After spending the entire morning cleaning up condiments from the crevices in our kitchen, and our bodies, I hole up in my home office and set to work. Operation Fill in the Gaps.
Admittedly, I get a little distracted by the “wedding stuff” folder on my desktop. Adult me is seriously organized, with at least twenty separate files for things like “catering” and “dress inspo.” There’s even a folder with a seating plan. I double-click and do a quick scan, fascinated. It seems most of the guests are Renner’s extended family. They take up two long tables at the front. My family table is relatively small, with Mom and my grandparents next to Alexandra and my two sisters. I expect Dad to be seated next to them, but he isn’t.
My eyes strain as I scan the remainder of the tables for his name. Leave it to Dad to ditch out on his daughter’s wedding. We must really be on bad terms if his new wife and kids are invited and not him. Then again, I’m not sure why I’m shocked. Dad’s absence is expected. But not Kassie’s. Remembering that sends me reeling again. I do another once-over of the chart. There’s definitely no seat for Kassie.
It’s time to find out why.
Social media stalking used to be our thing. Kassie and I would lie in my bed for hours on our phones, creeping our crushes’ social media accounts four years deep. Admittedly, poring through Kassie’s social media profiles like an FBI agent is a solid distraction from thinking about Dad and the fact that we’re stuck here in 2037. We’re still friends on most platforms, though a quick perusal confirms that we haven’t interacted in years.
Kassie’s lived an interesting life, compared to me. Not that I expected anything less. Right after high school, her feeds are filled with party photos. Glamorously posing behind a bar, modeling, and doing TikTok routines with gorgeous friends I don’t recognize.
She lives in the city now, though she’s done a lot of traveling too. Backpacking in South America and Europe. Her content has changed a bit since her travels. She’s wearing less makeup, and her hair is naturally wavy—she never wore it that way before. It was always purposefully styled with a wand or flat iron. It seems she’s now interested in a holistic lifestyle. She owns a yoga studio, something I never knew she was even vaguely interested in.
It feels like I’m creeping the profile of a complete stranger, not my best friend in the entire world. And it gets me no closer to my biggest question: Why aren’t we friends anymore?
Finding the address for her yoga studio is easy enough. According to her online schedule, she’s teaching a class today at four thirty. My fingers buzz, pleased with discovery. Maybe I should have been a spy instead of a school counselor. I’d be a good one. Maybe that’s one plus side of being average. No one would ever suspect me.
As I research trains to the city, Renner tentatively pokes his head into my office. “Miss, I’d like to request an appointment.”
I straighten my posture and feign professionalism. “You’ve come to the right place. I’m highly qualified.”
I hear a soft chuckle as he settles into the chair across from my desk and stretches his long legs.
“What can I help you with today, Joshua?”
He coughs violently. “Did you really just call me by my proper birth name?”
When I nod, he proceeds to slide off the chair, hand over heart like the drama queen he is. “I’m floored. And a little touched.”
I level him with an eyeroll. “Don’t get used to it.”
“Come on. Say it again,” he pleads.
“No.”
“Just once and I’ll never ask again.”
I shake my head. “Why?”
“I dunno. It’s hot,” he says with a shrug.
That catches me off guard. “Are you trying to flirt with me right now, Joshua?” I ask with a scrutinizing eye. Is it just me, or is this room suddenly ten degrees hotter?
“If I were flirting with you, you’d know it.” He maintains strong eye contact, and I feel like the walls are contracting. Something pulses between us, like an elastic band being pulled tighter and tighter from either end.
“I’m immune to your charms, remember?” I twitch when those words slip out. Why did that feel like a lie?
Renner waves me off and reaches for the yellow stress ball near the base of my monitor, seemingly unbothered. “Yeah, yeah. So you keep telling me.”
“I think I’m skipping prom-chaperone duty tonight,” I tell him, desperate to rid the room of this weird tension. It might require some ceremonial sage burning.
He covers his mouth, scandalized. “You’re skipping prom? What for?”
“I’m gonna go see Kassie. Right now.”
Renner’s flirty disposition quickly turns serious. “Really? Right now?”
“Yeah. She has a yoga studio in the city. If I catch the train in half an hour, I can make it to her class at four thirty.”
He looks concerned. “Do you . . . need me to go with you?”
I contemplate the offer. Truthfully, having someone with me for moral support might be nice. But what if Kassie turns me away? Yells at me? I don’t need anyone there to witness that. And if I’m being truthful, I want to talk to her about Renner, which I can’t do if he’s tagging along. “No, it’s okay. Besides, one of us has to chaperone.”
He dips his head back and groans. “Ugh.” I’d forgotten too until I received a calendar reminder (from myself) a couple minutes ago. My adult self is really on the ball. “But it’s only noon. You’d be back on time, right?”
“Oh, come on. Mr. Former President surely has it covered,” I tease, just to get a rise out of him.
He shakes his head, eyes wide with fear. “Nope. I absolutely do not. I need you.”
That admission shouldn’t make me smile so hard. But it does. And I don’t like it one bit. “Okay, fine. I’ll make sure I’m back on time.”
TWENTY-ONE
I never thought I’d find myself hiding behind a potted monstera plant, creeping my best friend in her yoga studio. But here I am. Horribly out of place.
In my defense, I was casually seated in the lobby, eavesdropping on two yogis talking about balancing chakras and exercise mats made exclusively of hemp. Then Kassie came whirling around the corner in a blinding neon-pink workout getup.
She’s in deep conversation with a sweaty dude with a skull-and-bones tattoo emblazoned on his thick bicep. I may have caught a glimpse of a scalp tattoo as well, but it’s hard to tell from this angle.
Despite her typical flirty eyes, Kassie seems trapped in the conversation. I can tell by the way she’s chewing at the corner of her lip and tightening her sleek ponytail.
While her mannerisms are generally the same, I notice some slight differences. What was once a button nose is now perfectly slender with the slightest turn at the end. Her round cheeks have slimmed as well. She’s still lean and fit, though yoga has really toned her arms.
Her differences remind me of my own. I clasp my C-cup boobs, my first reminder that I was still trapped in this hellscape this morning.
My mind tornadoes as I watch Kassie. It’s impossible to make sense of any of this. I think about what Nori said, about how maybe I should leave well enough alone. Is it desperate and creepy that I took a train all the way to the city to talk to her? Probably. And what if she hates me? What if she banishes me from her studio in front of all these innocent, peaceful yogis?
As that terrifying thought flickers through my mind, I lose my balance and fall straight into the potted plant. I watch in horror as the plant topples forward, soil flying every which way across the gleaming oak floor.
Kassie’s eyes snap to mine.
I’m still holding on to my C cups when Kassie says, “Char?” Her vibrant eyes bore into mine. They’re still the same. The shade of those blue Jolly Ranchers we used to eat that stained our entire mouths. One time after we ate them, Kassie’s crush texted her to hang out, and we spent a good fifteen minutes frantically trying to brush the blue from her teeth.