4
THERE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2008
(thank God it’s Friday)
“As a general policy, I don’t turn down free beer,” Tyler says, dipping a potato chip in ketchup and popping it into his mouth. “Makes these decisions easy.” He takes a swig of chocolate milk. Caitlin makes a face.
“This is Ilana we’re talking about,” she points out. “She won’t even have beer.”
I’m only half listening to their conversation. Astronomy starts in nine minutes, and I still haven’t finished last night’s reading assignment.
“It’s a party. Of course she’ll have beer.”
“The girl lives off Diet Coke and Altoids,” Caitlin replies. “She carries Splenda packets in her purse.”
“So?”
“White wine and vodka. Sugar-free Jell-O shots if you’re lucky.”
“You’re crazy. There’s no way she’s throwing a party without a keg,” Tyler replies. Caitlin just smiles. Whatever you say.
Tyler looks over at me. “What are you doing?”
“Astronomy homework,” I reply without looking up. Two more pages to go.
“Waiting till the last minute. Nice. Glad to see my study habits are finally rubbing off on you, Barnes.” I ignore him and keep reading.
“So what’s the occasion, anyway?” Caitlin asks. “Don’t her parents go out of town all the time?”
“She got the lead in the school play,” Tyler answers, mouth full. “This is her victory bash.” Caitlin makes a gagging motion, then returns to her salad.
“So, what time are you ladies picking me up tonight?”
“Sorry,” Caitlin replies. “We are otherwise engaged.”
“Oh, yeah? Doing what?”
I glance up at Caitlin. We have no plans.
“Movie,” we say in unison.
Tyler just shakes his head. “Lame.”
“You realize there’s no way the cops aren’t coming to that party,” I say, speed-reading through the last few paragraphs.
“Man, you guys are a complete and utter buzzkill today. Even more than usual.” There’s a pause, then I hear Tyler say, “But you look especially hot, so maybe it’s a wash.”
Whoa. I look up and see Tyler smiling at Caitlin in a very un-Tyler way. Scratch that. It’s a very Tyler smile, but it’s the one he reserves for girls whose pants he’s trying to get into. I glance over at Caitlin, expecting her to look as uncomfortable as I feel. But she just makes an adorably flattered but still demure face and smiles in his direction.
What is happening right now?
Just then, the bell rings, and the moment is over. Tyler grabs his backpack and is gone, so unceremoniously that I wonder if I was reading too much into their exchange. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was just paying her a friendly compliment. Tyler wouldn’t blatantly hit on Caitlin while he’s hooking up with Ilana, and Caitlin has a very strict rule about flirting with guys who are taken. (Two summers ago, Caitlin spent six weeks in Huntsville interning with NASA, where she fell in love with this guy, Craig, who she thought was a college intern. She found out after she slept with him—her first and only time—that he was a twenty-six-year-old postdoc with a wife. She was different after that, in ways I’ll never fully grasp. So when I say she has a very strict rule about flirting with guys who are taken, I mean she doesn’t do it. Period.)
“You coming?”
Caitlin is standing a few feet away, clearly wondering why I’m sitting at the lunch table thirty seconds after the bell. My textbook is still open on the table. I run my eyes over the last paragraph of the chapter, then shove the book in my bag and follow her out.
Astronomy is different from any class I’ve ever taken. We have at least thirty pages of reading every night—sometimes closer to fifty—but there aren’t quizzes or questions to complete at the end of each chapter, forcing us to keep up. Dr. Mann seems to just assume that we will. And it’s not like he walks us through what we’re supposed to have read. His lectures are more like philosophical discussions in which he asks more questions than he answers. It’s actually kind of fun. I just wish our teacher had better face-name recall. He insists on calling us by our last names, but he can’t remember all of them. So he makes us sit in alphabetical order and uses the class roster as his cheat sheet, putting me five rows and two seats away from Astronomy Boy Wagner.
Why couldn’t Josh’s last name have been Barney or Barr or Bartlett?
I get to class a few minutes before the warning bell rings. Most of the seats are already filled, their occupants scrambling to get through the reading before class starts. Josh’s seat is empty as usual. He always slips in right before the late bell, carrying nothing but his notebook and a pencil. No backpack, no textbook. Just the notebook and a pencil. I’d assume he was a total slacker were it not for the fact that he’s fairly vocal in class, always raising his hand and participating, but only when no one else is. It’s like he waits to make sure that the rest of us aren’t going to answer, then puts his hand in the air just before Dr. Mann becomes Mr. Hyde (the man is a teddy bear, but does not like it when he asks a question and no one responds).
Smart and cute and considerate. And totally not interested.
Things seemed promising the day we met. Pointing at the empty seat next to him, all that talk about fate and the stars. It felt like the start of something. But I must have misread it, because Josh hasn’t made any effort to talk to me since then, despite the fact that I’ve casually lingered at my desk every day after class.
I am That Girl.
More evidence? The fact that I am now completely turned around in my seat, blatantly staring at the classroom door, just waiting for him to walk through it. Less than a minute later, he does. Pencil behind his ear, notebook under his arm, brown T-shirt tucked neatly into khaki shorts. He meets my gaze and smiles. I quickly drop my eyes, mortified that he caught me looking at him again. It’s the third time this week.
Okay, seriously, it’s getting to be kind of ridiculous. All he has to do is look in my direction, and my insides get all fluttery and my eyes go hot, and all I can think about is how badly I want to touch him. The inside of his forearm, the dip in his upper lip, the place where his earlobe meets his neck. It’s borderline creepy how preoccupied I am with this boy’s body. He, meanwhile, doesn’t seem at all preoccupied with me. Right now he’s thumbing through his notebook, looking for a blank page.
The late bell rings, and Dr. Mann appears. “Parallax,” he begins. “Miss Watts, define it for us, if you would.”
The smiley blond girl behind Josh scrambles for the definition. She’s flipping pages so fast I’m surprised she hasn’t ripped one.
“Uh . . . parallax is, like, the difference in how you see something,” the girl stammers, hiding behind her blond curls. “Like, when a star seems like it’s in one place, but then you look from another angle, and it’s somewhere else.”
“Correct!” Teacher and student look equally surprised that she got it right. Dr. Mann turns to the rest of the class. “As Miss Watts has explained, parallax is the difference in the apparent position of an object viewed from two different angles. The name—‘parallax’—and the fact that we use terms like ‘arcsec’ and ‘parsec’ to determine it—makes the concept sound more complicated than it is.”
“What the hell is an arcsec?” someone behind me mutters.
“How is our perspective skewed? That’s the deeper question we must ask,” Dr. Mann declares. “Let’s begin with an illustration. Please select someone at least two rows away from you. Make sure you choose someone you can see clearly from where you sit.”
