Chapter 7
Heath
It’s hard to believe we’re finally graduating.
Not a single parent is here to congratulate us.
We’re double orphans, both of us, but at least we have each other.
We picked up our own cap and gowns, made and sent our own announcements, planned our own party, and navigated the entire process without any help from adults.
Henry, Kat’s supposed guardian, didn’t lift a finger to get us through this. If anything, he was a hindrance.
“We’ll have to see if we can ask a teacher or someone’s parent to get pictures of us when we walk,” Kat reminds me.
Our cheering section is each other. Afterward, we’ll hug one another. No mom to say she loves us, and no dad to say he’s proud.
“We’re two adults. We can handle this,” I say out loud to reassure both of us.
I look over and admire Kat, who’s driving like a maniac over the speed limit to get us there on time.
A rush of pride flows through me when I look at her.
This hasn’t been easy, and she’s pulled it off with amazing grace.
Kids get crushed under the pressure of Fairmont, even those with a ton of support at home.
Kat prevailed and sailed through, all on her own.
“I think,” Kat says, taking a hairpin turn way too fast. “Since we’re both graduating with honors. Our parents would be proud. Or maybe even are proud if you believe in the afterlife.” Kat looks at me and smiles.
“Watch the road! I’d like to make it there alive,” I tell her with a smile.
Neither of us says what we’re both thinking—what happens after graduation?
It’s obvious that Henry won’t want me at Wainscott Hollow anymore.
It’s nothing short of a miracle he’s tolerated me this long.
A product of guilt and not wanting to call attention to the household in chaos, which is crumbling under his guardianship.
Henry likely doesn’t want to cause trouble with Fairmont either, less they revoke his high school diploma, which he barely earned anyway.
Fairmont, for all its elitism and snobbery, has been a safe haven for Kat and me.
We’ve both excelled and kept close relationships with our teachers, and though decisions aren’t back yet, I think we’ll likely get a lot of offers from the schools we applied to.
What happens to us from there, that’s anybody’s guess.
Maybe there will no longer be an us, and life as I know it will cease to exist. But I can’t even entertain the idea of losing the other half of my soul.
Kat’s the reason I’ve trudged along, the reason I wake up in the morning.
She’s the only family I have, the silver lining to every dark cloud that’s obscured my horizon.
When Kat walks across the stage, my heart soars with pride, and I can’t help but rise from my seat and cheer her on even though we were supposed to hold our applause. She does the same for me when it’s my turn, breaking from the approved formation and dragging me in for a heartfelt hug.
“We did it!” She beams at me.
As the class salutatorian, I’m slated to give a speech.
In it, I thank Mr. Shaw for his charity and his loyalty to Fairmont, to which he entrusted the education of all of his kids.
I praise the school for providing guidance and structure to Kat and me when we needed it the most, and I give a nod to the setting.
What inner-city kid wouldn’t want an education right by the ocean where the physical education requirements include surfing and lifeguard certification?
“Fairmont is paradise, and for the last three years, it’s been both home and family to us. ”
The audience rises to a standing ovation, and Kat screws the rules and runs into my arms for another hug. One which I have to politely push away when it becomes too long for comfort—or at least too long for us to keep up appearances.
The reception is held outdoors on the lawn, under rented white shade tents and a zillion fairy lights set up against the beach plum and primrose bushes, a bounty for curated social media shots as the sun sets poetically over the ocean.
This is the kind of day and setting and event where you want your parents present, and Kat and I are a little glum as we take seats at a white-painted picnic table, our plates overloaded with charcuterie and smoked barbeque from the catering spread.
Students are posing with parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins—the whole shebang—and Kat brushes my leg with hers under the table.
“Goddamn, sure rubs it in, doesn’t it?” she says. Kat takes a bite of barbeque ribs, and I follow her lead.
“Could be worse. We could be here alone,” I offer as consolation.
“Or worse, Henry could have shown up—drunk.” Kat uninhibitedly licks oxblood-colored barbeque sauce off of her thumb.
“True,’ I say. I let my knee fall between hers under the table. I can’t wait to taste her, inch by inch, tonight after all of this is over and the coast is clear.
“Heath, remember the first time we hung out together, alone, down by the dunes?” she asks me.
Her eyes are bright, and she’s pulled her wild hair back into a makeshift bun. The sky blesses us with the golden hour and lights Kat up in colors I want to make permanent, capture in painting or with a photograph.
