“If this is your sine and this is your cosine, what is your hypotenuse?”
“Um…” I roll my neck to try and work out the kinks after spending my entire lunch hour cooped up in a music wing practice room being tutored by Lydia Hodge. Lydia is a sophomore math prodigy, and more than qualified to help me improve my trig scores. Still, none of it makes sense. Shapes and numbers are sliding all over the page, and I’m to the point where I can’t even start a problem, let alone solve it.
“This really isn’t that hard,” Lydia tells me. “Maybe if you look it over on your own, it will start to come together?”
“Maybe…”
“Look, I need to go,” she says. “Try more problems tonight. I can meet again tomorrow and go over them if you want.”
I feel bad. It’s not Lydia’s fault I seem to have a complete mental block for trigonometry. And it’s not her future on the line if we can’t stop my grade from its crash-and-burn trajectory. I play a few ominous chords on the practice room piano as she leaves. We met here because it’s quiet and private, now I am seriously considering hiding out in this tiny room and sneaking in a nap for the rest of the day.
I’m exhausted.
Lydia has left the door open. I’m reaching out to close it when a familiar figure appears at the end of the hall. It’s Eli, and there’s no way to pretend we didn’t just make eye contact.
“Hey…,” he says, stopping.
“Hey…” I let go of the doorknob.
“I was just bringing some music for Mr. E.”
“I was just getting tutored in math.”
We are face to face now in a quiet hallway with no way to escape a conversation. He clears his throat.
“Sorry about missing brunch yesterday,” he says. “I wasn’t feeling well. You got my text, right?”
“I texted you back. I said okay.”
“Oh yeah.”
This is ridiculous. I hear myself saying, “I think we should talk” before I even know what I want to say. All I really know is that I can’t keep on coasting, acting like everything is fine.
He looks around. “Right now?”
“Yes. I don’t think it will take very long.”
I step back into the practice room. He comes in too and sits on the piano bench.
I shut the door.
“Let’s be honest. I think it’s obvious this isn’t working anymore between us.”
As I’m talking, I become aware of how straight my back is. I notice the tilt of my head—how brave it makes me feel. I hear my words and realize they sound familiar. I’m channeling Truman, and holy cow, it helps.
“Okay…” Eli looks like he’s been caught off guard.
“And I think you should go to prom with someone else.”
He frowns.
“Before you ask, no I am not going with anybody else. I’m going to go with Harper and Kiran. Probably also Jordan if she’s not too busy making sure everything is amazing.”
“It sounds like you’ve already thought this through,” Eli says.
“I’m just being truthful. And while I’m not going to say who I think you should go with, I think it’s pretty clear who would be perfect. I’m also pretty sure she doesn’t have a date.”
He nods, clearly tracking but still surprised.
“This means you probably won’t win the promposal contest. I still think it was a great promposal, by the way. I’m sorry it got wasted on me.”
His expression softens, and I can see in it the Eli I used to think was so perfect. I used to think we were meant for each other because we were easy together. But now I think that was because nothing had ever challenged us. We were comfortable because nothing made us uncomfortable.
“It wasn’t wasted,” he says. “What about after prom?”
“If you’re talking about those after-prom plans, then I think you’d probably agree that that would be weird.” He laughs. I laugh too. “But seriously, in the long run, I think you can be with whoever you want.”
He nods again, looking distinctly un-sunny.
“So this is it?” he says. “We’re breaking up?”
“Looks like it. I’m sorry.”
“I am too. But thanks, I guess, for being honest.”
I’ve never broken up with anybody before. I always imagined it would be full of drama and heartbreak. Because of that, I might have been tempted to let things go on and on, no matter how not-right they were. Turns out honesty can be a great drama repellent.
The third lunch bell rang ages ago, but I no longer feel like hiding the afternoon away. I bend down, a little awkwardly, and give Eli a hug. He hugs me back, also a little awkwardly.
“I’ll see you in show choir,” I say.
He follows me out, then continues to the choir room. I watch him go—one more piece of the life I used to have breaking away. From the moment I saw Future Truman with Future Me on that ten-year-reunion site, everything in my present has been unraveling. I haven’t checked the site since Friday after Jordan accused me of obsessing. But now I feel like I need to.
As I make my way to trig, I wake up my phone to find it’s not the reunion site that’s changed, it’s my Instagram. Future Me has added to her quote collection. This new one appears over a photo of a blue sky:
I’ve been pretty salty about Future Me and her sappy quotes, but this one is oddly comforting. And it feels less than coincidental. Is Future Me trying to send a message to Present-Day Me? If so, I wonder if I can send some sort of message back. I’ve already looked for a way to DM myself with no success. Maybe if I try posting directly to Future Me’s feed, it will work.
I stick out my tongue and snap a selfie.
I write, Then I hit Post. But my phone just whirs and whirls, and then the screen goes blank.