I force myself not to look at Josh. Instead, I focus on the girl Dr. Mann called on.
“Now close one eye,” the old man instructs. “With your hand in a thumbs-up position, move your arm until your thumb blocks your view of your subject’s face.” Smiley blond girl disappears. “Now open the closed eye and shut the open eye. Your subject should appear to have moved from behind your thumb.” Voilà. Smiley blond girl reappears.
I slide my thumb up the aisle until Josh comes into view. He’s looking right at me, one eye closed, arm outstretched, face obstructed by his upright thumb. When our eyes meet, it takes considerable effort not to grin. There are forty-two people in our class, and he picked me.
Smiley blond girl is forgotten. I close my left eye and inch my thumb forward until Josh’s face disappears behind it. I close my right, then slowly open my left. There he is again, left ear just grazing my thumb. I watch as he mirrors me, aligning his thumb with mine. We stay like that for a moment, right eyes closed, arms outstretched, just staring at each other. At this distance, I can just make out the mole beneath his left eye. I inch my thumb toward it.
“It is all a matter of perspective,” I hear Dr. Mann say. I switch eyes again, and Josh’s face disappears. Why do you assume he’s not interested? the voice inside my head asks. He smiles at you every day.
“Miss Barnes?” Dr. Mann’s voice jars me back to reality. Crap! I have no idea what he just asked.
“Um, would you mind repeating the question?” I ask, bracing for the old man’s reaction. I hear several snickers.
“I have yet to ask one,” our teacher replies. “I was simply going to invite you to put your arm down.”
The snickers turn to chuckles.
My left eye flies open as I quickly drop my arm. With Josh’s face hidden behind my thumb, I hadn’t noticed that he’d looked away. Or that the rest of the class had started staring at me, the only person in the class still facing backward.
I spin in my seat. “Sorry, I was just . . .” With no coherent way to end that sentence, I trail off, dropping my eyes to the metal surface of my desk and feigning preoccupation with the two boobs someone has scratched into it. Fortunately, Dr. Mann quickly resumes his lecture, so the collective attention soon moves on. I, however, remain mortified. So you were staring at him for an inordinate amount of time. So what? For all he knows, you were looking at the guy in front of him. I steal a glance at Josh’s row. The guy in front of him has cystic acne and a unibrow. And I’m pretty sure he’s wearing eyeliner.
When the bell rings at the end of the period, I shove my textbook into my bag and beeline for the door, desperate not to make eye contact with Josh.
“Abby!”
No such luck.
Josh is a few steps behind me when I turn around. As I wait for him to catch up, my heart goes from steady beating to wild pounding. Thrown off by his nearness and by my own jitters, I forget that he’s the one who called out to me and immediately start talking.
“I just wanted to see what you were up to tonight,” I say. A perfectly normal thing to say when you’re the one initiating the conversation. A little weird when you’re not. Josh just goes with it.
“Oh, you know,” he replies. “The usual. Back-to-back reruns of CSI. Maybe some Pringles.”
“Are these your preferred weekend plans?”
We step aside as the room clears. “‘Preferred’ implies a preference among several choices,” Josh points out. “I’m the new guy, remember.”
“Why don’t you come to Ilana’s party?” The words pop out without my planning them. Never mind that I’m not actually going to the party I’ve just invited him to. This is what happens when I don’t have a plan. I cannonball into disaster.
“A party, huh?”
Not: “Sure, I’d love to!” or “Yeah, sounds great!” Just: “A party, huh?” How does one even respond to that? Is it a question? A stall tactic until he can figure out how to let me down gently? I backpedal.
“Yeah, a bunch of us are going,” I say quickly. “It’s a group thing.”
“Cool,” he says. “Sounds fun.”
“Okay, great! We’ll pick you up around eight.” I turn to go, expecting him to follow me out. But he just stands there. I look back at him, not wanting to be rude but not wanting to be late to journalism either. Our adviser is super laid-back, but not about lateness, especially not when the tardy staffer is her editor in chief.
“Don’t you need my address?” he asks.
“Oh! Yes. Duh. Your address.” I rip a piece of paper from my notebook and hand it to him just as the warning bell rings.
“So who all is going?” he asks. He, unlike me, appears to be in no hurry to get to his next class.
“The whole senior class, practically,” I tell him, willing his pencil to move faster. “Well, except the hermits.”
“The hermits?”
“The people who never go out.” I watch the clock on the wall behind him. Forty seconds till the late bell. Forty seconds to get from the A Hall all the way to the newspaper lab at the end of G. If I don’t leave now, I’m going to be late.
“I meant with us,” Josh says, finally handing me the paper. “You said ‘we’ll’ pick you up. Who’s the ‘we’?”
“Oh. Right. I don’t think you know any of them,” I say distractedly as I move toward the door. When is it acceptable to break into a run? “So I’ll see you later?” I’m out the door before he can respond.
Despite the fact that I haul ass to get there, I’m still late to sixth period. I mumble some excuse about having to stay after class for astronomy (not technically a lie), then slide into my seat, where I spend the rest of the period mentally rehashing my conversation with Josh while pretending to review page layouts for the Oracle’s next issue.
As soon as class is over, I sprint to Caitlin’s car. She emerges from the building a few minutes later, balancing a ridiculous stack of textbooks. “Don’t you have cross-country practice?” she asks when she sees me.
“I wanted to talk to you first. About tonight.”
“Can we ride and talk?” She drops the books into her trunk, then nods at the growing line of cars waiting to exit the parking lot. “Keep in mind that I use the term ‘ride’ loosely.”
“Sure.”
We get in. Caitlin pulls out of her primo parking space and joins the stalled exit line, then looks over at me. “So, tonight. What’s up?”
I try to sound casual: “I invited Josh to go with us to Ilana’s party.”
“Who’s Josh?”
“Josh Wagner. Astronomy Boy.”
“You invited Astronomy Boy to go with us to a party we’re not actually attending. Interesting strategy. Shall I bring the boyfriend I don’t actually have?”
I shoot her a look. “Ignoring that. So will you drive? And can we take Tyler, too?”
“Why do I have to go?”
“Because I told him a bunch of us were going.” Caitlin just looks at me. “He hesitated when I invited him! I wasn’t sure what it meant.”
“Of all the things you could’ve invited him to, you picked this?”
“I don’t know where it came from!” I moan. “I opened my mouth and . . . blah. There it was.”
We’ve finally reached the main road. The crossing guard stops us to let street traffic pass. “Am I taking you to the field house or are you getting out here?” Caitlin asks.
