I wrap a towel around my head and pull on the graduation dress Leigh lent me: a crisp white sheath with a white-jeweled neckline. I blow-dry my hair and straighten it. I find the fake pearls that Mom bought for my thirteenth birthday. I haven’t worn earrings in years, and it takes too long to snake the posts through my ears.
I stand in front of the full-length mirror in the bathroom. I look normal (pretty, even, which should feel better). I look like a girl with a future, with a next step. But it’s a lie. There is nowhere to go from here. Call the cops, tip them off, and Wil could go to prison. Keep my mouth shut, and this secret will erode us slowly. I turn away from the mirror and hurry down the stairs.
“Happy graduation to you, happy graduation to you! Happy graduuuaaaation, dear Briiiidget! Happy graduation to yooooouuuuu!” Mom and Micah bellow from the kitchen when they hear me.
My breath catches when I see what they’ve done. Purple streamers wind from the front door to the kitchen faucet and back again. Someone (Mom) tied streamers to the spinning ceiling fan, which will mean a call to the landlord later. The floor is blanketed with so many balloons, there is nowhere to step. Mom blew up my senior picture into several unnecessary posters, and they’re plastered on every available surface. I love the two of them, hard.
“Happy graduation, firstborn.” Mom hands me a plate of Funfetti waffles. “You look beautiful, honey.”
“You guys!” I set the plate on the steps and pull them both in. Micah obliges me for a full two seconds. “I can’t believe you did all of this!”
“Come on.” Mom grabs two more plates from the counter. “We’re having breakfast in bed. Like a sick day in quotes.”
We pile onto the pullout in the living room. Micah says, “I swear to God, if you guys tell anyone about this . . .” but I haven’t seen him smile like this in months. We stuff ourselves with waffles and Mom tells us school stories that we’d forgotten years ago, like how Micah caught a lizard (Bernard) on his first day in Florida and kept it in his desk with a peanut-butter cracker and a Dixie cup of Capri Sun, until the kid next to him noticed the smell.
And then Mom gets serious around the eyes. She tells the story of my second day here. How I came home just in time for dinner, glowing with aloe and stories about a boy and his dad who made sailboats. How when she tucked me in that night, I asked if people got married on boats. She stops halfway through the story because she can’t, and I can’t, and even Micah coughs and says he needs to shower. He takes our plates into the kitchen and runs upstairs.
I tuck into Mom and we pull the covers up. She combs my hair with her fingers. I lean into her and close my eyes. I am happy, full, content enough to forget about Wil for a fraction of a second. But then I hear the doorbell, and I slide out from under the covers and he’s standing on the other side of the door, holding flowers. Tulips.
“I fancy you,” he says, kisses me.
I kiss him back. I let myself pretend that I’m an Ordinary Girl and he’s an Ordinary Boy and this is an Ordinary Special Day. I hold on to the feeling for as long as I can. I want to make it last.
WIL
Summer, Senior Year
WE don’t speak on the way to school and I get it, but, God, I wish she would say something. It doesn’t even have to be real. We could talk about the weather, about how this heat is the wet kind that sneaks down your throat and into your lungs. We could talk about what we ate for breakfast or we could guess how many last names the principal will screw up. I don’t need her to say the real things: that she loves me, that she understands why I did what I did, that it will be hard, but we’ll find a way. Because we are us, and that’s enough. I can wait for those things. I’ll wait forever.
“It’s hot,” I say as I snake the parking lot rows, looking for a forgotten spot. Girls in white dresses that are too short and too tight hobble toward the gym in heels. The ones who aren’t naturally tan are spray-tanned (Kylie Mitchell! I think, and I want to tell Bridge). The guys look just as uncomfortable in khakis and shoes that aren’t flip flops. I catch a glimpse of Ana in this nightgown-looking dress that’s short in the front and long in the back. I can’t remember us. I can’t remember anything other than Bridge and me, because nothing else is important.
Bridge murmurs at the window. “I think you’re gonna have to park on the street.”
“Yeah.” I find the closest street parking, just a block from the water, and I get this crazy idea to take her hands in mine and look into the deepest part of her and say, Screw this. Let’s just go to the beach, you and me, and swim out as far as we can. It’s a stupid thought, an embarrassing Real Me thought, the kind of thing that only happens in movies. People don’t ditch their high-school graduations for the ocean. People sit quietly and smile when they get their diploma. People pretend that this is the shit that matters, that this is some kind of Big Life Moment.
Bullshit.
A Big Life Moment is standing over your drunk father with a golf club. A Big Life Moment is circling the police station six times in your truck, telling yourself to grow a pair and go inside. Tell them what really happened. Fix this.
I reach for her hand as we walk toward school, and she lets me take it. Her hand is small and cool and dry. I think that’s a good sign, somehow.
“Are you, ah, doing anything after this?” I ask, looking straight ahead.
“I don’t know. Minna’s in the hospital. I might go see her.”
“Is she gonna be okay?’
“I don’t know, really,” she says. “Hey, did you ever get to know Ned Reilly?” Her hair is whipping around her face, a sunset in a million strands. My throat shrinks, and I want to tell her how sorry I am, but sorry isn’t the word. There isn’t a word for this.
“Not really. How come?”
“He’s giving the valedictorian speech today and he’s just, like, a nice guy. And I’ve been thinking about high school and about how many people I don’t know and how I lost a lot of time for really stupid reasons.”
I don’t know if she’s talking about us, and I’m too tired to ask.