Sinking to the floor, I grab the ends of my hair and blink hard. I’m shaking, and I can’t stop. I want to vomit. I want to kick my desk apart.
I’m a coward, because I can’t bring myself to know the truth. If they’ve all helped me, I can’t live with the humiliation. But the doubt is already there, and I know it will never go away. I can try to be the best person I can be, but the world only wants to see one side of me. And I feel sick to my bones.
“HERE’S TO MOONEY!”
“Mooney!”
We all cheer, holding our drinks high in honor of our friend. Mooney, whose real name is Joseph Schwartz, beams, his round face and cherubic curls gleaming in the light over the poker table.
“Yeah, yeah.” He turns pink.
The blush grows when his girlfriend, Jin, gives him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “So humble, my man.”
Outside, it has started to rain; inside it’s warm, pizza and beer scenting the air. I’m hanging with my old study group, playing poker and celebrating that Mooney got a 180 on his LSAT. Though the group disbanded last year, and we rarely see each other, we’ve known each other since we were freshmen, and this meeting is bittersweet now that we’re in our last year.
“You still want to go to Tulane, buddy?” Pete asks him before taking a swig of his beer.
Mooney, having spent Mardi Gras in New Orleans two years ago, has it set in his head that he’s going to law school there. Not to Harvard or Princeton or whatever eastern Ivy League college his parents had their hearts set on.
Still a bit pink about the cheeks, Mooney runs his hand through his overlong brown curls. “If they’ll have me, yeah.”
“If?” Pete grins his sexy-Taye Diggs-has-got-nothing-on-me grin and clamps a Twizzler between his even teeth. “I wouldn’t doubt that, my friend. You are sitting pretty.”
Pete is sitting pretty himself, having sat for the MCATs in July and aced them. Not that anyone was surprised. He’s brilliant. And has his own plans. It will be Johns Hopkins all the way for him. The first of his family to go to college, much less med school.
Other than Pete, Mooney, and Jin, also headed for law school, the group includes John, who wants to be a writer, and me. So then, I’m the only one who hasn’t got a clue or a master plan.
“Pete’s right. They’d be crazy to turn you down.” Jin leans against Mooney, giving his arm a squeeze. They’re so cute together. Always touching, always making each other smile.
I glance at the window, where crystalline drops of rain pepper the glass. Conversation hums around me, comforting and familiar. But there’s a push against my skin from the inside, as if I’m trying to break free from my body and travel outside of myself. Mooney’s next words pull me from my fog.
“So I…we,” he glances toward Jin and blushes again, “have more news.” He turns beet red as his hand settles over Jin’s. “We’re getting married.”
Silence falls so swiftly that the sound of someone’s stomach gurgling rings out. If my face looks like everyone else’s, I’m gaping like a fish. Jin and Mooney wince as one, their happy smiles falling, and I force my mouth to move. “You guys! Congratulations.”
The rest snap out their shock.
John clears his throat. “Uh, yeah, congrats.” It’s obvious he thinks they’re insane. And maybe we all do. Married? Now?
Jin narrows her eyes at us. “You all think we’re crazy, don’t you?”
Busted.
“No,” Pete protests weakly. He sits up higher in his seat. “No, Jin. We all know you two belong together.”
She snorts but looks slightly mollified. “Well, duh. Otherwise we wouldn’t be doing it. Besides, we’ll qualify for married student housing.” But that’s not why. The true reason is written in the way she looks at Mooney. The way he looks back. They just know.
I’m in awe of their faith in each other. Their bravery.