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“And then we have Rowan.” I swear, she smiles more when she says my name. “She’ll be an undecided freshman at Emerson College in Boston. Here at Westview, she’s been captain of our quiz bowl team, editor of the yearbook, taken a total of twelve AP classes, and served on student council all four years. As copresident, she campaigned for all-gender restrooms, and she was also responsible for helping the school become a little greener.
We now compost and have a trash sorting system, thanks to Rowan.” I wish she hadn’t concluded with that. My legacy: garbage.
he’s doing something weird with his mouth. It takes me a split second to realize it’s a smile,
When he lifts one hand in a wave, I sit up straighter, hoping my eyes communicate that I would rather eat the pages of my yearbook one by one than talk to him.
“Before the essay contest winners were announced and you revealed your true self, I… had a crush on you.”
“You’re never too anything for books,” I say. “We like what we like.
His desk is cluttered with calligraphy pens, and off to one side, two eight-pound dumbbells. One McMystery solved. I try to picture it, McNair lifting weights while reciting the Hebrew alphabet.
I must really be starved for compliments if “not unattractive” makes me feel this great about myself,
“It’s strange, though, isn’t it?” I say. “Thinking about our specific group of seniors all spread out next year? Most of us will only be home for breaks, and then less and less after that. We won’t see each other every day. Like, if I see you on the street—” “On the street? What exactly am I doing ‘on the street’? Am I okay?”
makes me wish, again, that I’d realized sooner that we could have been more than rivals. I wonder if he feels it too, this desire to have had more talks like this over mediocre pizza. And whether that makes us friends or just two people who were supposed to meet somewhere but got lost along the way.
“I’ve never felt that way about anyone either,” he says, and I sit a little straighter, ready for more Neil McNair Relationship History.
“Although they did lead me to believe my first kiss would be more magical than it actually was.” “Now I’m curious.” “Gavin Hawley. Seventh grade. We both had braces. We were doomed.”
“We don’t have to leave room for Jesus,” he says. “Or whatever the Jewish equivalent is. If there is one. Leave room for Moses?”
Or maybe it’s that I like this too much, and that’s even scarier. Neil is softer than I realized, and I’m a barbed-wire fence. Every time he gets too close, I make myself sharper.
“I know you can do this. You’re the person who revolutionized garbage collection at Westview, remember?”
Then Mara and I both stare at Kirby, as though waiting for her confession. “Okay, okay,” she says. “I love reality TV. But not even the shows that require talent, like singing or fashion design. The really bad stuff that’s just hot rich people yelling at each other. I started watching it ironically with my sister a few years ago before she went to college, but then I sort of started liking it for real.”
