Jeremy’s parents weren’t home on Saturday morning. His white Civic was the only car in the driveway, so I found the hidden house key under the rock in the flowerbed and let myself in. I could have knocked, but I wasn’t entirely sure he would answer, and after two days of not speaking, I missed him.
I found Jeremy in his bedroom, bent over a thick binder at his desk. I waited as he applied adhesive to a newspaper clipping and smoothed it against the page.
“Wow, that’s quite a project.” I craned my head over his shoulder. “What is it?”
He didn’t look up. He knew it was me, and I didn’t need to see his face to know how he felt about that. The minute he heard my voice, he sagged. He always slouched in school, as if his shoulders bore the weight of the social tiers above him, but something inside me broke to see him bend at the sound of my voice.
He didn’t turn around. “It’s my portfolio.”
“Can I see it?”
He pushed it toward me. I picked up the book and turned the pages, pausing to admire the articles, ordered chronologically, beginning with the first day of school. Each school event had been photographed and memorialized. The name Jeremy Fowler appeared beneath each one.
“It’s fantastic. How many are there?”
“One for every school event this year.”
“What’s it for?”
“My application to the journalism program at Syracuse.” He looked up at me, deep creases in his brow. For a moment, neither of us spoke. I set the portfolio on his desk. “Syracuse? What happened to University of Maryland?” “Changed my mind.” He stroked the binder and closed the cover.
“Your mom must be happy.”
He fingered the edge of a blue-and-orange admissions folder, and didn’t look up.
“Why are you leaving?”
He choked out a harsh laugh. “Are you going to give me a reason to stay?”
There was a dare in his eyes. They asked questions he was too afraid to voice out loud because he already knew the answer. He wanted more than what we had. More than I could give him. I didn’t know what to say. I set my backpack on his floor and dropped onto the bed. My own selfish desires collided with what was best for him. If he went to Maryland, Jeremy and I would stay close, but not the way he wanted.
I reached into my backpack and held out an unopened pouch of Twinkies. He stared at them, puzzled. “What’s this for?” he asked.
“For standing you up on Friday.” The plastic sleeve crinkled, a small sound that felt louder in the silence while I waited for him to accept both the gift and the apology.
He turned back to his work. “I know you’ve got a boyfriend. I get that you don’t need me to drive you anymore.”
“He’s not . . . Reece isn’t . . .” I stammered, shook my head, too afraid of losing him to pile on one more lie. But I’d made a deal with Reece. “It’s not like that, Jeremy.”
“Did he break up with you or something?” There was a glimmer of hope beneath the sarcasm, and I hated myself for disappointing him again.
“No, I just told him I needed some space.”
Jeremy’s lips moved, started to form words and then paused as if he’d changed his mind.
“Forget it. It’s none of my business.” He turned back to his desk, opened his iPad, and began scrolling through photos. I was about to answer him, to tell him he was being ridiculous, when one photo made me pause.
“Wait, flip back,” I said, reaching over him to brush a finger across the screen. I scrolled backward through a few shots of a soccer game and the pep rally at school and stopped at a photo of two people, locked in an embrace. “Is that Emily Reinnert?” Her long blond ponytail gave her away, but who was she kissing? I couldn’t make out his face, but he was too tall to be TJ. And he wasn’t wearing a leg brace. I parted the curtain over Jeremy’s bedroom window and held the iPad up against the house across the street—Vince’s house. It was a match to the front porch in the photo. “When was this taken?”
Jeremy shrugged. “About three months ago, I think.”
“Does TJ know?”
“Of course he does. Why do you think I took it?” He snatched the tablet from my hands. “What better way is there to express my appreciation for all those years of humiliation and public beat-downs? I gave a copy of the picture to TJ. He was pissed! Completely lost it. You should have seen him.”
“What happened?”
“I kept waiting for him to pick a fight with Vince and break up with Emily. But nothing happened. Instead, Vince and Emily started fighting, and TJ and Emily made up and got over it. Nobody’s mentioned it since.”