Chapter Seventeen
of my thirty-minute bike ride back home for me to process what the hell just happened. I had a conversation with Tessa Hernandez. A civil conversation that started with her telling me the truth about the Danny situation and ended with her telling me to make things right with Joaquin.
What the fucking fuck?
Hardly ever interacting has left little space for a good impression of Tessa to expand. I know she’s been a jerk and that she did something to make Anna despise her; that was enough for me to form my own conclusions.
But…what if Joaquin was right? What if she really is different and I was too caught up in my own misplaced anger and jealousy to see that? Could she really be that bad if she’s the apple of literally everyone’s eye? Sure, a fat bank account and a face that plastic surgeons dream of catapulted her to the top of the social hierarchy, but people wouldn’t be throwing themselves over one another to try to ask out someone who’s a massive asshole, right?
As soon as I open the door, I’m greeted by Nurse Oatmeal. She follows me into my room, barking her little lungs off. She gives up once I’ve flopped onto my bed, turning her attention to one of my chewed up chanclas while I stare at the cracks in my ceiling and let my head spin.
Joaquin talked to Tessa about me. A lot, apparently. Enough to make her think that we were a thing—which, to be fair, isn’t unusual. The WAGs are convinced that we’ve been secretly hooking up for years, but that doesn’t mean anything. Shouldn’t mean anything. But I can’t help holding on to the hope that it does, or did, once upon a time.
I open my text thread with Joaquin. We haven’t said anything to each other since Dino World, even though I considered reaching out. Apologies over text don’t hold the same value, and he’s mastered the art of avoiding me at school. With the championship game this weekend, he’s hardly ever home, either. Closing our text thread, I scroll through my camera roll instead. It’s like a time capsule, documenting our finest moments from across the years. Joaquin beaming at me from the baseball field after he hit his first home run of the season. The two of us Lady and the Tramp-ing a ramen noodle after we were too cheap to buy our own $32 bowls at the new trendy place downtown. Walks through the park with Nurse Oatmeal, her always with a stick or some type of debris in her mouth. Us on my most recent birthday, him attempting to smash cake into my face while I held up Otis the Otter to protect me.
Speaking of which…where is Otis? I scan the collection of stuffed animals on my bed, but there’s no sign of him there or on the floor. My mind whirrs—I swear I saw him recently. I check behind my desk and even my hamper but don’t spot any stuffed otters. Then it clicks. Glaring at Nurse Oatmeal, I head out to the living room and find her collection of destroyed treasures. Sure enough, Otis is at the bottom of the pile, his head mostly chewed off and his chest leaking cotton. Poor guy.
I hold him to my chest, nuzzling him even though he smells like dog slobber, as if that’ll bring me a little bit closer to Joaquin. Now I regret ever letting Nurse Oatmeal get anywhere near Otis. I should start keeping my stuff in a safe.
Something sharp pokes into my chest. I wince, pulling Otis back and expecting to find another one of Nurse Oatmeal’s treasures stuffed inside him like some kind of dog toy Frankenstein, but find the corner of a piece of card stock instead.
Reexamining Otis, I realize he has a pouch in his back, with a zipper going from his head to his tail. Guess I would’ve found this out sooner if a certain goblin canine hadn’t stolen and destroyed him. On the floor, next to where Otis was, I spot an Open Me! sticker with patches of Otis’s fur still stuck to the back. So much for that.
Carefully, I pull the slip of paper out through the gash in Otis’s back. It’s a letter, folded in half with my name on the front in handwriting that I’d know anywhere.
A letter from Joaquin.
I run my fingertips along my name, my heartbeat thrumming. This must’ve been in there since he gave Otis to me four months ago…whoops.
Curiosity wins over caution, and I tear open the letter. Clutching a piece of Joaquin in my hands, a chance to hear his voice, even if it’s only in my head, is like a rainstorm in a drought.
Dear Ive,
The same words I’d written to him just a short time ago. Something as simple as a greeting shouldn’t make my vision blur with an onslaught of tears, and yet, here we are. Two words into the letter and the Joaquin-shaped hole in my life aches with relief and sadness. There’s a part of him left for me to discover.
Setting the handwritten letter back down again, I wipe the tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Waiting until I’m clearheaded enough to keep reading.
