“So you’re saying I can’t stay here?”
“I’m saying you don’t want to stay here,” Emma replied diplomatically.
They were wedged into the kiddie-sized seats of the Schroeders’ backyard jungle gym, pushing themselves back and forth with their feet as they talked. There wasn’t enough clearance for their full-grown legs to really swing, but they’d opted for the location to get some privacy once it became clear that if they stayed inside, Mrs. Schroeder wouldn’t leave them alone. She’d glommed onto Chloe from the moment she entered the house, peppering her with questions about what Chloe knew of the crisis (nothing) and how her parents were handling it (by getting shitfaced, although Chloe kept that to herself).
“I’d rather be here than at my place,” Chloe told her friend. “I could sleep on your couch. Or in John’s bedroom.” Emma’s older brother was a sophomore at Tulane, which made it unlikely he’d be coming home unannounced.
“Trust me that you don’t actually want to be under the same roof as my mom,” Emma replied. “The only thing standing between her and a total breakdown is the Klonopin. And she’s running out of Klonopin.”
“She can’t be as bad as my mom,” Chloe insisted.
“She is, though. The thing is? All the adults are losing their shit over this. Capitalism’s dying! And it’s the only ideology they’ve never known. They’re not going to be able to adapt.”
“What does this have to do with capitalism?”
“Ohmygod, are you kidding? Everything. This is totally the moment where the whole system collapses under the weight of its own contradictions.”
Chloe could feel the anxiety rising up inside her. “So, like . . . what does that mean for our college applications?”
“Dude.” Emma shook her head gravely. “If shit goes down like I think it will? There’s no college. It’s just about survival. We gotta figure out how to, like, grow our own food and shit.”
Chloe began to cry.
Emma immediately moved to comfort her. “Ohmygod! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
Chloe put her head in her hands and sobbed. She couldn’t help it. The idea that everything she’d had spent the last three years building toward could all go up in smoke was just too much.
“Do you know how hard I worked? And it’s just going to go away?”
“Maybe I’m wrong! Seriously.” Emma hugged her tightly through the swing ropes, which dug into Chloe’s arm. “Don’t cry! It’s okay! It might not be that bad. Like, maybe it’ll be over by tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry,” Chloe sniffled, drying her tears on her sleeve once she’d managed to stop crying. “It’s just . . . guuuugh.”
“I know,” Emma agreed. “It’s a lot. But I’m probably wrong! Y’know? Like, I bet it’ll actually be over soon.”
Chloe managed to corral her emotions, but the outburst had left behind a heavy lump of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.
What am I going to do?
Thank God for Josh.
“I just hope I can stay with Josh till this is over.”
Emma winced. “Dude.”
“What?”
“You hooked up with him once. Like, yesterday.”
“I know! But . . . it’s just, like, the chemistry’s really good between us.”
“Yeah. Well—that’s what I thought about Jeremy Friedrich.”
Chloe stiffened. This was a completely unfair comparison.
“Just because Jeremy was a dick doesn’t mean Josh is, too.”
“But think about it—how long did it take me to realize Jeremy was a dick? Like, months.”
“I tried to tell you.”
“Yeah, at the end. At the beginning, you thought he was awesome, too!”
Chloe tried to remember if there was ever a time when she’d thought Emma’s ex was awesome. “Not even! There was that time we all went for ice cream—”
“That was, like, months into it.”
“Was it?”
“Yes! And this is my point. You can’t always tell if a guy’s a shithead after one hookup. Or even ten. Sometimes they’re, like, stealth shitheads.”
“Whatever.” Chloe sighed and shook her head. Emma was starting to annoy her. She’d just tried to take Chloe’s future away. Now she was trying to take Josh away, too.
But there was no point in arguing. It was just too hard to put into words the connection she and Josh had forged, especially since it had mostly been nonverbal.
Emma was probably just jealous. She hadn’t gotten with anybody in months. And her opinion didn’t matter. It was almost late enough to show up at Josh’s without seeming desperate. Once Chloe was there, she could make up her own mind.