“I remember a million times at the beach, but I don’t know if I remember the first,” I tell her.
“I told you we were going to be together a lot. Like siblings. Remember what you said back?”
“No clue,” I reply.
“You said, 'Do you know why hermit crabs change shells?’ I told you I didn’t. And you said it’s because they outgrow the old ones. Sometimes in size, but sometimes they just get tired of them and move on to something new.” Kat takes a sip of a ginger beer, and I swallow.
Is she trying to tell me something? Is she breaking up with me, suggesting we go our separate ways?
“I told you I’d always stay. That houses didn’t matter, and people mattered more. What’s on the outside doesn’t define what’s on the inside. Because I already knew I wanted you to stay.”
“Are you speaking metaphorically?” I ask her. “Ouch, fuck!” I swat a damn mosquito on my leg. Despite the beautiful setting, you can get eaten alive out here after the sun sets.
Kat cocks a brow and tilts her head. “Those torches are citronella smokers, and Professor Noor told me they were using sonic repellent. Are you sure it was a mosquito?”
Before I can answer, her head is under the table, investigating my leg, the bite, and whatever insect might be the culprit. Kat Shaw is a constant and ever-curious naturalist. She loves science and her curiosity about the natural world never abates.
“Oh, Christ!” Kat shrieks.
I jump up as Kat, the consummate adventurer, entomologist, reacts in alarm at whatever she’s seen.
“Don’t freak out!” she tells me.
“I’m not.” I’m captivated by the deep orange and rose gold burning up the sky as the sun takes its nightly dive into the sea. Today is a perfect day, despite the absence of our parents—it’s me and Kat against the world.
Kat gives me a consternated expression, dumps a cup of sparkling water, and ducks back under the table again in an attempt to catch a bug.
“Is it a tick? How do you know it’s the one that bit me?” I ask her. After lifting my pant leg, I see a sizable welt swelling on my calf.
“I’m gonna need to get into the lab tonight. Is Professor Noor still here?”
“Kat, we’re graduating. This is supposed to be a party, not an extra senior thesis project.”
“Okay, hand me that centerpiece. Rip the cardboard off the bottom,” she instructs me.
I do as she tells me and uses the decoration to slide under the cup and trap her bug. She pulls it out carefully and sets it on the top of the table underneath its glass dome.
“It’s a tiny little wood spider. I think I’ll live,” I wave her discovery away and take in the glowing sky, pulling her into my side.
“I think it’s a brown recluse,” she says.
“I grew up in the Bronx. I know cockroaches and water bugs. Can you elaborate?”
“They’re poisonous,” she says.
“So, what do I do? Suck out the venom? Find an EpiPen?” I pull out my phone and start to google the little devil. “Ninety percent of bites aren’t medically significant,” I read off of the website.
“But the ones that are can be life-threatening,” she fills in.
“Says to ice and elevate.” I pull her in for a hug and wrap my arms around her in a very non-brotherly way. I snag an ice cube from a glass of lemonade and rub it against the spot.
“Careful, Heath. We’re still at school,” she whispers.
“Fuck it. We graduated. We don’t need anyone’s approval,” I whisper into her ear as I hold her even tighter. “We’re finally free of all of their bullshit.”
Kat eventually lets go about the spider after safeguarding it in a Ziplock bag and tucking it away to look at against her field books later.
We dance together as the sun goes down and give up on keeping up appearances for the sake of not alarming our teachers at school.
We’re no longer at the mercy of pleasing others or trying to pretend we’re something we’re not.
We don’t have parents to hide from or even Henry to make us tiptoe on eggshells.
We kiss openly under the expansive ocean sky and feel like we’ve finally made it.
Then the night took a turn neither one of us saw coming.
The last thing I remember is riding to the emergency room with Kat at the wheel of our hatchback, driving like a bat out of hell, berating me for blowing off the spider bite.
“I told you it was poisonous, Heath. We should have gone straight to the hospital!”
My throat is swollen to the point of asphyxiation, or I’d respond. I reach out and squeeze her thigh to reassure her I’m okay.
It’s a fucking spider bite, not a gunshot wound.
I didn’t want to ruin our graduation night and have some stupid insect reaction overshadow our hard-won achievements.
I try to let her know, but the walls seem to be closing in on me, and darkness clouds my vision, wiping out my view of the woman I love.