has to. Heritage Prep, the fancy school with the top-tier tennis program she’s moving to upstate New York for, doesn’t start until the fall. But her dad wants her to start working with the coaches early, or something.
It’s only June. Summer, the best time of the year, is just getting started.
And Kat won’t be here.
“I literally can’t remember a summer we didn’t spend together,” I say, turning away from her to squint out toward the ocean. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I tell myself. Am I lucky that this feels like the worst thing that’s ever happened to me? Probably, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.