“Getting out here,” I say, already pushing open the passenger door. “We don’t have to stay long. We’ll go, we’ll see how lame it is, and we’ll leave. Okay?”
“You realize how ridiculous you are, right?”
“See you at seven forty-five!” I blow her a kiss and shut the door.
Cross-country practice is predictably brutal. Our first meet is next Thursday, so we started fast-paced runs yesterday. Which means unless I want to sit through Coach P’s annoying Tortoise Only Wins in the Fairy Tale speech, I have to really push myself.
It’s a rough six miles, especially in eighty-degree weather, but it feels good to turn my brain off for a while, to focus on nothing but my breath and the steady, calming sound of my sneakers hitting the asphalt. Running is the one thing I can count on to quiet my unceasing inner monologue. If I couldn’t run, I’d probably overthink myself into a nervous breakdown.
The mental quiet never lasts. By the time I pull into the driveway after practice, my brain is cluttered again. Astronomy Boy. Astronomy homework. AP Calculus test on Monday. Northwestern application. Northwestern application essays. The SAT. Astronomy Boy. Astronomy Boy. Astronomy Boy.
My mom is in the kitchen, sorting the mail.
“You’re home early again,” I say, dropping my bag on the table.
“Am I?” she says distractedly. “I was up to my eyeballs in flooring bids for the damaged wing. I had to get out of there.” She looks up. “How was your day?”
“Good,” I tell her. “Except for the part where I blatantly asked the new guy out on a date.”
Mom’s eyebrows shoot up. “Lucky new guy.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure he thinks so,” I reply. “When I asked him, he didn’t answer right away.”
“But he eventually said yes?”
“Only after I made it sound like it wasn’t a date.”
“It sounds very complicated,” Mom says. “But promising! So where are you taking him?”
“Oh, just this get-together a girl from school is having at her house.” I keep my voice casual, but not too casual. I don’t want to sound evasive, but I am, in fact, being evasive, because of course Ilana’s parents are out of town, and of course there’s no way my parents will let me go to the party if they know that.
“Tonight?”
“Yep. Hey, are those for me?” I ask, pointing at the stack of oversized envelopes on the table.
“They are,” she replies, sliding them toward me. College application packets. I quickly flip through them—Vanderbilt, Duke, University of Georgia, and Yale—then drop the whole stack in the trash. “You know, it might not hurt to have some options,” she says. I can tell she’s treading carefully. “Not that I don’t think you’ll get into Northwestern, because I know you will. But why limit yourself now? Why not give yourself some choices?”
“I am giving myself choices. By also applying to Indiana and NYU.” My dismissive tone earns me a pointed look. “Sorry,” I tell her. “I just don’t want to go to school in the South, okay? We’ve talked about this.”
“Fine. That covers three of the four.” Mom walks to the trash can and pulls out the blue-and-white Yale envelope. “Connecticut is definitely not the South. And Yale has one of the oldest and most widely read college newspapers in the country.” We both know she only knows this because Caitlin said it at my birthday dinner.
“But no journalism program,” I point out. “Which would matter if we were talking about a school I could get into, which we’re not.” This earns me another look. “Mom. It’s Yale. Nine-percent-acceptance-rate Yale. Normal people like me do not get into places like that.”
“Who says you’re normal?” She smiles, making a joke, but this conversation is irritating me, because it’s the same one we’ve been having since I was a kid. Mom thinks I underestimate myself. I know she overestimates me. Despite her conviction that I’m Someone Special, history has proven that I am merely average. Which I’m fine with—I just wish she’d get on board. “At least think about it,” Mom urges, holding out the envelope. “Will you do that for your annoying mom?”
I take the envelope. “Only because she’s being particularly annoying right now.”
Mom winks. “She tries.”
At quarter till eight, having tried on nearly every item of clothing in my closet in every possible combination and promptly dismissed each one, I’m digging through my mom’s top drawer. My skinny jeans work with this slouchy top and heels, but the whole ensemble still feels a little blah on its own. As I’m wrapping a sparkly linen scarf around my neck, the doorbell rings. I grab a pair of earrings from her jewelry box and head downstairs.
Caitlin and my mom are standing in the foyer, talking, when I appear. They get quiet when they see me.
“What?” I ask suspiciously. I hate when they talk about me. Which is often.
“Nothing,” my mom says with a breezy smile. “Enjoy your non-date date.”
As usual, Caitlin looks amazing. Her faded jeans and thin hooded sweatshirt give the impression that she just threw the outfit on, but the details—gold accessories, her grandfather’s watch, dramatic metallic platform sandals—pull the whole look together. I wonder briefly if it’s a mistake to let Josh meet her. Not that anything would ever happen between them, it’s just that I know how she looks and I know how I look.
“You’re being ridiculous,” Caitlin says as we walk to her car. For a second I think she’s read my mind. “You should just apply.”
“Huh?”
“To Yale. Your mom told me they sent you an application packet. Would it really be so horrible if you and I were at the same school?”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, that’s why I don’t want to apply. I’m afraid you and I will both end up there.” Caitlin unlocks the doors to her Jetta, and we both get in.
“So what is it, then? Why not apply?”
“(A), I won’t get in, so it’s a waste of energy. And paper.”
“The application is electronic.”
“And (B), Yale doesn’t have a journalism program.”
“That’s because it’s a liberal arts school.”
“Exactly. And while that’s great, and while it might be true that I could get a job at the newspaper of my choice if I graduated from there, it doesn’t change the fact that I do not want to spend four years taking art history or poli-sci classes. I actually want to learn how to be a journalist. In a classroom. Preferably at Northwestern.”
Caitlin glances over at me as she starts the car. “Or, (C), you’re just afraid you won’t get in.”
“No, I know I won’t get in. So there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“But unless you apply, you won’t know that for sure.”
“Can we drop it, please?” I snap. I know she means well, but I get enough of this crap from my mom. Caitlin backs off.
“Yes. As long as you promise to edit my personal statement as soon as I’m done with it.”
“Haven’t I promised that, like, forty times already?”
“Ugh, I’m just nervous about it,” she says. “I’ve heard that the essays matter a lot—more than at other schools.” Her words are tinged with worry. We both know writing is not her forte—she’s struggled with it since being diagnosed with dyslexia in fifth grade. Caitlin is great at expressing herself, but her dyslexia causes her to use the wrong word a lot, something spell-check doesn’t catch. “I can’t even imagine what I’ll do if I don’t get in.” Her voice falters slightly. It’s uncharacteristic of Caitlin to be so set on something like this—unlike me, she doesn’t have tunnel vision when it comes to her future. But getting into Yale is not just about academics for her. Her grandfather worked as a shipping clerk in the Port of New Haven when he first arrived in the United States from the Ukraine in the 1960s, and from then on was determined that a member of his family would go to Yale. He started calling Caitlin “my little Yalie” the day she was born (he’d already given up on his daughter, who dropped out of school when she got her first modeling contract). Caitlin idolized him. He died three days after her sixteenth birthday.
