Chapter 2 The Center Between Two Centers of Attention
The Center Between Two Centers of Attention
My dad stops fiddling with the TV when I careen into the living room.
I cut him off before he can speak. “Don’t say anything about my cap.”
And he doesn’t. He doesn’t acknowledge the way my mortarboard lists completely to one side like a capsizing boat, instead going full starry-eyed dad mode.
He’s permanently starry-eyed. I think they invented the phrase for him, actually.
Merriam and Webster themselves saw a young Daniel Breland walking the streets of Tempe and decided no existing word adequately captured his vibe.
“Oh, look at you,” he whispers.
“I’m tired of looking at myself.” After a morning of staring in the mirror, I’d be happy to never see my face again. I nod at the TV. “Do you need help getting set up?”
He sighs and steps back, brandishing the end of an HDMI cable. “Yeah, take pity on an old man and plug this in. I want to see your speech on the big screen.”
It takes me less than a second to contort my body between the TV and the wall to find the correct port. Without him asking, I connect the other end of the cable to his open laptop. A countdown flashes onto the screen over a live shot of Sparrowhill’s stadium.
“You better run,” my dad says, nodding at the steadily falling numbers. He settles onto the couch with a groan, scratching his forearms in a way that’s become all too familiar in the past few months. When he catches me looking, he forces a smile and tucks his hands into his pajama-pants pockets.
He’s sick. Like, sick sick. It came on suddenly, or at least I thought so at the time.
At first, I was convinced he was pulling a prank on me, despite my dad not being that kind of dad.
It was too unbelievable, his skin color so unnaturally yellow that it had to have been drawn on with a highlighter.
His stomach was swollen in a way I’d only seen in pregnant women.
But it was real. Earth-shatteringly, life-upendingly real.
That morning was the first of many joyrides in the back of an ambulance. Since he was diagnosed with liver failure, I’ve hated leaving his side, even when he’s “stable.” If I didn’t have to give my speech, I’d be sprawled out beside him watching recaps of last night’s Stanley Cup playoff game.
I don’t like the sadness in his eyes as he looks between me and the livestream, so I point at his phone. “The Hockey Guy put out two new analysis videos this morning.”
“Honey, it’s your graduation,” he says, even as he opens the YouTube app. “I’m not going to watch hockey during your graduation.”
Successfully having distracted him from his disappointment, I smile. “Be honest, would you rather watch me get handed a piece of paper, or watch Brad Marchand get his butt kicked?”
“Oh, sweetie. Why would you even ask that?” His frown is playful. “I refuse to dignify it with an answer.”
My laugh echoes in the front hall as I slip my shoes on. “Love you, Dad.”
“Love you, baby. Good luck! And drive careful,” he says.
I smile as I unlock the door. “I will.”
“Come home safe to me.” This time his voice is soft.
And me, even softer: “I will.”
It is embarrassingly on-brand for me to be late for an event I’m featured at.
My dad loves talking about the time he found me reading under the coffee table at my own birthday party.
In my defense, I was much more into Percy Jackson than pinning the tail on the donkey. Still am, now that I think about it.
“Noelle,” Mrs. Harris whispers disapprovingly when I careen through the stadium’s double doors. As the school secretary, she’s intimately familiar with my tardiness. “On the last day? Really?”
“Consistency is key,” I say, slowing my steps just enough to point down the west hallway. “This way?”
She jerks her head in affirmation. “Yes. Go. Happy graduation, Miss Breland.”
Despite the pharmacy’s worth of bobby pins I’ve stabbed directly into my scalp, my cap barely clings to my braids as I race down the stairs.
Though there are plenty of things pulling at my attention—pre-speech jitters and not faceplanting on the freshly waxed floors, mainly—I can’t stop thinking about how it wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Not the lateness; that was predestined. I wasn’t supposed to graduate without my dad in the audience.
I wasn’t supposed to drive to the stadium without stopping at the Panganiban household.
And, though it’s not the first big event I’ve had to go through without her, I still wish my mom could be here.
It was supposed to be better. It was supposed to be easier.
Someone was supposed to be there to help me with my cap.
I reach the long line of students just as “Pomp and Circumstance” starts.
Mr. Allen, the man who nearly failed me in physics and my favorite teacher, shakes his head at my entrance.
My classmates’ attention swivels my way, but I stay focused on Mr. Allen because I know, without looking, that Yumi is one of the people watching me.
“Call off the hounds, Fred,” Mr. Allen jokingly shouts to our vice principal. “Noelle Breland has decided to grace us with her presence, after all.”
“I love the drama, what can I say?” I shrug, continuing past him toward the front of the line, where the B names are preparing to walk on. As I take my spot behind Jasper Bondi, I decidedly ignore the eyes trained on me.
It used to feel like there was a magnetic force that drew me and Yumi together.
I could be in a crowded room, talking to friends, unaware of Yumi’s presence, and we’d still somehow drift toward each other until we were back to back, her laugh blending into mine.
That same force still exists, now flipped on its axis from attraction to repulsion.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. But it is.