Chapter 3
The sound of platform boots stomping around the apartment wakes me up the following morning.
My eyes are barely open when my phone begins to buzz with an incoming call from Adrienne. The click of her shoes comes to
the doorway of my room and the buzzing ceases. “Oh! You’re here,” Adrienne says. “I thought you’d be out.”
“No, I’m here.” I start to sit up, yawning. I check my phone, thinking Wes would have texted or called last night. I half
hoped there would be a long message waiting for me this morning about how he didn’t mean what he said. But there is nothing.
Adrienne already has a full face of makeup on her olive-toned skin. Her long brown hair falls in waves over her black leather
coat. “Can you be ready in twenty?” she asks, before going into her room.
“For what?” I call out after her.
She pops her head back into my room. “Jonah’s calling hours. They’re today. I told our moms I’d drive us both back to Cedar
Falls. I have to grab some things from home anyway.”
“Oh.” I rub my eyes. “I didn’t know you were going to that.”
“He was my friend too.” She frowns, then disappears from my room again.
“So tell me about your summer!” Adrienne says as we get on the highway westbound to our hometown. It’s an hour drive to Cedar
Falls.
“Oh, well there’s not much to tell. My license was suspended, as you know—”
“Right, because you got arrested for drinking and driving,” she says.
It’s going to be a long hour.
“Yes,” I say, flat toned. “So I lived at home and worked at that golf course down the street, since it was within walking
distance. I did one hundred hours of community service and three months of therapy—that was a hoot. I went to some weekend
course about why you shouldn’t drink and drive. I had to go back to driving school because if your license expires while it’s
suspended you have to retake your driving test. So, that was my summer.” Oh, and I slept with my best friend behind my other
best friends’ backs because it would be catastrophic to the dynamic of our group if they knew. But I didn’t say that.
Adrienne was quiet, taking it all in. “Huh. Well, are you glad it’s over?”
I rest my head on the window, watching the trees blur in the distance. “Very.”
“Have you heard from that professor at all?”
I can’t help but flinch at the mere mention of Professor Miles Holland. “No.”
I regret drunkenly sharing that little tidbit with her last year.
Adrienne and I used to be close. In high school we were not only stepcousins after my mom married Don but best friends and neighbors.
When we left for Pembroke, we started to drift apart.
But you always have a soft spot for that one friend that you grew up with. After all, we were girls together.
When I told her about Miles at the end of last year, I made her promise not to tell anyone in the family. I could hardly deal
with the disappointed looks they gave me over the DUI; I couldn’t imagine what they’d say if they also knew I was a homewrecker.
A life ruiner.
“Let’s just talk about your summer.”
I never want to hear the word Valentino again as Adrienne pulls up to my house.
“I’ll pick you back up at five?” she asks as I step out of the car.
“Yeah, that’s fine.” I shut the door and watch her back out and drive the ten seconds over to her house. Don and his family
all built houses on the same sprawling expanse of land, with one long driveway to connect us. Nothing says family like a shared
driveway.
My mom opens the door and envelops me in a hug. I hear her sniff me. “You smell like smoke and alcohol,” she says, pulling
away with a frown.
“Oh, lay off of her, will you, Iris?” My stepdad comes up behind her, hugging me next.
“Your sisters are upstairs,” my mom says. “Go say hi. And take a shower before the calling hours please.”
I roll my eyes when I’m out of view, trudging up the stairs to see the girls.
Claire is in her room reading a book. I round the corner of her large four-poster bed to see Sofie on the floor playing on
her iPad.
“Oh, I didn’t expect to see you in here, Sof,” I say.
Sofie looks up at me with her deep, dark eyes but doesn’t say anything, just goes back to whatever is on the iPad.
She looks so much like Don, with those strong Italian features.
She was born with a full head of hair and a summer tan.
Until then I never thought you could be jealous of a baby.
Claire sits up in bed, setting her book down. “She just comes in here to sit on the floor and watch TikTok sometimes.”
