Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
The moment you find the one
Your life becomes undone
Life can change quicker than the snap of a finger. Bad can turn to good, and good can turn to bad. Life after our junior year was much the same. Before prom, life was bad, but afterward, it became good. If only we had known the ruin that would soon impel our future.
The summer before my senior year, life felt like a storybook.
Every day, the sun shone, the birds sang, and all was right with our little world.
Lucas and Kayla, who had been flirting for what felt like an eternity, had finally made their relationship official.
Their love story often resembled something straight out of a cheesy romantic comedy.
Meanwhile, Jamie and I were that couple who always seemed inseparable, going on dates every weekend and being sweet to each other to the point of being nauseating.
All was right in our little world, that was until the Scholastic Aptitude Test—the SATs—and the question about our college futures came looming.
August 29, 2016, was the night before the test, a weird, late-summer SAT the district decided to squeeze in at the last minute.
A dozen textbooks were scattered around my room like depressing decorations.
I blinked, the action releasing a disturbing squeaking sound from my dry, rubber-like eyeballs.
Glancing up, I saw Kayla lying upside down on my bed with her legs resting high in the air on the headboard, flipping through the SAT guidebook as if it were a magazine.
Lucas was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by perfectly aligned, color-coded notes that resembled an art project more than a syllabus.
Meanwhile, Jamie was lying flat on the floor with a book on top of his face, acting like a tent, and the sound of his snoring was rumbling through its pages.
“I don't know why we're still doing this. Can we please go to bed, Lucas?” I muttered, dropping my highlighter on the floor and stretching my arms behind me.
Kayla sighed dramatically, “If I have to read one more thing about prime numbers, I'm dropping out of school and joining the circus.”
Lucas barely looked up from his note cards.
“Maybe if we had started studying this afternoon like I suggested, we wouldn't have to stay up all night,” he said. It was true that Lucas had the better idea of studying in the afternoon instead of at midnight the night before the exam. But I couldn’t help but watch the Twilight movie marathon on HBO that morning.
I folded my arms over my Scooby-Doo graphic sweatshirt. “Excuse me, Mr. Organized, but if my memory serves, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who suggested that we study last week. but you wouldn’t stop sucking face with Kayla long enough for anyone to study,” I shot back.
Kayla rolled over onto her stomach. “I'm going to miss your bickering when we all go off to college.”
I chuckled, but a hollowness in my chest made it difficult to breathe. College was the exact conversation I was trying to avoid.
Kayla shuffled forward on the bed, resting her head lightly next to Lucas, who was below her. “Hey, I found this super cute apartment right next to Stanford. It’s only a five-minute walk to the campus café. How great is that?”
Tension tightened in my chest. I knew it was coming, but hearing her talk about it as if it were a done deal made everything feel real.
My entire life, the only thing I had focused on was escaping this tiny town.
Don't get me wrong, I had a great childhood, all things considered, and this place would always be home, but I didn't want it to be my final destination, as it was for many of the people who graduated from high school here.
Yet, when the opportunity to escape was right within my grasp, I surprisingly no longer wanted to seize it. For once, everything was perfect.
Someone tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, and a body pressed into my shoulder. “Hey, beautiful,” Jamie said softly, still groggy from his nap.
I shifted my body deeper into his, allowing his arm to wrap around me and pull me to the side of him. “Hey,” I said, hoping the conversation about college would end.
Jamie looked up at Lucas. “So, is Stanford a done deal?”
Ugh, why does Jamie have to keep talking?
Before Lucas could answer, Kayla jumped in, her smile stretching from ear to ear. “Definitely! I've been planning it for months. Just need to crush this test tomorrow, and the rest is history.”
Jamie nodded lightly, his body sinking a little bit. My eyes flicked up to him, but his gaze was locked on Kayla and Lucas. There was something dark in his expression, something quiet and restrained, a look that I, too, was mirroring.
Kayla was oblivious to our discomfort. “What about you guys? Have you figured anything out yet? You two never talk about the future; the times are ticking.”
Yeah, I know.
I gulped and looked down at my textbook. “We haven't discussed it yet.”
Jamie took my textbook away from me. “Maybe we should …”
“Now?”
“Can you think of a better time?”
“At my funeral, preferably.”
“Not funny.”
A shift in his tone silenced the room, and even Kayla set up, her highlighter rolling off the bed. I swallowed hard, feeling the weight of unspoken words. His gaze was locked on mine, something profound and urgent shimmering beneath the surface.
“I think you should apply for Emerson,” he said.
I shrugged. “Why?”
His eyes narrowed. “Because you've been talking about that program since we were fifteen.”
I felt my face flush. “So? Things change. I don't want to go that far away from home.”
Jamie's eyes widened, and he quickly pulled his arm away from me, his body tensing with surprise. “Since when? That's been your only dream since you were like six.”
Now, I was getting irritated. “Why do you keep using the past like an equation to calculate the future?”
Jamie's jaw clenched as he stared at me. “Why do you keep pretending it's not?”
I dropped my gaze to my hands and picked at the cuticles of my nails. “I don't want to go somewhere you're not.”
He took my hand in his. “Who says I won't be there?”
“What do you mean?”
A smirk tugged at his lips. “Boston's got other schools. State schools and community colleges. I'll get in somewhere.”
My heart stuttered. “You'd ... go to Boston?” My voice came out quieter than I intended.
He shrugged like it was the easiest decision in the world. “Where you go, I go. I'd follow you anywhere.”