“You’ll get in,” I assure her. “And your essay will blow their minds. We’ll make sure of that.” Her expression goes from worried to relieved.
We pick up Tyler first. As we pull into his driveway, the garage door goes up and Tyler emerges carrying a backpack. He walks quickly to the car, holding the bag close to his body, obscuring it from view. His beer stash.
“You decided I was right,” Caitlin says as Tyler slides into the backseat.
“Wrong. I decided it was worth the precaution on the off chance that you were,” Tyler corrects, tucking the bag under his feet.
“Uh-huh.” Caitlin starts to back out of Tyler’s driveway, then stops. She looks over at me. “Wait, where are we going? You never told me where this guy lives.” I hand her the piece of paper with Josh’s address on it, noticing for the first time his cute, boyish handwriting. Caitlin types the address into her GPS.
“Remind me how the new kid knows Ilana?” Tyler asks, fiddling with Caitlin’s iPod. “Do you have any normal music on here? ‘Elliott the Letter Ostrich’? FYI, indie bands should be barred from naming themselves.”
“If by ‘normal’ you mean crappy pop, then no,” Caitlin replies. “And the new kid doesn’t know Ilana. Abby just thought it’d be a good idea to invite him to her party. You know, ’cause we were so excited about it.”
“Again, I don’t understand why you two are so anti,” Tyler says. “So she’s a little temperamental. So her head outweighs her body. She does have some redeeming qualities.”
“Such as?” I ask. I’m not just being catty. I’ve tried to come up with reasons to like her. Or at least tolerate her. And I’ve come up blank.
“She’s fun,” Tyler replies, his euphemism for slutty. “And she’s talented.”
I snicker. “Talented, huh?”
“I’m serious,” Tyler says. “I saw her audition for the play she’s so amped about. She was really good.” He sounds disturbingly sincere.
“Please don’t tell me you have legitimate feelings for her,” I say. “Caitlin, help me out here. Tell him he’s not allowed to actually like her.”
“I don’t care who he likes,” Caitlin retorts, a little too quickly. Her eyes are focused on the road. “We’re here,” she announces.
I look up, startled. “Already?”
Caitlin points at a two-story brick house at the end of the street. There’s a beat-up Jeep with Massachusetts plates parked in the driveway. “Looks like Astronomy Boy is Ty’s neighbor,” she says. I glance out the side window. We’re stopped in one of the newly developed cul-de-sacs near the new back entrance of Tyler’s subdivision. There was a party back here junior year, a few streets over, before the asphalt was poured on Poplar Drive. The “Poplar Party,” which was quickly renamed the “Popular Party.” There were rumors of a guest list, but none materialized.
“Wait, don’t pull in yet.” I yank down the visor and survey my reflection. I look exactly the same as I did fifteen minutes ago. A little wild-eyed, but otherwise fine.
Tyler is busy humming the theme song to Mister Rogers. “So what’s the new guy’s story?” he asks between bars.
“Dunno,” I say. “He’s in my astronomy class. I think maybe he’s on the crew team?”
“We have a crew team?”
“It’s new, I think.”
“Can I pull into the driveway now?” Caitlin asks. We’re still idling in the middle of the street.
“Yes. Ready.” Caitlin pulls forward. “Wait!” She hits the brakes. I turn to Tyler. “No mention of how little Cate and I like Ilana. Or how much we hate her parties.”
Tyler looks at Caitlin. “She realizes how weird this is, right?”
“Yes,” I mutter. “Now shut it. And give me some gum”
Caitlin pulls into the driveway and parks. “Are you going to the door?” she asks me. “Or do you want me to just honk?”
“You can’t honk,” Tyler says. “What kind of signal does that send? His parents will think you’re some sort of parent-fearing freak.”
His parents. I didn’t even think about the fact that I might have to talk to parents. Yikes. Thankfully, two seconds into my internal parents love me! pep talk, the front door opens and Josh emerges. Wait, should I be offended that he didn’t want me to come to the door?
Tyler leans forward to get a better look. “He’s got kind of an accountant-on-vacation vibe to him, doesn’t he?”
I shoot him a look. “Be nice.”
“I’m always nice.” He opens the door for Josh, then slides over to make room for him in the backseat. “Hey, man,” he says as Josh gets in. “I’m Tyler.”
We cover introductions and then lapse into moderately awkward silence. I chew nervously on my gum, willing Tyler to say something. He can make conversation with a fire hydrant.
“So, Josh . . . ,” Tyler says finally, “what brought you to Atlanta?”
“My stepdad was offered tenure at Emory,” Josh replies
“What does he teach?” I ask, turning around in my seat.
“Astrophysics.” Aha. So that explains his astronomy savvy.
Caitlin perks up. “I wonder if I know him,” she says. “What’s his name?” Josh just laughs.
“Oh, she’s serious,” I tell him. “Physics professors are to Caitlin what celebrities are to normal people. She started salivating when she heard Dr. Mann was at Brookside.”
“Well, in that case, my stepdad’s name is Martin Wagner,” Josh tells Caitlin. “He specializes in—”
“Dark matter,” Caitlin says, finishing his sentence. “I read his book.” Josh looks impressed. I remember the stupid comment I made in class today and cringe.
“You got all the way through it?” Josh asks her.
She smiles. “Twice.”
“Wow. No offense to my stepdad, but you should get some sort of prize for that.”
Caitlin laughs. “Well, I did have ulterior motives. He’s on the Yale alumni committee,” she explains. “Since he’s the only committee member with a hard sciences degree, I requested him as my interviewer.” She smiles. “I figured if all else fails, I’d tell him how brilliant I think his book is.”
“A solid strategy. A cute girl with an affinity for astrophysics? He’ll beg the admissions committee to let you in.”
It’s objectively true—Caitlin is, in fact, a cute girl with an affinity for astrophysics—so it shouldn’t be a big deal for the guy I like to point it out. Still, I bristle.
Caitlin laughs again. “Let’s hope so. Remind me, where’d he teach before this? In Massachusetts somewhere, right? But not Harvard or MIT . . . Brandeis?”
“Clark,” Josh replies. “In Worcester.”
“So, Massachusetts,” Tyler says. “What’s it like up there?” Before Josh can respond, Tyler adds, “This is my attempt to steer the conversation into nonboring territory.”
