Middle of the morning, we have a fifteen-minute break where kids can go check all their social sites on their phones (as if they weren’t already doing that for the last hour and a half), or go to the restroom, or go smoke if you’re Brick. He offers me a cigarette every time he’s ready to go. I always politely decline.
There’s this crazy hope that I’m going to somehow find myself talking to the golden-haired goddess. Then again, I know I’d sorta stammer and say something stupid like the last couple of times we’ve talked.
After coming out of the restroom, I see her leaning against the wall while Harris, Roger, and Shawn circle her.
There’s really no room for someone else. What’s that called?
Fifth wheel?
I walk slowly and hear Roger talking about some party. Suddenly it’s my junior year again.
Seven people, and I’m still on the outs.
“You should come. Meet some more of the wonderful people who go to this school.”
Shawn laughs, says something. I’m almost past them when I hear Roger say, “You can come too, Harris. Hey—Chris—you, too.”
I stop and give my best Oh you guys are talking about something ’cause you know I’m so cool I didn’t notice.
Lily glances at me, and the glance stays for a moment. She smiles.
No, I take it back. She’s amused. She finds this—probably all of this—comical.
“Go where?” I ask.
“Big party Saturday night,” Roger says. “Del’s having it. His parents are gone, and they don’t care anyway.”
“I’ll only go if Harris goes,” Lily says. “Wanna be my date?”
I think all of us want to be your date.
Harris, of course, looks blown away. If he was as pale as me, perhaps he’d be blushing, but he just beams and acts like his day has been made.
It’s funny, because Roger runs in different circles from the other popular senior I got to know. Ray didn’t talk much about him. But I know Roger normally wouldn’t invite people like Harris and me to his party. It’s because Lily is standing there. He’s finally figured out a way to get her to come.
We talk and laugh and then see Mr. Taggart walking past us in the hallway. He stops and looks over at us, his droopy eyes looking tired and sad.
“Don’t ever have kids, I’m tellin’ you straight,” he says, then keeps walking.
We wait until he’s in the room before bursting out laughing. It’s funny.
I follow the gang into the room before remembering I left my notebook in the bathroom.
I jog back down the hallway.
The lights are on in the school, and it strangely feels like it’s just the start of a regular day.
I slow down before getting to the restroom.
I slow down, and I remember.
“Good. We’ll take you. You fit with us. Plus … you’re cute.”
That meeting in the hallway with the three girls. Jocelyn, Rachel, and Poe.
All gone in one way or the other.
I shut my eyes as if that can shut out thoughts. But memories are hard to keep contained.
“Don’t say anything. Okay? Not now. Just wait for later.”
Jocelyn’s words after she found the note that I wrote but probably never intended to give her. Her words in these very same hallways.
I think of Joss, and Poe, and Newt, and Kelsey.
You can’t just shut the book on them. They’re still out there, even if they exist only as ghosts or memories.
I open the door to the bathroom and try to escape from all those names and faces and voices.
The school year is over.
The stuff that happened—it happened yesterday.
I find the notebook and grab it.
You can’t just bury it.
I laugh and look at the guy in the mirror.
“Let’s see if I can’t.”