“You’re a poor man’s Mr. Hernandez,” my dad told me.
“Oh my God. Dad.”
“Fasten your seat belt,” my mom said.
“It’s fastened.” Like it always was every single time she asked.
Oliver and I both looked at each other as our respective cars backed out of the driveways. I was about to wave when he suddenly crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue at me.
I had to laugh. That’s what I had done to him back on his first day of school, back when I could barely imagine talking to him, much less sitting on his lap or wrapping my arms around his neck or sprawling on the warm sand, my head resting against his shoulder as he ran his fingers up and down my back. He had been a friend, then a stranger, and now something more.
And going to UCSD meant that this time, I would be leaving him.
School always seemed so weird on open house nights, lit up in the dark and suddenly filled with parents. It was even weirder hearing your parents refer to your teachers as Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So, like they were students, too. My parents were pretty much on a first-name basis with every other parent there, and my mom shouted “Oh, hell-lo!” at five other families even before we got inside.
I managed to hang in there for about thirty minutes, showing my parents where I sat in French class (“Why are you so far back?” my mom wondered), introduced them to my calculus teacher and let her talk about what a great math student I was, and waited with them in line for the famed Mr. Hernandez. “Emmy is an excellent diagrammer,” he told my parents, smiling at them, and I swear I heard half the moms swoon.
I looked at my dad. He looked back at me. Then we both tried not to laugh.
“How long does this go on for?” someone said into my ear as we headed toward my civics classroom and I turned around to see Oliver standing next to me as our parents all greeted one another. (Rick was at the twins’ future elementary school, probably taking copious notes for Maureen.)
“Forever,” I whispered back, then found his hand and squeezed it. “Hope you didn’t make plans for the next three days.”
“Does this seriously happen every year?” he asked.
“Look at my eyes,” I said, then widened them dramatically. “Does this look like the face of someone who would joke about this?”
“You look deranged,” he said, and we both leaned forward a little before we remembered where we were, and more important, who we were with.
“You must be so happy to be here,” my mom said, and Maureen could only nod as her eyes filled with tears.
“Mommm,” Oliver said. “You promised you wouldn’t, not here.”
“I know, I know,” she said, then waved her fingers in front of her eyes as if to fan away the tears. “I just haven’t been to one of these since first grade, you know?” She started to tear up again, then stopped herself. “It just feels good to be back in the swing of things.” Maureen smiled at Oliver, then reached for his hand. “We’re just . . . we’re trying.”
Oliver nodded, but didn’t let her hold his hand. “Mom,” he said again. “We’re at school, okay?”
“Sorry, sorry,” she said again, then rolled her eyes at my mom as if to say, Teenagers. My mom smiled back and luckily for her, didn’t try and hold my hand, either.
“Do you wanna go walk?” I asked Oliver. “Unless you want to see all of your teachers for a second time today, that is.”
“Um, no,” he said.
“Is it okay if we . . . ?” I asked, pointing down the hall. “We’ll stay on campus.”
My mom raised an eyebrow at me. “Only walking,” she said. “No funny business.”
“Got it,” I said, even as I linked hands with Oliver. “No telling jokes or making humorous observations.”
“Oh, get out of here,” my dad said, swatting at my head as I ducked past, and I giggled as Oliver ran to keep up with me.
I don’t know why my mom thought we’d spend our time kissing on campus. To be honest, high school isn’t the most romantic setting. It smells like dirty linoleum and tempera paint, along with paper and burnt coffee and gym socks, and besides, there were probably a thousand students and their parents wandering around. Still, it was nice to wander with Oliver and not have to listen for a creaky floorboard or keep an eye out for the twins, who were forever curious about why we were always studying together.
“It’s gonna be weird to be here next year without you,” Oliver said. “Who’s going to eat lunch with me?”
“Don’t say that,” I said. “I’ll still come back and visit. And who knows, I might not even go.”
Oliver glanced down at me. “You don’t mean that.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. It’s scary, you know? Moving. Leaving my bedroom. Leaving my parents.” I took a deep breath. “Leaving you.”
“Well, I left you,” he pointed out. “Think of it as payback.”
“You didn’t leave,” I started to say, but just then Caro came running up. I had seen her at school, but both of us had been going out of our way to avoid talking to each other, and I actually took a step back when she came closer. “Caro?” I said.
“Yeah. Hi. Look, Drew’s upset.”
“Drew is? About what?”
“You should probably just come with me.”
My heart was starting to pick up pace. Drew never really got upset. He had always been the peacemaker between me and Caro, between Kane and his parents, between his parents and himself. “Okay,” I said, then gestured to Oliver to follow me.