Josh laughs. “Nicely done. Massachusetts is great. It’s the only place I’ve ever lived, so I don’t have a lot to compare it to.”
“Is rowing a big thing up there? Abby mentioned you’re on the crew team.”
“You were wearing a Brookside Crew T-shirt yesterday,” I say quickly. “That’s how I knew. I mean, I didn’t really know, I just assumed. You know, because of the shirt.” Please, make the crazy girl stop talking. Caitlin and Tyler exchange a look in the rearview mirror.
“So . . . rowing,” Tyler says. “That’s cool. Are we any good?”
“I think we’re pretty decent,” Josh replies. “But ask me again in a couple weeks. Our first regatta is next weekend.”
Tyler and Josh move on to golf and make small talk about the PGA tour until we arrive at Ilana’s. Her pink stucco house is nearly identical to the one next to it, except that hers has a deep bass beat emanating from inside. There are cars everywhere.
“So this girl,” Josh says. “Is she a good friend of yours?” Caitlin snorts.
“More like a friend of a friend,” I say, ignoring Caitlin.
We head inside. The living room is packed. Tyler spots the golf team in the kitchen, holding pink plastic cups and huddled around what looks like a keg. Tyler shoots Caitlin a told-you-so look and heads toward it.
It’s not a keg. It just looks like one. Sort of. It’s an aluminum barrel filled with red liquid. “‘Splenda Punch,’” Josh says, reading the bubble-letter label. The word “Splenda” is outlined in bright pink marker. “Looks lethal.”
“It is,” Efrain, the most soft-spoken of Tyler’s golf buddies, pipes up. He’s cute in a Latino boy band kind of way, but he’s a total wallflower. Sometimes at lunch I forget he’s at the table. “I saw her make it,” Efrain says. “Grain alcohol, diet cherry soda, and about fifty packets of Splenda.” He nods in the direction of the living room. “She only started drinking an hour ago.” Ilana has her arms around a girl I don’t recognize, and the two are swaying to the beat. Or trying to. With the amount of alcohol coursing through their bodies, they’re not exactly in sync (with the music or each other). I laugh at the sight of them.
“Ouch. She’s gonna be feeling that in the morning,” Josh says. He sounds legitimately concerned. Meanwhile, I’m the bitch who laughed. I’m feeling a wave of remorse when I hear, “Hey, Abby, nice scarf,” followed by a high-pitched cackle. Ilana points at me and whispers something to the girl next to her, and they both crack up. Yeah, I hope she is feeling that in the morning. And all week.
“So I have six beers,” Tyler announces. “Efrain’s drinking girly punch, Caitlin’s not having any ’cause she’s driving, and Abby never finishes more than one.” He opens a bottle and hands it to me. “So that leaves five for you and me to split,” he says to Josh.
“Oh, that’s okay,” Josh says.
“Nonsense,” Tyler tells him. “Beers are meant to be shared.” Before Josh can argue, Tyler puts the bottle in Josh’s hand. Josh holds the beer awkwardly, like he’s not sure what to do with it. Tyler stashes the rest of his beer in the fridge, then heads toward the makeshift dance floor.
“How long have they been dating?” Josh asks me.
“Who?”
“Caitlin and Tyler,” Josh replies. “They seem like a good couple.”
“Oh! They’re not a couple,” I tell him. “The three of us have been friends forever. Tyler’s kind of with Ilana.” The word “unfortunately” hangs unspoken on my lips.
Someone cranks the music and Ilana shrieks with glee. The kitchen-cabinet doors rattle on their hinges.
“Which one is Ilana?” He practically has to shout, the music is so loud. So loud, and so painfully bad.
I point.
“Huh.” Josh studies Ilana, who is now slapping her friend’s butt in time with the music and laughing hysterically. “I wouldn’t have put them together.”
Again, I’m tempted to add something witty and bitingly mean but refrain. “Yeah, it was a surprise to us, too,” is all I say.
“What about Caitlin?” he asks then. “Does she have a boyfriend?”
“Nope.” Then, even though it’s not really true, I add, “She doesn’t want one. She’s too focused on school for that.”
“Yeah, she seems really smart,” Josh remarks. Why do I suddenly feel the need to announce my GPA? I look over at Caitlin. She’s standing by the keg, making small talk with the guys, keeping her distance so that Josh and I can be alone. She’s my biggest ally. Why am I acting like she’s a threat?
“She’s the best,” I say, and leave it at that.
We’re quiet for a minute as we survey the sardine can that was once Ilana’s living room. People are jammed into the oversized space, their voices reverberating off the vaulted ceiling above. Tyler is dancing now, twirling our slaphappy hostess. I glance back at Caitlin and see her watching them out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t look like a girl who doesn’t care who Tyler dates. She looks like a girl who cares very, very much.
Josh touches my arm. I jump, as if electrified.
“Wanna take a walk?” he shouts.
“Outside?”
“Nah. I figured a stroll around the living room might be a good way to spend the next thirty minutes,” Josh teases, still shouting to be heard. “Yes, outside. Where I’ll actually be able to hear you, instead of just pretending that I can.” He sets his beer down on the coffee table and nods at the door.
My heart has sped up again at the thought of being alone with him. I put my half-empty bottle down next to his full one and follow him out the front door.
The air outside has cooled off quite a bit, and the sky is perfectly clear. “Which way?” Josh asks when we reach the street.
“Left?” I suggest.
“Left it is.”
We walk in silence for a few minutes, but it’s not awkward silence. It’s more like this-moment-is-going-so-well-I-don’t-want-to-ruin-it-by-talking silence. On my end, at least. I glance over at Josh. He has his head back, looking up at the night sky. His hair is damp, and there’s a tiny piece of soap tucked under the top rim of his ear. It strikes me how recently he must’ve showered. How recently he was naked. Get ahold of yourself, Barnes.
“We’re about three days too early for a good moon,” I hear Josh say. I tilt my head back. There’s a thin sliver of light hanging low in the sky.
“But in three days, there won’t be a moon,” I point out.
“Exactly. No light pollution.” He looks over at me and smiles. “This probably isn’t something you’re supposed to say at a moment like this, but I think the moon is seriously overrated.” A moment like what? I bite my cheeks, taming the grin that threatens to take over my face.
“And the stars?” I ask, once the smile is under control.
“Wildly underrated,” he declares with a grin. He looks up again. “The sky is a storybook,” he says then. “Every constellation’s like its own fairy tale.”
“Do you have a favorite?” I let my arm drift away from my body, until my elbow grazes his forearm. It’s awkward to hold my arm like this, but I do it anyway, liking how it feels to be touching him.
“Cygnus,” he replies, pointing. “The Swan.” I squint, trying to make it out.
