OVER SPRING BREAK THE next week, I focus on AP exams, feeling increasingly overwhelmed with the quantity of reviewing hours facing me. I repurpose an entire half of my whiteboard into a color-coded nightmare of a plan for the next two weeks. No minute is wasted. Whenever I’m eating breakfast, I’m reading my Princeton Review guides. When I walk to get coffee, I’m listening to an audiobook for AP English. When I’m home, I rarely leave my room, permitting myself only half-hour dinners with my family, repeating presidential powers and differential equations in my head the entire time.
I make flashcards in the garage while Jamie practices with her band, who have dubbed themselves the Stragglers. They’re not horrible. Jamie’s middle-school orchestra skills have set her up to be fairly capable, if not amazing. I could imagine the band playing open mic nights or something. Their Green Day covers don’t provide the worst studying soundtrack ever, although sometimes their practicing devolves into Jamie helping with Mara’s grad school application essays.
The highlight of my vacation is I manage to pass my driving exam. When I do, Jamie and I celebrate by driving to the Sweet Wieners truck, where we consume horrendous hot dogs covered in chocolate chips and graham cracker crumbs.
I’m worn thin by the time production week begins on the Monday we return to school. My sleep schedule is down to four hours nightly, and I’m hardly keeping on top of homework while following my whiteboard’s AP reviewing plan. I’ve made no progress on the reunion, which is in less than two weeks, except approving the Millard Fillmore kitchen’s hors d’oeuvres menu. Ethan’s equally overwhelmed. I know because he didn’t object when I assigned him another editor and then wasn’t obstinate enough for Julie Wang to complain to me when they were done.
With the sheer number of exams upcoming, I’m surprisingly nervous. Everyone is—even Ethan, who’s let his new vehemence in competition with me fizzle out, suffocated under the strain of six APs. In a way, it’s sad. While I didn’t enjoy the week of increased contention, this harsh withdrawal is sort of worse. I feel our rivalry fading. It’s for the best, I remind myself. I’ll be able to handle myself maturely at Harvard, no longer consumed by our petty games.
Like everything with Ethan, though, reason doesn’t help. I still find myself mourning something I feel receding into the past.
On Wednesday evening, I’m ready to drop from exhaustion. It’s nearly eleven, and we’re only waiting on proofs of a few pages from Ms. Heyward. I’m in my office, rubbing my eyes over the printouts of the opinion pages, when Tori rushes in.
She’s breathless. “Thenewscomputercrashed.”
My exhausted mind can’t quite parse her words. “What?”
“The news computer crashed,” Tori repeats, controlled panic in her voice.
I eye her, not exactly understanding the gravity of the problem. Tori’s generally good under pressure. She’d have to be to handle Ethan in news meetings. If she’s freaking out, something’s really wrong. “It’s a good thing we back up everything to the cloud, isn’t it?” I inquire evenly.
Tori swallows. I raise my eyebrows.
“I have the SATs next weekend,” Tori starts. When I say nothing, she continues, her words falling out in a rush. “Tomorrow I have this precalc test, and I’m just really exhausted. It’s my fault. I uploaded one of the pages, but I guess I forgot the other two. I promise I’ll fix it, even if it takes me the entire night—”
“Tori,” I cut in.
I pinch the bridge of my nose beneath my glasses, hoping vainly to banish my burgeoning headache. She’s not wrong to panic. If the computer lost two news pages, it’ll take hours to reconstruct the designs and re-input each story. As the editor in chief, I can’t leave anyway until every page is finished and off to the printer, which means there’s no reason for Tori to stay here and fail her precalc exam. “I’ll handle it. Go home. Get some sleep,” I instruct her.
Tori chews her lip. “No,” she says. “It’s my fault. I have to help.”
“It’s not a two-person job,” I say, gentler. “I don’t have a test I might fail tomorrow.”
My consolation finally reaches her. She nods. “Thanks, Alison,” she gets out, then trudges from my office into the newsroom.
