At Evergreen everyone was in a good mood after the holidays. People had gotten phones, cars, video games for Christmas; they’d gone on vacation. Some people had suntans, most noticeably Claude and Hanna, who had gone to Hawaii together with Claude’s parents. Going on vacation as a couple was an impressive step in a high school relationship. No other couple had done that, not that I had heard of. But I guess Claude and Hanna were so beautiful and mature and perfectly matched that nobody minded that they slept together, not even their parents.
Something was off between Claude and Hanna though. I sensed it immediately when they got back. Hanna, instead of luxuriating in the attention she would inevitably receive, being tanned and even more gorgeous than usual, was suddenly uninterested in it. She seemed bored with people and annoyed with school life in general. She didn’t tell funny stories about Hawaii at lunch, like she normally would have. Nor did she make fun of Claude in some sexual way, which she loved to do: how he fell off the bed during sex, or had a condom stuck to his jeans during dinner. And then a week later she and Claude had an actual fight in the cafeteria, right in front of everyone. I couldn’t tell what it was about, but Hanna became so angry, I thought she might throw something. And this wasn’t Hanna’s usual dramatic play acting. This was actual anger. I’d never seen her like that. I’d never seen either of them like that.
That moment was also significant because Krista Hoffman was sitting next to me at the time. As the group of us sat there, stunned and embarrassed, it was she and I who exchanged looks of did that just happen? It was also at that moment that I realized that whenever Krista sat with us, she always took that same spot at the table, right next to me.
Krista had also returned from winter vacation with a tan. It looked especially good on her, with her freckles and her bouncy blond hair. She was having a great year. She always looked fantastic and she seemed to be everywhere, at all the parties, always with the cutest sophomore girls or the best-looking guys. She had begun to hang around us, too, sitting with us at lunch sometimes, saying hi at parties. Not that she talked much. She tended to shut up when Hanna or Petra were around. She understood they were her social superiors. But she still liked to be around them. And apparently she liked to be around me, too.
I realized this one day when I came back to my locker and Krista was hovering a few feet away. She didn’t see me at first. I came up behind her and surprised her and she immediately turned red and started waving air at herself. I made a dumb joke about sophomores not being allowed in the junior/senior wing. She blushed, which was extremely cute.
• • •
Nothing happened that day at my locker, but within a week, Logan, Olivia, and I ended up at Krista’s McMansion. It wasn’t a party; it was more just Krista and some of her friends hanging out.
People were mostly downstairs or outside in the hot tub, which was extra steamy on a cold night in January. At one point Krista and I were in the hot tub with some other people. Krista kept smiling at me like she does. Eventually, some of the other people left the tub and went inside. Krista stayed. I did too. It seemed like something was going to happen, but I wasn’t sure what. More people left. And then the last person left. And then it was just us, alone in the green glowing water.
“Kind of a quiet night,” I said to her.
“Yeah,” she said. “People always want me to have big parties. But sometimes I’d rather just have my friends.”
“Less damage to the house,” I said.
“It gives you a chance to talk to people.”
“Yeah, that’s nice.”
Krista moved into the middle of the tub and hovered in the deeper water in front of me. She lowered her head into the water, until just her face was in the air. Then she popped back up and gave me her biggest, brightest, most scrunched-faced grin.
“You have the best smile,” I said to her.
“Really? What does it look like?”
“Like pure happiness and fun.”
“That’s me,” she said. “Pure happiness. And lots of fun.”
“What do you think is the funnest thing to do?” I asked her.
She thought about it. “I like kissing,” she said.
“Yeah, kissing’s pretty good,” I agreed.
“And other things.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Other things are good too.”
We both went silent then. But it was a good silence. The best kind. The very best kind.
• • •
We ended up in her room. It was not like with Rachel Lehman, where it was all about a single kiss. With Krista—since we were in our bathing suits and practically naked already—it moved from kissing to “other things” pretty quickly. It was like both of us were waiting for the other to slow things down. But neither of us did.
Finally, sensing my hesitation, Krista pulled away. “Are we going too fast?” she said.
“No, no,” I said. But we were. To me we were.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping a towel around herself. “I get carried away sometimes.”
“No, no,” I said. “It was me. It was my fault.”
“I’m only a sophomore,” she said.
“No. Really. It’s okay.”
“Is this too weird?” she said seriously. “Do you want to say this never happened?”
“What? No. Of course not. Do you?”
“No?” she said.
She still looked worried though. So I moved toward her. I put my arms around her. I hugged her and rocked her and kissed the top of her head.
Eventually she turned her face up and kissed me on the lips. And then it started all over again.
• • •
So then Krista and I were together. We were a couple. Maybe it was good that it happened so fast. I didn’t have a chance to screw it up.
It was odd timing too, because two days later the news swept through school that Hanna and Claude had broken up. This was huge news. By this time, Hanna and Claude were the most respected, envied, and admired couple not just in our class, but in our whole school. And at other schools too.
Nobody knew what happened. I couldn’t find Claude at lunch, and his car was gone from the parking lot after sixth period. Hanna supposedly ran out of her history class in tears. And then the next day neither of them came to school.
So then the rumors started, rumors about Claude and Petra. Claude had been seen walking with Petra. Petra and Claude were talking after school. Petra’s car was parked at Claude’s house. People speculated: Petra had never stopped loving Claude. She had been pining away for him since freshman year. Things had possibly happened, physical things, sexual things. And of course with Hanna and Claude having their mysterious problems, this was her chance. All this time she had been waiting and biding her time and now Petra had returned, to claim what was hers.