“Here, stop for a sec.” Josh comes around behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders, turning me slightly. “Okay, now look up. See that really bright star right there?” I nod, so rattled by being this close to him that I don’t trust myself to speak. “That’s his tail,” he says, pointing, his arm just inches from my cheek. His skin smells like Irish Spring. I inhale deeply, letting my eyelids flutter closed for a just a second as I breathe him in. “Imagine him diving at a forty-five-degree angle, facing down, his wings outstretched,” I hear Josh say. His breath is warm on my ear. “There’s his neck, his beak . . . and those are his two wings.” I force my eyes open, and the figure he’s describing leaps out at me.
“Wow,” I whisper. “He’s big.”
“He’s huge. See that star there, at the tip of his beak?” Josh points. “That’s Albireo. You can’t tell without a telescope, but it’s actually a double.”
“A double?”
“Two stars orbiting around the same center of gravity,” he explains. “All double stars are pretty cool, but this particular one is especially cool because of its colors. Albireo A is bright gold and Albireo B is sapphire.”
“I don’t think I knew that stars could be different colors,” I say, turning to face him.
“Hang out with a stars guy and you’ll learn all sorts of stuff.” We’re standing really close now, just inches apart. I suck on my gum, trying to extract whatever remains of its original mintiness. Josh, meanwhile, has delicious cinnamon breath. How can a person smell so manly and so sweet?
“So what’s the swan’s story?” I ask. “What’s he diving for?”
“His best friend,” Josh replies, his eyes still on the sky. “Phaethon was a mortal like Cygnus, but his father, Apollo, was the god of the sun. Somehow, Phaethon convinced his dad to let him drive the sun chariot. Phaethon, a typical teenager, drove recklessly, nearly destroying Earth, so Zeus, angry in a typical Zeus way, hurled a thunderbolt at him, and Phaethon fell from the sky into the Eridanus River. Cygnus was devastated. So, determined to give his friend a proper burial, he dove into the water to retrieve Phaethon’s body. But he couldn’t find it. So Cygnus kept diving and diving, refusing to give up. Eventually, the gods took pity on Cygnus and changed him into an immortal swan.”
“How sad,” I say. “And beautiful.”
Josh drops his eyes to my face and smiles. Neither of us says anything then. As we stand there, inches apart, neither of us moving, it crosses my mind that this would be a perfect first kiss moment. He just needs to lean in ever so slightly . . .
A car taps its horn. I look over, prepared to be annoyed at the interruption, then realize that we’re standing in the middle of the street. We quickly move to one side to let the car pass.
“So how’d you get into astronomy?” I ask when we start walking again. “Through your stepdad?”
“Nah, I was into it before Martin. I think it started with a really bad episode of Futurama when I was nine. And an old cosmology textbook my dad gave me for my tenth birthday.”
“Is he a scientist, too?”
Josh shakes his head. “He was an English teacher,” he says. The “was” hangs heavy in the air.
“And what about you?” I ask. “What do you want to be?”
“I’m not sure yet,” he says thoughtfully. “I’ve got time to figure it out.” But what about picking a college and choosing a major and getting ahead? I can’t ask these questions, of course, so I just nod in assent. “What about you?” he asks then. “Do you know what you want to be?”
“A journalist,” I say. “Newspaper.”
“You sound very sure,” he observes.
I shrug. “I am. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be.”
“My older brother’s like that,” Josh says. He looks back up at the sky. “I don’t have that clarity of vision. Not yet, anyway.”
We’ve reached the end of Ilana’s street. Josh points at the unfinished house on the cul-de-sac. “What’s your guess about Ilana’s future neighbors?” he asks, stepping up to what will eventually be their driveway. “An aging entrepreneur and his trophy wife? Two lesbian doctors? No, wait—an ex-NFL player and his three pit bulls.” I examine the house, which is essentially just foundation and studs at this point. Tyler and I used to play this game in elementary school, guessing who his future neighbors would be when his subdivision kept expanding and expanding.
I examine the house. “Easy,” I say. “A rapper and his baby mama. He bought her the house to convince her to keep the baby. Unfortunately, it’s not his, but he doesn’t know that yet. He’ll find out the day they move in.”
“Poor guy,” Josh says, playing along.
“Oh, don’t feel too bad,” I tell him. “After they break up, he’ll write a song about the experience. And a couple of years from now, he’ll win a Grammy for it.”
Josh laughs. “Are you sure you want to be a journalist? Maybe you should write fiction instead.”
We step to the side as an SUV pulls into the driveway where we’re standing. The driver, Eleanor, is the photo editor of the Oracle. She rolls down her window and waves. Led Zeppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be” is blaring from her speakers, a song I only know because my dad sings it in the shower.
“Hey! Which house is it?” Eleanor asks.
I point. “Just follow the horrible hip-hop,” I tell her.
Eleanor turns down her music to hear it. “You weren’t kidding,” she says with a grimace. “See you guys in there?”
“Yep!” I reply, eager for her to leave.
Eleanor backs out of the driveway and parks on the street just a few yards away. The line of parked cars is nearly four houses long now, in both directions. Either Ilana is more popular than I thought or tonight is a particularly lame Friday night.
The mood of our moment now broken, Josh and I just stand there, watching Eleanor make her way toward the party, which is beginning to spill out onto Ilana’s front lawn. “So should we head back?” Josh asks me. Back to the overcrowded house, too-loud music, and disproportionate number of annoying people? Why would we do that?
“Sure,” I say, waiting for him to suggest that we stay. He doesn’t. He just puts his hands in his pockets and turns back toward the party.
I take two steps and stop. I don’t want to go back. It’s a beautiful night and a really lame party. I don’t want to be there. I want to be here.
“Let’s go inside,” I say suddenly. Josh looks confused.
“I thought we were.”
“No. I mean here.” I point at the house-in-progress. “Let’s see what our baby daddy is getting for his money.” Josh gives me a skeptical look. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
“You’re wearing heels,” he points out.
“So I’ll take them off,” I say, pulling them from my feet as I walk. “C’mon!” I’m already halfway up the driveway. Josh is still at the street, hanging back. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m cute or crazy. I keep walking, determined not to look back again.
I’m almost to the wooden plank leading to what will become the front porch. Please let him follow me, please let him follow me, please let him—
“Barefoot on a construction site. I can’t believe I’m authorizing this.” Josh is standing just a couple of feet away, my shoes in his hand. My grin is back with a vengeance. I do my best to rein it in.
“This way, sir,” I say, stepping onto the plank. It’s wobblier than it looks. Josh puts his hand on my hip, steadying me. My entire body goes to liquid. I force myself to keep moving forward.
