I tried not to be jealous, I tried to be happy, but I must have winced. I couldn’t help thinking, That could have been me, too.
“Qué pasa?” Coop asked again, studying my face.
I nodded toward Maddie, hoping he would get it.
He did.
“I’m about to head home,” Coop said. “Do you want a ride?”
“Oh, I think Maddie was going to drop me off later…”
Coop glanced at Maddie. “You really want to wait that out?”
Maddie was ripping the sleeves off the Emory sweatshirt, because she hates sleeves. When she was done, Maddie’s aunt took the sleeves and waved them around over her head. Maddie put on her hood and pretended to throw a few jabs at her aunt. Her aunt slapped her with a sleeve and they chased each other around the yard.
“Yeah, it looks like it’s going to be a long night.” I looked at Coop, and we laughed.
I put the present I had brought for Maddie on her dining room table—a set of brand-new Remington Virtually Indestructible hair clippers I found online—and we slipped out the back door.
Coop and I hopped in his Blazer.
“When are you supposed to be home?” he asked as he turned the ignition.
“Not for another couple hours,” I said. We still had about an hour of sunlight left, those shadowy hours where it was still warm in the light, cool in the dark. Just a couple more hours of freedom. I put on my seat belt.
Coop glanced at me as we pulled out onto the highway. “Want to go to the Potholes?”
I considered it. But going to the swimming hole with Coop probably meant going to the Potholes with everyone. Plus, he’d probably want to “relax,” and I wasn’t going to take any more risks with mentally compromised people operating vehicles. “Nah,” I said. “I can’t party anymore. Too many cookies.” Coop let out a laugh. “I’m wasted,” I added in a fake-drunk voice, which made him laugh more.
“Well, I meant just stop by. Chill. For old times’ sake.”
The air smelled so good, so clean, and almost wet. I wasn’t lying when I told Stuart it was my favorite part of living here.
“Okay,” I said, and Coop slowed down to turn the Blazer around. “Can I invite Stuart?”
Coop didn’t answer right away.
“You’d like him if you got to know him,” I said, flicking him in the shoulder.
“Sure,” Coop said, and smiled at me with his lips closed.
By the time we exited off Highway 89 and parked near the banks, Stuart had texted that he couldn’t come, he was working, but he’d call me later.
“Well, looks like it’s just you and me, Coop,” I told him.
I leaned on him as we climbed from rock to rock, until we were in the middle of the little falls, watching the streams split and meet again along the boulders. We talked about when we were kids before phones and social media, when we knew what boredom felt like. This was before either of our parents could afford summer camp, and basically used us as glorified babysitters. We got so bored, we did some weird shit. I mean, all kid stuff, but kind of messed up all the same.
We were cracking up, reminiscing about the time we told Bette she was actually a ghost, when Coop asked me, “When did we stop being friends?”
“Hm.” I took a deep breath. “Besides the day you got kicked off the baseball team?” I saw his eyes that day, what had sunk inside him.
“Oh, yeah,” Coop said quickly. “Yeah,” he repeated. “Thanks for…” He paused, clearing his throat. “Thanks for not telling anyone.”
I swallowed. Something told me, Not now. “I would never… yeah. I never told anyone at school,” I half lied.
“But I mean before that.” He was right. That was only the last straw on the camel’s back.
“I think it was a gradual thing, but I remember one time…” I said. Cooper turned to face me, his arms perched on his knees, listening. “Freshman year. Even before you got… you left the team. I remember you were supposed to come over and help me watch the kids, and you never showed. Then you never said sorry. You didn’t answer my calls for, like, a month. And I was, like, screw it.”
“Huh.” Coop looked down at his hands, picking at invisible dirt.
“And you had moved your seat in Spanish so you could sit next to Sara Gilmore. So it was weird to try to talk to you at school.”
Coop shrugged his shoulders, twisting his mouth a little, searching for what to say. I waited for the excuses I figured he would make, how he got busy, or how I was kind of a know-it-all (I was). But he could have at least said something.
“I was a little asshole,” Cooper said.
“You were.” I nodded, and found myself giggling a bit out of triumph. “Sorry, it’s just nice to hear you admit that.”
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say something, and then closed it. He stood up and leapt to another rock. He put his hands on his hips, and then raised a fist to the sky.