We should have known it already—the world was trying to tell us in so many ways—but Hank is the one who taught us that life wasn’t so easy for all of us. Hank is the one who told Lehna and me that we were lucky. Hank is the one who made luck a sometimes complicated thing.
And it’s Hank I’m thinking about now, as I step down to where my friends are lounging, their backs to me, on the senior deck. They’re looking out at the rest of the school from this hard-won place of seniority. I set my backpack down next to Lehna. I get out my phone and pull up Frank Ocean’s “Super Rich Kids.” I turn the volume up as loud as it’ll go and set it on the railing in front of us.
We bob our heads and listen.
When it’s over, Uma says, “He should be here with us.”
June says, “I went on a rampage once, trying to find him online. I searched everywhere. I even thought of all the fake names he might use.”
“I did that once, too,” Uma says.
“Kate and I did, too,” Lehna says. “And I thought I saw him once, on Telegraph. I called his name, but he didn’t look up.”
“We were so young when we were friends.” It’s the kind of proclamation adults would roll their eyes over, but it’s true. “We were fourteen. His voice hadn’t even changed. He was skinny like a little kid. I don’t know if I’d even recognize him now.”
“Hank,” June says. “We are sending you our love, wherever you are.”
We sit in silence for a little while, and then I say, “I have something to tell you guys.”
“Let me guess. You and Mark are getting married.”
“Come on, Lehna,” June says, and we all turn to her, surprised. “What? Things feel normal for the first time in a week. Let’s just try to stay positive, okay?”
“Well, okay,” Lehna says. “Sorry, everyone. Kate, go ahead.”
“I’m going to take a gap year.”
“Seriously?” Uma says. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But where did this come from?” June asks. “You never even mentioned it. Like, not even as an idea.”
“I know,” I say. “It just kind of came to me.”
“But aren’t you excited about college?” Uma asks.
“Only in a distant-future kind of way.” I feel Lehna looking at me, not critically, but like she’s really listening. I see my opening. I take it: “Distant, like the way I think of my wedding day with Mark.”
“Right,” Lehna says. “You in your white veil, him in his black tux.”
“I know it will happen, but I have to sow my oats first.”
“Work your way through the rest of the baseball players.”
“Only the Varsity team.”
“All those muscles. Those skintight pants, that sexy bulge—”
“Excuse me, but this is actually pretty serious,” June says.
“Is it?” I ask. “I don’t know.”
“Um, yeah. We’re talking about your future. We all worked hard to get into our colleges.”
“And I’m still going to go to college. It’s just…” I wrack my brain for a good reason to give them, and then I give up and just say what’s true. “I want to let things be messy. I want to be free, but only as free as feels right in the moment. And,” I say, “I want to be with Violet.”
“Oh,” June breathes.
“Oh,” Uma echoes.
“Love,” they say.
“Maybe,” I say, because it’s more prudent than yes, because it’s been less than a week since our first kiss, fewer than twenty-four hours since I asked her to trust me. I say maybe because when you’re a teenager there’s this rule: You aren’t supposed to make decisions based on love. You are supposed to tell your heart that it’s an immature and fickle thing. You’re supposed to remind yourself of Romeo and Juliet and how badly it turned out for them.
Your poor teenage heart. It isn’t equipped for decisions like this.
Except maybe. Maybe. It is.
* * *
I still need to talk to Lehna.
Lunch ends and we head to our lockers together.
“What are you doing after school?” I ask her.
“Going over to Shelbie’s. Candace is going to be there, so we’re all going to grab some dinner.”
“Want to get coffee first? I’m heading over there, too.”
“To see Violet?”
“Yeah, and I have to stop by AntlerThorn. I got a message from Brad. Something about the auction.”
“Oh yeah. Congrats on that, by the way.”
“On what?”
“Your painting.”
“What about it?”
“The bidding had just ended when we left the show that night. Yours sold for a lot.”
“Really?”
She laughs, amazed that I don’t know this already.
“Yeah. Like, thousands. I was too pissed for it to totally register, but I know it raised more money than any of the others. Anyway,” she says. “Yeah. I can do coffee.”
* * *
It’s four hours later, and we’re across from each other at a café table in the Mission, identical foam ferns gracing the tops of our cappuccinos. I see the way they match and I just say it.
“Twins.”
She shrugs.