The house seems even bigger from the inside. We wander around, guessing which room is which. “Our house in Worcester would fit inside this one room,” Josh says as we make our way through what we assume is the living room. “No joke. The whole thing.”
“The stairs are done,” I say, pointing at the grand spiral staircase in the center of the room. “We should go up. From outside it looked like there was a balcony off the bedrooms. I’ll bet the stars are awesome from up there.”
“Only if you let me go first,” Josh says. “If one of us has to fall through the stairs, I want it to be me.”
“Okay . . . but be careful!”
He points at the ground. “Says the girl with bare feet.”
I look down at my toes, which are now covered in sawdust. “Yeah, the no-shoes thing seemed like a better idea out on the driveway,” I admit.
“Nah, it seemed like a pretty terrible idea out there, too,” Josh says, starting up the stairs. “But you were too cute to stop.”
Fighting it is futile. The grin takes over.
He climbs the stairs slowly, testing each step before putting his full weight on it.
I’m two steps behind him, texting Caitlin as I ascend.
W JOSH. DONT LEAVE WITHOUT US.
“Watch out for those nails,” I hear Josh say. Slipping my phone into my back pocket, I sidestep the two-by-four lying across the staircase. There are four nails sticking out of one end, pointing straight up.
“Talk about an accident waiting to happen,” I remark. “Someone could step on that.”
“Hence the ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ sign on the fence at the end of the driveway,” Josh replies. He reaches the top of the stairs and looks around. “I think this is the end of the road, boss.”
I step up beside him. Although we couldn’t tell from down below, only the landing has been floored: The rest of the second floor is still just beams and rafters. So much for our romantic rendezvous on the balcony. I look over at him, willing him closer, but he’s already headed back down the stairs.
As I’m following him down, my phone vibrates with Caitlin’s response.
WHERE R U GUYS?
I’m looking down at my phone, writing her back, when the nails pierce my skin. The sensation catches me off guard. I inhale sharply, bracing for the pain. A moment later, it comes. Sharp, swift, intense. Crying out in agony, I jerk my leg up, but the nails—and the two-by-four—are still attached to my left foot. I reach for the railing to keep from losing my balance, then realize there isn’t one. The next thing I know, I’m lying in a heap at the base of the stairs, free from the offending two-by-four, which clatters to the ground beside me.
“Abby!” Josh leaps to my side.
“Stepped. On. The nails.” The pain is radiating up my leg, and there is sawdust in my eyes. “I’ll be fine, I jus—”
Before I can finish my sentence, Josh has pulled me up into his arms and is carrying me toward the front door.
“Really, I’m f-fine,” I manage. “You can p-put me down.”
“Abby, you’re bleeding all over the floor. I’m not putting you down. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
I consider arguing with him but decide that I don’t have the mental stamina. The pain is all I can think about right now. It’s blinding out everything else.
I force myself to look at the wound, then immediately regret it. The nails went all the way through the ball of my foot, leaving four ragged holes beneath the knuckle of my big toe. Blood is seeping out from the bottom of my foot, leaving a trail in our wake. Looking at it, I get light-headed.
When we reach Ilana’s house, Josh sets me down on the curb next to Caitlin’s car and sprints inside to get her. I close my eyes and lie back in the grass. The music from inside is even louder now, so loud that the yard vibrates beneath me. My foot throbs in sync with the thumping bass. I focus on that instead of the pain radiating up my leg. It hurts so much it’s hard to breathe.
“I shouldn’t have let her take off her shoes,” I hear Josh saying.
“My guess is she didn’t ask for permission,” Caitlin replies.
I open my eyes. Josh and Caitlin are standing over me. “You weren’t kidding about the blood,” Caitlin says to Josh, inspecting my foot.
“I’m calling her parents,” Josh says.
“Do it from the car,” Caitlin says, popping the trunk. “We’re going to the hospital. Someone has to clean those holes out, and it isn’t going to be me.” She walks around to the back of the car and disappears from view.
“What about Tyler?” I ask as I try to stand up, which isn’t impossible so much as really awkward. With one leg out of commission, I have to sort of heave all my weight forward, then push up with my good leg to get to standing. I possess neither the coordination nor the leg strength to pull this off gracefully. Fortunately, Josh grabs me before I topple over.
“Tyler can fend for himself,” Caitlin retorts, still hidden behind the trunk door. There’s that catty tone again. A few seconds later, the door slams, and Caitlin emerges with a stack of textbooks, all business now. “Here, prop your foot on these.”
“You’re letting me bleed on your books?” I joke, then grimace from the effort of smiling.
“Let’s not get crazy now,” Caitlin says, slipping out of her sweatshirt. She wraps it tightly around my foot, then uses the sleeves to tie it off. Only Caitlin would ruin a Helmut Lang hoodie to save a stack of books. “Hand me those,” she instructs, pointing at the wad of plastic grocery bags tucked into the pocket behind the driver’s seat. She drapes the largest one over my foot, knotting it loosely at the ankle. “There,” she says. “Now elevate.”
I obey, propping my foot up on top of a worn copy of Advanced Quantum Mechanics.
“Give me your phone,” Josh instructs as we pull away from the curb. “I’m calling your parents. We’ll need their insurance information when we get to the hospital.”
“I’ll call them,” I say, knowing that Josh will tell them the truth about what happened and wanting to give a more parent-friendly version instead. I’m dialing my home number when we pass a police car with its lights on, headed toward Ilana’s house. Followed by three more. Josh and I turn in our seats, watching as the first two pull into Ilana’s driveway and park. The third one turns into the driveway of the unfinished house and turns on its spotlight. Josh and I look at each other. “Looks like we left at the right time,” he says.
Unless Northwestern’s definition of a well-rounded applicant includes a police record for trespassing, then yes. We certainly did. I feel a momentary surge of gratitude for the four holes in my foot, but the feeling is quickly replaced by the dull throbbing that has taken over my whole body.
“So there was a two-by-four in the middle of the street?” my dad asks when I tell him the censored version of what happened. “Just lying there? With nails in it?”
“Yeah, it was crazy,” I say, keeping my voice casual. “They’re building a house next door, so maybe it fell off a truck or something.” Josh watches me as I relay this concocted story, then looks away. Does he think less of me for the lie? I can’t tell.
My parents are understandably concerned, especially since none of us can remember when I had my last tetanus shot. They agree that I need to go to the hospital and say they’ll meet us there.
“Drop Josh off,” I tell Caitlin. “It’s on the way.” This outing has already taken a weird turn. No need to cap it off by spending hours in an ER waiting room. Plus, it really is on the way—we’ll literally pass his house. Still, I expect Josh to protest, to insist on coming with me, but he doesn’t.
