I gave him a cursory nod and brushed past him to the bathroom, got rid of the last gut heaves, and washed my face.
When we first went to Hanover, Coop and I carpooled together, clean and prepared and nervous out of our goddamn minds, sitting side by side in his mom’s car, and I don’t know. Something happened, gradually, and all at once. Maybe we had nothing in common besides the imaginary games we used to make up about magic. Maybe we grew apart because Coop pushed out long, muscular legs from where his chubby Band-Aid-covered knees used to be, and broad shoulders came out of his Batman shirt, and cheekbones poked out of his cheeks, and none of that growing ever happened to me. I was too weird and ugly to be around him, a little scrub bush to his mighty oak. Coop became a star pitcher and made friends with the popular kids; I became a debater and made friends with no one. It was meant to be, probably. I used to read fantasy books during his Little League games.
His freshman year, Coop made All-State after pitching four no-hitters. Then, shortly before the State championship, he was kicked off Hanover’s varsity team for smoking weed. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who knows that. The day it happened, I found him on the border between our two properties, playing a video game on his little Nintendo thing, still wearing his Hanover cap. I could tell he’d been crying.
“What happened?” I asked.
He pulled out the disciplinary letter from his pocket.
“Well,” I said. “That’s what you get,” like I had told him when he broke his leg after jumping off a high wall when he was seven. I laughed as I read the letter, as if we would forget about it the next day and we would play again.
But when I looked for his eyes to say, Hey, just joking, no big deal, I’m really sorry, I remember I couldn’t find them. His eyes were there, but it was like something had sunk behind his pupils.
I even said aloud, “Hey, just kidding, you’ll be fine…”
But he had already started to turn away. I remember thinking, We aren’t good enough friends to joke like that anymore, I guess.
“This is yours!” I called out, still holding the letter. “You probably need to give it to your parents.”
He turned back and snatched it, then walked away to the other side of the mountain and didn’t answer when I called him, so I stopped calling.
At school, the general rumor was that he quit, and I kept it that way. Our silence grew and grew, he moved desks in the one class we had together, and pretty soon he got his Chevy Blazer and I got Dad’s truck and we didn’t have to carpool anymore.
When I came back out of the church bathroom, I did not expect to find Coop waiting for me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, and I almost wasn’t sure he was talking to me. His eyes were on his phone.
“Yeah! Totally.”
I kept walking, but he didn’t return to the sanctuary. I threw a quick “Thanks!” over my shoulder.
“Hey, wait,” Coop called. “I’m gonna get some air. You wanna come?”
“Oh, um…”
I froze and looked at him. Coop looked out of place at church—I mean, so did I, but it’s different. At least I wore my dress (that really just looks like a huge shirt)—he was wearing a tank top emblazoned with THAT GOOD GOOD (who knows what “that good good” even is?) revealing his Mr. Clean arms, and it appeared he hadn’t brushed or cut his shoulder-length honey hair in a while. But it was the same Cooper whose house I used to go to for lunch after we played all day in the summertime, swimming in our underwear at the Potholes, fighting over the last Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper in the Strafford general store.
“We’ve got about”—Coop looked at his phone—“about twenty minutes.”
“Cool.”
I followed him outside into the spring night, where we landed in the center of a circle of benches out front, in the shadow of OLPH’s enormous white cross. Coop pulled a spliff out of his pocket.
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…” I began.
“Amen,” Coop finished, and sparked the tip, and we laughed a little.
We stood in silence while he smoked.
I didn’t really know what to say.
“So how the hell are you?” he asked after an exhale.
“Uh… fine.”
“Want some?” he asked, leaning the spliff in my direction.
“No!”
“Okay, fine, I don’t know, maybe you started to relax a little, I don’t know…” Coop said, laughing from that place between his chest and his belly like he does when he knows no one else thinks his joke is funny.
“I don’t need weed to relax,” I told him, straight out of a PSA, but also, straight out of my heart.
“What does Sammie McCoy do to relax?” he asked.
“I watch The West Wing. I also like to clean my room. Sometimes I’ll—”
“Why were you crying?” he interrupted.
“First of all, don’t interrupt me. You, of all people, should know that.”