Happy birthday!
I know you probably wish this was a key to a new Mercedes or something, but bear with me, I’m only one dude, and I can barely afford Herb.
I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I want to say, and even though this is draft sixteen seventeen, I’m still not sure I’ll get it right. But you should be grateful either way—I almost went with interpretive dance, and that would’ve been awkward as hell for both of us.
So…you’re my best friend. And you know that. Or, I hope you do. If not—hi. I’m Joaquin, you’re my best friend, and I hope I’m yours too. And because you’re my best friend, what I’m about to say is really complicated, and might make things weird or awkward, since you’re most likely going to be a whole state away soon. It’s totally fine if we’re not on the same page about this but, as the millennials say, you only live once. And I’m really tired of keeping this one in.
I think you’re amazing. The bees knees. Peanut butter to my jelly. Well, not literal peanut butter, because that would kill you, but you get the idea. You’ve been a part of my life for so long I can’t remember a time when you weren’t, and all my happiest memories end with me next to you. I know we’ve never said this before because it’s kind of mushy, but I love ranking slushies, and going to Marco’s, and cuddling Nurse Oatmeal, and doing nothing with you. But more than any of that, I love you. In a friend way, and in a not-friend way, and in so many different ways I don’t really understand what I’m feeling half the time.
All I know is, you’re my favorite person. And I want every single one of my memories, from when we were ten to when we’re eighty, to end with me next to you.
Quin
PS—Try not to let Nurse Oatmeal get her hands on this lil guy.
I read the letter again, and again, and again, until the words start to blur together. My heart is pounding as I hold it against my chest. The words rattle around inside me like a pinball, lighting up everything it touches. I love you, I love you, I love you. Words we’ve said in passing on birthdays and holidays taking on new shape and meaning.
The missing pieces of the puzzle click into place. The last thing he’d said to me before he stalked off at Dino World was that I’m the one who crushed him first and pretended it never happened.
I can see the whole picture now.
There’s no time for me to dwell on the what-ifs—what if I’d found the note earlier, what if I’d never found it, what if Joaquin never feels the same way again—all that matters is finding him, telling him that I know everything now. Reading the letter isn’t superglue. It won’t fix what I’ve already broken, but I can’t let him think I saw this four months ago and chose to ignore it.
Nurse Oatmeal and I bolt outside to the treehouse, her sitting patiently on the grass while I head up. Scaling the ladder at record speed, I delicately step around the fallen pieces of the ceiling and reach for the box of abandoned toys. The walkie doesn’t flicker on when I flip the switch, sputtering out static for a few seconds before turning off entirely.
“C’mon, you piece of junk!” I grumble, slapping the walkie’s battery pack a handful of times before it suddenly crackles back to life.
Most of the treehouse floor is covered in dust and woodchips, but splinters and dirty jeans are the last thing on my mind as I crawl over to the window. The wood buckles and creaks under my weight, and I slow down carefully. One wrong move could leave me crashing through to the ground, and I definitely can’t pull off a neck brace.
Joaquin’s room is bathed in a soft orange light, slowly fading into a pretty mauve when it suddenly flickers on and off for half a second before abruptly switching to an offensively bright neon green. Shadows dance along the wall as Joaquin storms out of his desk chair to kick at the light strip. Whatever he does sets off a chain reaction that leaves the lights blinking and jumping from color to color every few seconds like the world’s saddest nightclub.
Stifling a laugh, I wait until he’s managed to get the pulsating rave situation under control to hold down the talk button on the walkie.
“Joaquin…I know you probably don’t want to hear from me right now, but if you’re hearing this, can you pick up? Please?”
With his window closed, it’s impossible to make out his face, or whether he heard me. No signs of movement, just the outline of him hunched over his desk. He could be wearing headphones, and Joaquin’s basically dead to the world as soon as he pops in earbuds. But maybe he isn’t. Maybe he heard me loud and clear and decided not to pick up anyway.
“Joaquin? You there?” I try one more time, leaning almost entirely out of the window as I wait and hope for the sound of his voice.
But the walkie stays quiet. The shape of him shifts, getting up from his desk and disappearing from view. The lights stutter one more time, switching from pink to yellow, then off completely.
And they don’t turn back on.