“I see.” I nudge Sofie with my foot. “What are you watching?”
“Makeup hauls,” Sofie says, kicking her feet back and forth behind her.
“Makeup? You’re only eleven,” I say.
“For your information, I’ll be twelve in six months.”
“For your information, I knew that. Also for your information, twelve is still too young for makeup.”
“No it’s not,” she argues.
“Yes it is,” I argue back.
Sofie sits up from the ground. “Go back to school. You’re annoying.” She leaves Claire’s room and slams the door.
“And that’s how it’s done.” I smile at Claire.
She laughs. “You know I really don’t mind her in here. She doesn’t bother me.” Though even if she did, I don’t think Claire
would say it.
“Should I call her back in and say you’re going to let her play with your makeup, then?”
“Not that I own much of it, but no.” Claire doesn’t need to wear makeup; she is stunning enough without it.
I walk around her room, looking through her competitive dance medals and awards. “Did you start school yet?” I ask.
“Tomorrow, like you.” Claire will be a junior this year at Cedar Falls High School.
“Excited?” I pick up the tiara she wore in last winter’s Nutcracker production and place it on my head. “I bet you’ll win homecoming queen this year,” I say, turning to face her and giving
a mock queen wave.
She walks over and takes the crown from my head, placing it back on her bookshelf with her other collectables. “Well, don’t
jinx it.”
“I would never!”
“How have you been feeling?” she asks. “About Jonah.”
Claire’s life is pure and dreamy, like the ballet she does. I could never muck it up with my problems. The thought of her
knowing every little dirty detail of my life makes me feel ashamed that I could ever let her down like that in the first place.
So I don’t get into my feelings or experiences with her. Big sisters give little sisters advice, not anxiety.
“I’m good, just here to pay my respects to his family and then I’ll be back at school. What are you reading?” I change the
subject.
“Oh, this?” She walks back to the bed and picks up the book. “It’s so good. I’ll give it to you when I’m done. It’s about
a world with dragons and magic, and a main character who loves both of these men, but they’re brothers, so she has to choose.”
“She doesn’t have to choose; she can love them both,” I joke. Claire only gives me a look. I run a finger across her dresser.
“Well, I do love magical worlds that make me forget about this one,” I mutter to myself.
“Just think, this time next year, this could be you publishing something like this.” She holds up the book. “New York Times bestseller, that will be you, Sloane.”
I can’t help but smile when she says it. Claire and I have dreamed up fantasy worlds together since she was old enough to
speak. We talk about characters like they’re people we know. We love when they love, and we cry when they cry. We feel words
on paper so deeply that they may as well be etched into our skin like a tattoo.
“I’ll sure try,” I say. And I would, for her.
“Nervous?” Adrienne asks as we stand in the receiving line at the funeral home.
“Yeah, a bit,” I reply, with the inside of my cheek now raw from the nervous biting.
“Don’t be, it’s just John and Lisa.” Jonah’s parents. The way she says it gets under my skin. I know, I know them better than
you do, I want to say.
Fresh tears come to his mother’s eyes when she sees me. “Sloane?” she whispers, like she can’t believe it’s really me before
her. I nod as I move in to hug her. “Thank you for coming. He really loved you.”
I’m sure he did for a time. But only in the way that two high schoolers could love each other: blindly. When the relationship
makes sense because he’s the quarterback and you’re a cheerleader. Would Jonah love me now? Probably not.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say.
I hug his dad next and express my condolences. His absent-minded nodding makes me wonder if he’s just shutting it all out.
None of the faces in this line of people matter, because none are Jonah’s.
I walk up to the casket, hands shaking, and look down at his face.
He hasn’t changed much over the years. He looks just as he once did when I’d find him fast asleep on the couch after football practice.
The tears I had been holding at bay slide quietly down one after the other.
The first boy I ever loved, and the first boy to ever break my heart.
“I forgave you a long time ago,” I whisper.