I was speechless at his words. Without hesitating or talking myself out of agreeing to this plan, I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him into me, and pressed my lips to his. In that instant, nothing else mattered. Our lips said more than words ever could.
Kayla groaned. “And we've officially hit rom com territory. Someone get me popcorn for this chick flick.”
Lucas chuckled, but he didn't interrupt. Jamie and I didn't move; we were locked in our little bubble of romantic bliss. It was sappy, but I couldn't help but feel a little hope for the future.
Jamie wasn’t just saying it; he meant it. Jamie would follow me to Boston, to the ends of the earth. He would always be by my side.
“Just think about it,” he added, leaning deeper into me. “You're meant for something bigger than this town, Alex. Don't settle. Not even for me.”
I bit my lip. Honestly, I hadn't even planned on applying. I wasn't sure if it was the fear of rejection or the possibility of getting in that held me back from filling out the application. But the way Jamie was looking at me now made me reconsider everything.
“I'll think about it,” I whispered.
Three loud knocks pounded my bedroom door, rattling the knob.
“Hey! Why are you kids still here?” Julian’s voice boomed, the urgency in his tone snapping me awake.
Still here? I rubbed my eyes and glared at my alarm clock.
Oh shit! It was 8:30 a.m.!
A bolt of panic surged through my chest. “Oh my God!” I launched my feet off the floor like a rocket shooting to the moon.
I twisted my neck, feeling a sharp crack and pop as I looked around.
Jamie and Lucas were crumpled up next to me, snoring softly, their limbs entangled in a mess of scattered papers and textbooks, a sticky note with Lucas’s elegant cursive writing plastered directly on his forehead.
Meanwhile, Kayla sprawled out on my bed like a princess under a sleeping spell.
“Get up! Get up! We overslept!”
Jamie mumbled from the floor. “Five more minutes, Mom.”
“Wake up!” I yelled so loudly that I was surprised my windows didn't break.
Kayla rolled off the bed, landing with a loud thud. She squinted as the morning sun hit her face. “No … no! Why did no one set an alarm?”
I balled my fists up at her. “Because you said you would set an alarm.” I snapped.
“… oh.” She guiltily smiled back.
Lucas scrambled to his feet, frantically searching for his phone. “The test starts in ten minutes. We'll never make it in time.”
“We will if I'm driving,” I announced, throwing my hair into a bun that looked worse than a bird's nest.
Lucas shoved a calculator into his backpack. “Absolutely not! If you drive, we will all die before we get there. And mark my words; I will haunt you in the afterlife.”
I slipped on mismatched socks and stuffed them into my Converse. “How would that work exactly? You’d be hunting another ghost. I think there’s a flaw in your reasoning.” Even though we were late for the most crucial test of our lives, I wasn’t about to miss the chance to tease Lucas.
A blue vein throbbed on his forehead as he threw a sweatshirt over his white T-shirt. “Maybe if I hadn’t slept on the floor and hadn’t been woken up by my sister screaming at me, my brain would have had more time to process logic!”
“Touché …” I tripped over Jamie's knees as I tried to reach the door. “Jamie, get up!”“No,” he whimpered.
“Lucas, can you please handle him?” I asked.
“I’ve got this.” Lucas bent down and lifted Jamie off the floor as if he were a bag of bones. “Come on, man.”
Jamie's black hair fell over his face like a curtain. “I hate both of you,” he grumbled at us as we pushed him through the door. Kayla trailed behind, applying a thick coat of gloss to her lips.
I gripped the wheel of Lucas's car tightly, my knuckles turning white and my foot pressing the gas pedal harder than a block of iron.
My stomach turned with nausea as we screeched into the school parking lot.
We had sixty seconds before the test would start—sixty seconds before they would lock the doors and keep us from our college dreams. Sixty seconds before, I felt like I would hurl all over the school's front lawn.
“Park here,” Lucas directed; his voice annoyingly calm for someone who should be panicking.
I pulled the car into the spot, our bodies flinging forward as I stepped on the brake. By some stroke of luck, we had secured the best parking spot in the whole lot, ten steps away from the gym's open double doors.
Jamie, who was in the passenger seat, clutched the car's handle like it was the last life jacket on the Titanic. He looked at me in horror and said, “Are we alive? I saw a white light after you ran the third stop sign.”
“I prefer to look at those as suggestions,” I argued.
Lucas poked his head between me and Jamie. “You're not in the lines,” he pointed out.
“Does that matter right now?” I barked at him, unbuckling my seat belt.
“Yes, it matters!” Lucas insisted, “Rules are essential; without them, society descends into chaos.”
I didn't have the time or energy to argue against Lucas's OCD, so I shot him a withering look to save us both the headache before putting my car in reverse. “Fine. I'll straighten it. Happy?”
Except I didn't put the car in reverse.
The car surged forward, bouncing over the sidewalk and shooting into the grass. Adrenaline flooded my brain, and I did the only thing I could think of: I slammed on the brakes.
Only I didn't hit the brake.
I slammed my foot onto the gas instead of the brake. The car lurched forward, smacking into the cinderblock wall of the gym with a sickening crunch. The impact sent a deep crack, splintering across the blocks, knocking a piece loose. A hole opened up in the wall, just big enough to see through.
I sat there, begging for a rewind button to reset the last two minutes of my life.
Then, after a beat, a face appeared in the newly formed hole—our gym teacher.
They peered at me through the rubble, raised an eyebrow, and opened their mouths to speak, but no words came out.
Kayla inched forward from the back seat. “At least we're not late.”