The trick, I knew, was to keep moving. I circled the perimeter of the cafeteria, reaching into my pocket to feel the edges of a folded-up postcard I’d gotten from Kendall. No regrets and all that, she’d written on the back of a London aerial photo.
At one table, I spotted Lukas and Brady with a few of their friends. They were busy peering at someone’s phone and didn’t see me. There, too, were Kendall’s newspaper pals, who suddenly looked so much nicer than I’d pegged them, but their table was full.
A dark, shaggy head flickered in my peripheral vision. I turned on instinct, saw only the crowd around the condiment station. Then I remembered that boy from last year who’d seemed so teasingly familiar. Great. Maybe I could pay him to cut his hair.
Finally, I zeroed in on a corner table that was only two-thirds full of juniors. I slid into a seat at the farthest possible end, not making eye contact. I heard them stop talking for a moment to establish that I was nobody worth acknowledging, then continue.
The meek crinkle of a paper bag. A bite of tuna sandwich. A drink of milk. Come on, Ari. This is just lunchtime in your cafeteria in your school. It means nothing about anything.
So why did I feel like crying?
Yeah, this was going to be bad.
Suddenly, someone threw themselves into the seat across from me, making the whole table shake.
I glanced up, annoyed.
The boy leveled his green eyes at me. Eyes the color of a diving board, on a dock at a lake that felt so far away, it would have taken the Arrow One a hundred light-years to get there.
I looked into those eyes and all I could say was, “Oh, crap.”
Camden smiled, all his features bright and blinding.
“Hi, Ari.”
I put down my sandwich and rested my palms on the table, needing to feel something solid beneath them.
“What . . . are you doing here?”
Camden searched my face, but I wasn’t sure what he was looking for. “Fifth period lunch, just like you,” he said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket—a class schedule—and consulting it. “Then, AP History.”
“Oh. Me, too.” I couldn’t think of anything non-idiotic to say.
We stared at each other as I processed the fact of him existing in front of me, the class schedule with his name on it.
He swallowed, clearly nervous. “So. I was reading in the student manual that seniors can leave campus during their free periods. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” I said, glad to be asked a simple question with a simple answer.
Camden cleared his throat, stood up, and offered his hand. “Then, let’s go.”
The kids at the other end of the table turned to watch, suddenly alert to a happening.
“Go where?” I whispered. “We’ve only got, like, half an hour left of this period.”
He moved closer, around the end of the table, his hand still outstretched. “Ari, this is me stepping up. Giving back. Following the rules and doing the work.”
I started to draw a deep breath, but it fell apart into a sob.
“Don’t do that,” said Camden. “Or do that, but also take my goddamn hand.”
I took his goddamn hand. Still warm, with suddenly lots to say to mine. I guess they had some catching up to do. He pulled me to standing and led me through the cafeteria, past all those eyes watching us. Out the doors to the parking lot. Toward his car.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“Wherever you want to go.” He paused as he slowed his pace so we were walking side by side. “What’s someplace we’ve never been together?”
As soon as he said that, I knew.
When we pulled up to Scoop-N-Putt, the first thing we saw was a big sign across the closed Order Here window. We both climbed out of the car to get a closer look.
Fall Hours: 5 P.M. TO 10 P.M.
“Great,” I said. “I completely forgot about that.”
“Eh, that’s just a technicality,” said Camden. He sat down on the hood of his car and patted the spot next to him. I crawled up, rested my feet on the front bumper. “Chocolate?” he asked, his eyes dancing, curling one hand to hold an imaginary ice cream cone, then the other. “Or vanilla?”
I laughed and pointed to the chocolate hand. He handed me my “cone.”
We sat there, not knowing what to do next, watching the traffic on 299 speed by. Where were all these people going in the middle of a Tuesday? I hoped it was someplace that made them happy.
Then, Camden reached down and laced his fingers through mine.
“What happened to your ice cream?” I teased.
He smiled and shrugged. “Nothing’s better than the real stuff.”
I felt the pressure of his palm against my palm, his forearm nudging my elbow, and realized he wasn’t talking about soft serve.
All those fantasy nights I’d had that first summer, the dreams that made me sweat and ache. This right here, this was the moment. The point where I always woke up alone.
So now, a different kind of waking up, where you do it again and again, and feel the glory of it each time. Not a gift but rather, something you’ve earned.
“Hey,” said Camden, leaning his head against mine and looking off toward the mini-golf course. “Is that gnome giving us the finger?”