I inhale, collecting my thoughts. Two news pages. We need the pages to the printer by tomorrow morning. While the deadline’s hellishly high-pressure, it’s no pressure I haven’t handled before. First, I’ll have to open each individual story and re-edit them. The changes the editors made were done directly on the formatted pages we lost. Once I’ve revised everything, I’ll figure out reconstructing the layout.
I open my laptop and prepare for the punishing night.
In three hours, I’m finished with the below-the-fold piece on the school board meeting, the final story I needed to read over. Ready to start designing the new layout, I exit my office, and I’m caught up short. In my sleep-deprived daze, I wonder if I’m hallucinating.
I’m not. Ethan’s sitting in front of the sports computer, with what looks like a page layout open on the screen. I didn’t know anyone was here—I couldn’t see him from the windows in my office.
“I’ve finished the layout,” he says.
I don’t fully process his words. “You’re still here.”
He faces me, dark circles under his green eyes. His polo’s rumpled, the cuffing of his chinos coming unraveled. My own vision is blurry, and I’m pretty sure I nodded off in my office for ten minutes while editing the city council elections coverage. He shrugs. “I didn’t want you taking full credit for saving the paper,” he replies. Humor fights its way out from under the weariness of his voice.
I nearly smile. For a moment, I just stand, feeling a weight lift from my chest and something warmer and welcome replacing it. My eyes water. I don’t know if it’s from exhaustion or from gratitude I’d never voice out loud.
I sit down next to him, examining his screen. He really did finish the layout. I find every headline and space for stories exactly where they’re supposed to be. He’s left unfilled frames for photos we haven’t yet input. It’s enough I nearly collapse in relief.
“Did you really stay here all night when I pulled my story?” he asks, his voice coyly prodding.
If it wasn’t Ethan talking, I’d think he was playing this game to help keep me awake. “Yes,” I reply. “Thank you for reminding me.”
“No problem. I like to relive it daily.”
I cut him a glance, not nearly as annoyed as I’d ordinarily be. Ethan holds my gaze in amusement, like he’s won something. In the empty newsroom with him, I don’t really care what. I shake my head in feigned consternation. “Okay.” I get up. “Now we just have to input the fart aisles.”
Ethan stares up at me, his face stony with repressed laughter.
I realize what I’ve said. “I mean art files,” I correct.
“Fart aisles coming up,” Ethan replies loudly.
I know it’s partly from exhaustion when Ethan and I collapse into laughter. I laugh until water runs down my cheeks and I’m no longer making sound, my sides aching from how hard my stomach clenches. Ethan’s doubled up, his hand over his face. It’s ridiculous. Unbelievable. I’m laughing with the smartest guy I know over a fart joke.
Not only the smartest guy I know. My rival. It’s the first moment I’ve shared with Ethan in weeks without insults, without undermining or distance. Remembering I miss him hits me suddenly. It’s something I’ve been fighting to forget, hiding the feeling under studying and the newspaper and literally any refuge I could find. But here, with Ethan in front of me, his face pink from laughter, it’s impossible to keep ignoring. It’s lemonade in the wound, stinging yet sweet.
I start in the direction of my office, where I’ll pull up the “fart aisles.” While I’m walking away, Ethan catches my wrist.
It’s painfully exhilarating, our first skin-on-skin contact since we ended things. I face him, finding surprising vulnerability in his eyes.
“Have dinner with me,” he says, his voice rough with sleeplessness. “This Friday.”
I’m caught off guard. “What?”
“A real date,” he clarifies. Whether he decided it now or some time earlier, he sounds certain.
Maybe I’m delirious with exhaustion. Maybe I’m grateful he saved me hours of work tonight. Maybe it’s the invitation itself, which feels defined and real. Or maybe I just miss him. Whatever it is, I reply instantly. “Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
Ethan nods, releasing my wrist. I know him well enough to read excitement and relief in his eyes. Giving him a small smile, I return to my office, where I close my door and open my computer. Just minutes ago, I could hardly hold my eyes open, vision searing with every word I edited.
Now I’m wide awake.