Mr. Rydell lets me in. “Hey, James. They’re all in Kat’s room.”
I try not to sigh until I’ve thanked him and am headed down the hallway toward the sound of conversation. Of course Quinn’s here, and Raina and Gretchen are, too.
“Yay!” Kat jumps up from her bed and hugs me. “Did you just get up? Why are you freshly showered? Were you doing running stuff?”
“Why are you so nosy?” I ask, and then smile really widely so that it doesn’t sound like I’m snapping at her. But good lord.
“I care about your life!” she says with a giggle. “OK, who’s driving? My car’s too tiny.”
Kat, who doesn’t even need a car to get to school and has never needed to get to a job or a volunteer gig, has a tiny, bright blue Mini Cooper that Mr. Rydell gave her on her sixteenth birthday. It mostly sits in the driveway. Kat once confided in me that it was practically too small to have sex with Matty in it, which was far too much information for me. We tell each other a lot, but often broad strokes, not the specific mechanics of things. To me, sex is so private—too private even for best friends. But I guess entire TV shows have been based around the premise that, for a lot of people, it isn’t. It’s strange to think you could grow up right alongside someone and be one category of person when it turns out they’re another entirely.
Raina has her mom’s SUV, so we pile in. I was here because I wanted a Saturday with Kat like we used to have all the time, but as everyone talks about bands I don’t listen to and TV shows I don’t watch, I wish I was back home.
“James, you should go with us,” Raina tells me, and I try to hold my face neutrally so that no one knows I haven’t been paying attention. “It’ll be—”
“—the most fun thing we do in March,” she and Gretchen end up saying together, before bursting into laughter. Oh, god.
“James is too cool to listen to pop music and eat ice cream,” Kat says. “All the songs she likes have, like, strong language and adult situations in them.”
I laugh against my will. “Sorry about your delicate ears.”
“Remember when Luke tried to tell us some gross joke and I burst into tears?” Kat rolls her eyes. “I’m such a nerd.”
“She got scared during Finding Nemo,” Quinn says. “Which I didn’t know was possible.”
“OMG, Quinn, don’t mock me. The shark parts are intense.”
It seems as if there’s nothing else that only Kat and I share anymore.
The art walk is only a few exits down the 5 Freeway but in Los Angeles proper, which anyone would agree is inherently cooler than hanging around Burbank. When we get there, I drop behind everyone, as I assume the two couples will want to pair off, but it stays less divided than that. Quinn’s chatting with Raina, while Kat shows a cute dog video on Instagram to Gretchen and me.
“Does anyone want an iced coffee?” Raina asks, as we near a tiny coffee shop.
“I’ll help,” Quinn says, as soon as everyone says yes.
“Gretchen?” Raina asks, and Gretchen nods and heads off with them as well, and so I’m alone with Kat.
“You didn’t have to include me,” I say.
“I do! Best friend bylaws or whatever!”
“Did you think about the fact that it would be awkward for me to be the fifth wheel with two couples?”
“Raina and Gretchen aren’t a couple,” she tells me. “Though, please, they clearly want to be, right?”
We share a look.
“Mmmhmmm. People think their feelings are allllll locked away, but, like, duh.”
I smile at her and realize that maybe things do feel more the same than they do different. Friendships don’t fall apart over nothing, and certainly not so soon. It was literally only a year ago when we, along with Logan and Matty, skipped a Friday’s worth of school to escape to Disneyland for the day. Logan and Matty are both gone from my life, but it’s still one of my favorite memories, and that’s all Kat.
“Remember how much fun Disneyland was last year?” I ask, and her eyes do everything but literally light up.
“Yes. OMG, James, we should totally do that again. I can get away with skipping. Can you again?”
“Sure,” I say. “It’s so much better to go during the week, considering how bad crowds get on the weekends.”
“Exactly. Yay! This is totally what I need right now. You are a genius.”
“No boys this trip,” I say, which makes her giggle.
“Seriously, like, no boys at all. We’ll have so much fun.”
She’s already turned around because the other girls are back with iced coffees. Already I don’t resent their presence quite as much. Kat and I are still intact, after all. Also, obviously, it’s a relief to know I’m not tagging along on a double date. And maybe it’s just the caffeine, or having my hands in the literal dirt earlier, but today doesn’t feel like this shitty senior year I’ve resented. Today feels much closer to the one I thought I’d have.
My phone buzzes while we’re walking around, and even though it should make me furious, I feel a smile cross my lips when I see Logan’s name.
“Ooh, who’s texting you?” Kat asks me, and I look up with a start.
“No one,” I say.
“Really? Because you’re smiling like there’s a boy involved.”
“I just saw something funny on Instagram,” I say, and I wish I could explain it to her. But I can’t explain Logan even to myself right now. If he’s supposed to be gone, why isn’t it worse that he doesn’t seem to want to actually stay away?
I’m pretty sure my parents no longer talk at all anymore, and so it’s easy to let Dad think that Mom arranged a doctor’s appointment for me the next week. He’s great about nearly everything, but even whispering the word “gynecologist” will lead to a very quickly changed subject. He calls school for me without another word, and I try to get into my car without any Disney-inspired glee on my face. I doubt anyone has ever looked that happy to go to the gynecologist, after all.
When I pull up to Kat’s house, she’s standing outside already wearing mouse ears—real subtle, Kat—next to Quinn. I hope that Quinn’s just here to bid Kat good-bye since she’s going all the way to Anaheim, but then I realize Quinn’s also walking to the car and that she isn’t wearing a Dodgers cap today but one with the old-fashioned Disney character Oswald on the front.
“Hey!” Kat sits down in the front seat and immediately switches my stereo input to Bluetooth so she can play something from her phone. “Can we stop at Starbucks even though Quinn is morally opposed?”
“I’m not morally opposed,” she says from the back seat. “I only said their regular coffee tastes burnt. I enjoy a Frappuccino like any reasonably minded person.”
“Quinn’s coming,” I say and manage not to make it a question, though just barely.
“I know, right? Yay! She escaped her parents without any questioning this morning.” Kat waves her hand dismissively. “I swear I could leave for school, like, two hours later than usual, and even if my dad was home he’d be fine as long as I told him the rules changed or something.”