On my last Tuesday at Spring Meadow, Stewart and I go to movie night and do our bailing trick, skipping out the back of the theater. We return to the same Denny’s, but this time we’re not all giddy and excited. This is it. This is our last night together, at least here in Carlton. We order hot chocolates.
We talk on and off. Nothing profound. He tells me about his adventures trying to take a class in motorcycle mechanics at community college. His grandmother kept giving him money and somehow, with the best of intentions, he always ended up buying drugs.
We laugh at the predictability of it. I tell him about a group of us crashing a junior prom so high on OxyContin we could barely stand up and how the chaperones stopped us and thought we were drunk. So we told them that our friend had one leg that was shorter than the other, and that’s why she couldn’t walk straight. And they believed us!
Stewart chuckles at this. We drink our hot chocolate.
“You’ll probably go to a real college,” he says.
“Me?” I say. “No way. I probably won’t even graduate from high school.”
“Yeah, you will,” he says.
“What about you?” I say. “You could go to college. Now that you’re sober.”
“I kinda doubt it.”
“Why not?” I say. “You’re smart. You can go to community college for a year and then transfer.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
This is a difficult conversation and I’m glad when we change the subject. Later, when he goes to the restroom, I look out the window. Stewart could totally go to college, I tell myself. He’ll just need help.
In the van, I ask Stewart if he wants to try to meet later that night. Since we only have two days left. Like maybe one of us could sneak over to the other’s house.
He shakes his head no.
He’s right of course. I feel bad I even suggested it.
“Okay, then,” I whisper, close to his ear. “I’ll be like one of those prison girlfriends. Waiting for you on the outside. Dreaming about you every night.”
He shakes his head, grins, then kisses me on the temple.