Back at Pembroke, I can’t help but feel a bit numb to it all. I show up to my only Monday class still in my pajamas, pick
up my syllabus for Professional Editing, and go back home to lie in bed. Annica and Dani both call but I ignore them. I need
one more day to mourn Jonah. I take my journal out and read through his eulogy again, cringing when I get to the end. It isn’t
right to keep this, not now, not after I told him I forgave him. I toss the journal in my schoolbag and get in the car. There’s
a park in Pembroke, just outside campus, with tall hills of green grass and a river that runs through it. From the tallest
hill you can see the whole campus.
I lie down in the grass there, looking up at the blue sky. If there is a heaven, is Jonah there? Is his spirit floating around
up in the clouds looking down at us? Or is it wandering the earth? Is he here right now lying next to me? I put a hand out
beside me and run it over the grass. In the movie version of my life, there’s a camera panning down above me. In my eyes I
see him there, looking back at me, and my hand lies against his chest. But when the scene cuts back to camera view, it’s just
me, alone in the grass.
When I decide it’s time, I take out the journal and rip out Jonah’s page.
I grab the lighter from my bag and hold them both out in front of me.
With a stroke of my thumb, a small flame appears just under the eulogy.
I bring them closer together until the paper begins to blacken above it, catching fire and spreading across the page.
I hold it by the corner until the last of it turns to ash and blows away in the wind.
I rise early, feeling lighter than I did yesterday, like burning the eulogy removed an invisible weight from my heart. Tuesdays
and Thursdays are when I have the bulk of my classes this semester, and even though it’s syllabus week, I want to make a good
impression today. I stand in my full-length bedroom mirror, smoothing down the beige blazer.
“You’re going to ace all of your classes this year. You’re not going to get into trouble. You won’t let any boys get to you.
You’re going to write your first book. For Claire. For you.” I write it down and tape it to my mirror. I read somewhere that
writing down your goals helps you actually achieve them. I repeat the goals three times and by the end I kind of believe it.
I meet up with Annica for coffee across from the English building that houses most of our classes.
“I still can’t believe they didn’t make you retake Fiction Writing I this year,” she says, grabbing her coffee from the counter.
The sleeve of her beige blazer slides up her arm and I can’t help but notice we’re in almost the exact same outfit. She had
asked me what I was wearing today, and I sent her a picture of my clothes laid out. Not expecting she’d put on the same thing.
I grab mine too. “You say that like you wish they did.”
“Of course not. I’m just surprised.” She sips her coffee before she adds, “You know I’d never make it through these classes
without you.”
We share an umbrella as we step out into the rain and walk to our first class.
It was a big deal when I went to the dean and revealed the affair I was having with Miles Holland.
They debated having me retake his course, which would have put me behind on graduating.
The other professors in the department read through my work to be sure it was satisfactory enough to move forward.
In other words, making sure I wasn’t trading sex for grades.
Not that that was ever my intention in the first place.
“Do you think this Renner guy will be tough?” Annica asks, talking about our senior seminar professor. We’re both English
majors with minors in creative writing, and it’s been nothing but somewhat friendly competition between us for three years.
“If he is, I guess I could just fuck him?” I joke, but she doesn’t laugh.
Our class is full of the same group of kids from last year’s Creative Writing I, with maybe one or two others that I don’t
recognize. I smile and nod at a few as we file in. Lochlan Renner is a short and stout older man with gray hair and bifocals.
He clears his throat from his desk in the front of the classroom, adjusting his glasses as he gets ready to read off the list
of names in his hand. We raise our hands in attendance as he rattles them off. When he gets to my name he pauses, getting
a good look at me. Likely confirming that, yes, I am the girl whose work he had to review in order to move on to this course.
He continues down the list.
“This is senior seminar,” Renner says as he writes it in black marker on the board. “This is a two-semester course. We will
read and analyze three books during this course and your midterm and final will be a short story that you will work on and
submit at the end of the year. I will choose the best one to send to the Boston short-story competition. Any questions?”