“So should we assume Tyler’s sleeping at Ilana’s tonight?” I ask, munching on a pretzel. I really mean “with,” not “at,” but for some reason the euphemism feels necessary.
Caitlin and I are sitting on a bed at Emory University Hospital, waiting for the doctor to return with my discharge papers. My nurse gave me a shot of “the good stuff” (her words, not mine) before cleaning the wound—thank God, because I swear they were using steel wool—so the pain has subsided to a subtle ache and my mood has radically improved. My parents left to track down the doctor, who said he’d be back in ten minutes an hour ago. Caitlin and I are sharing a bag of vending machine Chex Mix while she paints my toenails Fire-Engine Red (another gift from Nurse Nina).
“Who knows,” Caitlin says, her tone dismissive. She focuses on my big toe.
“Do you have feelings for him?” The question just pops out, catching even me by surprise. Apparently, my thought filter switched off when the painkillers kicked in.
“What? No. Why would you think that?” She’s believably adamant, but her voice sounds edgy. Like she’s nervous. Her face is angled down, her hair covering her eyes, so I can’t tell if she’s doing that rapid blinking thing she does when she’s lying.
“Just had a feeling you might,” I say. “If you don’t, you don’t.”
“I don’t,” she says.
“But if you did—”
She looks up at me. “I don’t.” The look on her face tells me she means it.
“Right. Of course you don’t.” I say this convincingly, but I am not convinced. My gut feeling is too powerful, too strong. There’s something between them, even if neither of them will admit it. “But can I just say I think you’d be a really good couple?”
“Abby. Drop it.”
Just then, the door opens and my parents reappear with the doctor, a perky little Argentinean man with giant hands.
“I guess I’ll take off,” Caitlin says, screwing the cap back onto the bottle of nail polish.
“Thanks for being here.” I squeeze her hand. Caitlin’s calm kept me calm. It always does.
As soon as she’s gone, the doctor starts in on his spiel. I’m only half listening. My eyelids are beginning to droop. I could probably fall asleep right here, while he’s talking. I will him to finish his speech.
“. . . immobilized for at least four weeks. No running or strenuous activity for at least eight—”
“Eight weeks?” I interrupt the man midsentence. “I can’t run for eight weeks? But I only have eight stitches. And it doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
The doctor chuckles like I’ve just made a joke. I give him a death stare. His brow furrows.
“Honey, it doesn’t hurt because they gave you a morphine shot,” my mom says gently. Ugh. Sometimes I loathe the soothing voice. My dagger eye shuts her up.
“Four nails went through your foot,” the doctor says, his voice almost as patronizing as the look he’s giving me. Yes, thank you, jackass, I’m aware of that. “You chipped two bones. You’re lucky they didn’t shatter.”
“What about cross-country?” I direct the question at my dad, the only person in the room who’s not irritating me right now. “Eight weeks is the whole season.” My voice sounds strained. Panicky.
“Ab—,” he begins. I don’t let him finish.
“I’m the captain of the team! There’s no way Coach P will let me keep the title if I’m not competing.”
“It sucks,” Dad says simply. “I get that. We all do. But it is what it is.” And with that bit of banality, he takes the air right out of my rage balloon.
“So,” the doctor says, smiling like we’re at the circus. “Pink gauze or white?”
I’m quiet on the drive home. Annoyed at myself, annoyed at Josh for not making me put my shoes on, annoyed at the construction worker who left nails on that step. Most annoyed at the universe for allowing a momentary lapse in judgment to have such a massive effect. Not running with the team this season means I now have only one extracurricular for my college applications: EIC of the Oracle. Without cross-country as a counterweight, I’ll seem tunnel-visioned and one-dimensional, which aren’t exactly qualities admissions officers look for. The worst part is, I have no backup plan. I’m on crutches for three weeks, so every other sport is out, and it’s not like I can just join some random club three weeks into the semester. I mean, I’m sure I can, but it’ll seem like I’m just doing it for my college applications. Which I am, but it’s not supposed to look that way.
My dad was right. This sucks.
To their credit, my parents leave me alone. They know me well enough to know that I am not in the mood to hear how it could have been worse or why having four nail-sized holes in my foot isn’t the end of the world. No doubt they’ll lay it on thick tomorrow, but tonight they’re kind enough to hold off. I spend the duration of the car ride glowering at the cocoon of pink gauze on my foot and wishing I could rewind my life.
As we’re pulling into the driveway, my phone rings. JOSH—CELL.
“You answered,” he says when I pick up. “I figured I’d get your voicemail. Are you still at the hospital?”
“Nope. Just pulled into my driveway.”
“What’s the damage?”
“Eight stitches. Crutches for three weeks. No cross-country for the rest of the season.” I say this mechanically, as if the diagnosis belongs to someone else.
“Oh, no. Really? You’re out for the whole season?”
The sympathy in his voice pushes me over the edge. Blinking back tears, all I can do is nod.
“Abby?”
I cough. I read somewhere that coughing physically prevents you from crying. Is once enough, or do you have to keep doing it? I don’t want to take any chances, so I cough a few more times for good measure. My mom glances back at me, eyebrows raised. I wave her away.
“Are you okay?” Josh asks.
“Fine,” I say, relieved that the coughing seems to have done the trick. “Bummed. But fine. I’ll get over it.” As untrue as this may be, it sounds good. “Well, I guess I should probably go,” I tell him. “My parents are sitting in the car, waiting to help me into the house since we don’t have my crutches yet.”
“Okay, well . . . I’m really sorry about tonight. I feel like it’s my fault. I never should’ve let—I just should’ve known better.” He sounds annoyed. I can’t tell whether it’s with me or himself.
“Next time we’ll stay indoors,” I say.
Josh is quiet on the end of the line. No suggestion for when “next time” might be. No offer to stop by tomorrow to check on me. Just an awkward two seconds while I absorb the fact that any interest Astronomy Boy had in me evaporated along with my cross-country career.
“I should go,” I tell him. My voice sounds flat. My parents look at each other, no doubt noticing my abrupt change in tone.
“See you Monday?” he says.
“Yep,” I say dully and hang up on him.
“Everything okay?” Mom asks.
“You mean other than the fact that I spent the last three years busting my butt to be captain, only to have it snatched away by a stupid nail?”
“Technically it was four nails,” my dad points out.
I glare at him. “Thank you. Can we go inside now?”
Dad sighs. “Sure.” He gets out of the car and opens the back door.
“I know you’re upset,” my mom says sympathetically. “But things’ll look better in the morning. They always do.”
Yeah. Except when they don’t.