“Did Mark say anything about writing an essay on Sylvia Plath?”
“Oh,” I say, confused. “An essay? It’s a little late in the year, isn’t it?”
“Exactly,” he says. “At first I was like, Yeah, Sylvia Plath puns! But then last period I thought, Wait a second. It’s review week. No one’s writing essays.”
I shrug. “You probably just misunderstood.”
“Probably,” he says, but I can tell he’s unconvinced.
“All right,” I say. “Volleyball time.”
“Okay, but one other thing.”
Shit.
“What exactly happened Saturday night? I mean, not that it’s a huge deal, but…”
He looks self-conscious, and I understand why. Mark is his best friend; he shouldn’t need to ask me. The way he’s trying to be casual while actually looking desperate is embarrassing to both of us.
I fight the urge to run away.
I decide against lying.
But I decide, also, against telling the whole truth.
“Magic,” I say. “A cat named Renoir. A whiskey bottle. A typewriter. Ferns. High-heeled shoes.”
He arches an eyebrow.
I smile.
“Volleyball,” I say again.
I step past him, and I don’t look back.
* * *
I take my time changing out of my gym clothes after Volleyball is over. Some girls loiter around me, wanting to ask me questions, but maybe the worry on my face is enough of a deterrent. They give me shy waves and goodbyes as they leave, and then it’s just me in the empty locker room. Two minutes of silence.
I wish I knew why I felt so sick.
I wish my brain wasn’t constantly counting down the days until high school is over.
Or, if that’s inevitable, I wish every day that passed lessened the pressure in my chest instead of intensifying it.
I finally get myself back outside, onto the path that will take me to the senior deck where Lehna and Uma and June will be basking in the sun with their lunches. And soon there they are, at a distance. I slow down to look at them.
What will I say?
June and Uma are each nibbling sandwiches while Lehna talks, gesturing grandly about something. I wonder if Lehna and I would become friends if we met each other today. If we hadn’t had hundreds of sleepovers, if we’d never painted murals in my garage, if we didn’t stand next to each other, hands clasped and hearts swelling, at that Tegan and Sara concert in eighth grade.
If Lehna and I were to find ourselves, strangers, standing in a line in an art store or a café, would we each think enough of the other to start a conversation? And would we laugh at the things that were said?
I honestly don’t know.
June and Uma, yes. Now they are changing positions, sitting so that their backs are together, June’s short black curls against Uma’s blond waves, each using the other for support. If I saw them, let’s say, getting burritos after school, I would find them irresistible. But even that certainty doesn’t feel like enough right now. An initial spark isn’t enough to sustain a friendship. June and Uma are the kind of couple who can’t even have a one-on-one phone conversation. They always put me on speaker. And their voices sound so alike that I rarely know who is saying what, which used to bother me before I realized that it hardly mattered. They’re practically conjoined anyway.
Uma catches sight of me. She waves. And guilt crashes in. These are my friends. I walk down the steps to the wide, wooden deck and sit next to Lehna without looking at her.
June and Uma turn their faces to the side to look at me, cheek to cheek with their backs still pressed together.
“Hi, Rising Art Star,” June says, smiling at me behind glamorous sunglasses.
“Hi,” I say back, grimacing in a way I hope shows that I don’t take myself that seriously.
Lehna pulls a peach out of her bag and takes a bite. She holds it out to me. It’s such a tiny gesture, but it makes me swell with gratitude, and that makes me want to cry.
I’m so confused.
I take a bite of her peach and hand it back.
“I want to hear all about Candace,” I say.
“She’s totally in love with Lehna,” Uma says.
“I don’t know about that,” Lehna says. “We talked, though. We talked for a long time.”
“Three hours,” June says. “That’s an epic conversation.”
“What about?”
Lehna shrugs.
“Everything,” she says. “College. The future. Everything.”
I nod, but as she tells me more all I think about are the conversations that she and I have not been having. About college, about the future. The one where I tell her how afraid I am and how this new fear scares me. The one where I confess that I don’t know how I got into UCLA’s art program, because I’m sure my work isn’t good enough, and once I get there they’re going to find me out. I’ll be laughed at; I’ll be humiliated. And the one where I tell her that nothing about college excites me: not the dorms or the dining hall, not the possibility of a great roommate or great parties, not the classes that will supposedly blow my mind or the memories that will supposedly stay with me forever. Nothing. I feel like a fraud every time anyone asks me where I’m going. They are always impressed, and I always feign excitement, and all the while I’m trying to stop time from passing, stop summer vacation from coming, stop classes from ending, stop everything.
“She’s going to Lewis and Clark,” Lehna’s saying, “which is great because Portland isn’t that far from Eugene, so we could meet up on weekends. She can’t decide whether she wants to major in history or math. She knows she wants to be a teacher. Can you imagine being just as good at history as you are at math? She’s so smart.”