But it’s not, because as we walk, she bumps my hip with hers. “C’mon, P. You know you want to. He’s wanted to since forever.”
“Only because I haven’t.”
“Maybe,” she shrugs. “But still. School’s gonna end, you’re gonna wish that just once, you’d done something I would do.”
I stop at Mr. Kinney’s doorway. Now it’s me with the smile. “You mean did, right? Because I distinctly remember my best friend being the first girl here to kiss Trevor Collins.”
“That was in seventh grade. That doesn’t even count.” A slow smile spreads over her lips. “Although for a seventh grader, he was a pretty good kisser.”
I just look at her.
“Fine,” Kat says in her dramatic Kat way that communicates her ongoing disappointment every time I plant my feet firmly on the straight and narrow road. “Go to class. Spend the last few weeks of your senior year pining over the guy you could have in a second while you’re at it. I’ll see you later.” She smacks me on the butt as she leaves, right where my letter is, and for a second I feel guilty about not telling her because this letter means that Stanford has gone from far-off possibility to probable reality. But leaving Kat is also a reality at this point, and I don’t think either one of us is ready to think about that yet.
When I step through Kinney’s door, future all folded up in my back pocket, he’s headed straight for me with an ancient-looking box. “Parker! Good. I’m glad you’re here. Take these.” He practically throws the box into my arms. “Senior class journals, like I told you about. It’s time to send them out.” His eyes twinkle the tiniest bit when he says it, and that’s the reason kids love him. He keeps his promises.
I nod, because that’s all I have time to do before he goes on. Kinney drinks a lot of coffee. “I want you to go through them like we talked about. Double-check the addresses against the directory, which’ll probably take you all week, then get whatever extra postage they need so I can send them out by the end of the month, okay?” He’s a little out of breath by the time he finishes, but that’s how he always is, because he’s high-strung in the best kind of way. The million miles a minute, jump up on the table in the middle of teaching to make a point kind of way.
Before I can ask any questions, he’s stepped past me to hold the door open for the sleepy freshmen filing in. Most of them look less than excited for first period, but Mr. Kinney stands there with his wide smile, looks each one of them in the eye, and says “Good morning,” and even the grouchy-looking boys with their hoods pulled up say it back.
“Mr. Kinney?” I lug the box of journals a few steps so I’m out of their way. “Would you mind if I take these to the library to work on them?”
“Not at all.” He winks and ushers me on my way with the swoop of an arm. “See you at the end of the period.” Right on cue, the final bell rings and he swings his classroom door shut without another word.
I linger a moment in the emptied hallway and peek through the skinny window in his door as students get out their notebooks to answer the daily writing prompt they’ve become accustomed to by this point in the year. Sometimes it’s a question, sometimes a quote or artwork he throws out there for them to explain. Today it’s a poem, one I’m deeply familiar with, since my dad has always claimed we’re somehow, possibly, long-lost, distant relatives of the poet himself.
I read the eight lines slowly, even though I know them by heart. Today though, they hang differently in my mind—too heavily. Maybe it’s the unwelcome, swirling wind outside, or the fact that so much in my life is about to change, but as I read them, I feel like I have to remind myself that just because someone wrote them doesn’t make them true. I would never want to believe they were true. Because according to Robert Frost, “nothing gold can stay.”
2.
“A breeze discovered my open book
And began to flutter the leaves to look”
—“A CLOUD SHADOW,” 1942
The tape sealing the box of journals snaps like a firecracker when I jab my pen into it. Ms. Moore, the librarian, looks up from her computer momentarily then goes back to scanning in books in a quick rhythm of beeps just like at the grocery store. I’ve come here plenty of times before to do projects for Mr. Kinney, so she doesn’t question me. I settle in, happy with the small measure of freedom, but when I look down at the open box packed tight with sealed manila envelopes and realize what a pain it’s going to be to track down every single address, I half wish I would’ve taken Kat up on her offer to ditch.
The other half of me wishes I had Mr. Kinney for English this year and not just my TA period. So I could be a part of this. Every year he makes a big show of gifting each of his seniors one of those black-and-white marbled composition books after spring break. Their only assignment for the remainder of the school year is to write in it. Fill it up with words that make a picture of who they are, things they may forget later on, after so many years, and want to look back on. Sort of a letter to their future selves. I know this because Kat did get Kinney, and the day she got her journal she started writing in it like crazy, which is funny since she doesn’t usually care about assignments she’s going to get a grade on, let alone work that won’t count for anything.
But that’s where Mr. Kinney’s a genius. He realizes that all of us are a little self-absorbed. It’s human nature. And so when his students get a chance to preserve what they see as important and worthy about themselves, they do. Then on graduation day, they hand over their journals, all sealed up with hope and pride and secrecy. And ten Junes later, those same kids who are now legitimate grownups get a brief little chapter of their teenage lives in the mail.