“Um . . .” Quinn is somehow balancing all three Dole Whip floats in her hands. “Should we eat these in the Tiki Room? Or just sit out here?”
“You can’t not eat these in the Tiki Room,” Kat says. “I can only enjoy pineapple soft serve when I’m being serenaded by animatronic parrots.”
“I’ll wait out here,” I say, and I can see how Kat doesn’t even hesitate to walk in without me. Quinn dashes out a second later to give me my float, and then, with an apologetic look, heads back in. I guess that it’s apologetic. Who even knows what Kat’s said to her about me?
They’re out in fifteen minutes, and we wordlessly walk away together.
“I should find something for Ainsley,” Quinn says, and then glances at me. “My sister has a Little Mermaid obsession.”
I nod and we both watch as Quinn disappears into a gift shop.
“I just wanted to have fun today,” I say.
“Well, duh, me too.”
“You’re almost eighteen,” I say. “Maybe you should cut out the whole duh thing.”
Kat steps back as if I’ve slapped her.
“I’m trying to help,” I say.
“Help what?” She blinks her eyes a bunch, clearly drawing attention to her tears. I’m not going to let her force me into feeling sorry for her, when there’s nothing about today that doesn’t feel like a betrayal. “Maybe we should just go home.”
Suddenly the moment is like a wave that’s swept me out to sea before I could even see what was happening. I don’t want to be manipulated, but I didn’t want to give up on this so soon.
“Only if you want to,” I say.
“Of course I don’t want to! I wanted to have a super fun day, and I thought we were,” she says. “Yes, I’m, like, social media friends or whatever with Logan. I didn’t know if I had to tell you or not, but, like, the last thing I wanted to do was make you think more about your breakup, which you still haven’t even told me a single thing about, you know, so I didn’t.”
“I’m fine about my breakup,” I say. “What’s there to say? No one should realistically expect a high school relationship to last.”
Quinn emerges from the gift shop holding a bag. “Where to next?”
“I think we should probably go home,” Kat says.
“I didn’t—”
Kat cuts me off with a look. “My head hurts and we should probably try to beat rush hour traffic.”
Last year, we were here until the park closed. I remember that Logan drove home and that in the middle of a conversation on our way back north on the 5, Kat fell asleep against Matty’s shoulder. For some reason at that point, Logan had been wearing Kat’s mouse ears, and I kept a photo I took of him driving as my lockscreen for months.
The ride back up is quiet, besides the playlist Kat plays over my stereo. She’s staring straight ahead every time I sneak a glance over at her, and I wonder how she can be so clueless about today. Why would I want Quinn here if the whole point of today was to try to recapture something we still had last year? Of course, now that seems stupid. Last year’s already gone, and trying to hang on to it is like grasping a glass of water after it’s been poured into your hands.
CHAPTER EIGHT
March of Senior Year
KAT
“I brought you something.”
James jumps as she approaches her locker.
“Did I scare you?”
“How much shit will you give me if I say yes?” She smiles slightly and takes the travel mug from me. “Coffee?”
“Amazing homemade cocoa,” I say. “Life-changing! I didn’t make it.”
“You can barely operate a Keurig,” she says. “So, I figured.”
We’re silent for a few moments. I wordlessly hold the mug for her while she unpacks her bag into her locker. The dumb photo booth picture we took at Eagle Rock Plaza still hangs there, and it’s always a relief to see our smiling faces.
“Can you hang out later?” I ask. “After T&F?”
“Uh . . .” She seems to be actually mentally scanning her schedule and not just looking for an excuse. I hope so, at least. We haven’t made plans just us since the day that Disneyland became the saddest place on earth.
Though I guess that wasn’t technically just us.
“Yeah, I think so,” she finally says.
“Yay! Can we, like, drive somewhere? Sometimes I feel so sick of our neighborhood. We could pick something super fun we never get to do.”
She agrees to that and picks me up after her T&F practice. I settle into this seat I’ve spent so much time in and watch out the window as our neighborhood gives way to greater Burbank, and then Glendale, and finally Los Angeles proper.
“Do you think you’ll still live here someday?” I ask, even though of course James knows. She has a whole plan. James is ready for adult life, while I’m still doing my best as it comes.
“I don’t know.” She sighs. I wait for the follow-up, but that’s it.
“I feel like I’ll totally be back,” I say. “I’m even afraid, like, that someday when I have babies I’ll literally be back in the same neighborhood. And they’ll go to Magnolia Park and I’ll turn into my dad or something.”
“You talk way too much to turn into your dad,” she says.
I’m grateful I get a text I can focus on because that seems like a sign I should probably be quiet for a while.
James parks by the overpriced ice cream place in Silver Lake, and I treat us to ice cream cones since she drove. We walk over to the dog park and watch through the fence as a bunch of little dogs fight over balls and rope toys. James and I are laughing at the same dog drama, and it feels nice and safe. Maybe I can make it even better.
“So, um, Disney and everything,” I try. “I’m sorry I didn’t say anything about Logan.”
I’m still not even sure if I did something wrong by staying friends with him, but I guess I’m not totally stupid enough to think I’m one hundred percent innocent. I’d hate it if James and Matty were still friends, but it’s not a fair comparison.
“OK,” she says, staring at a pug dog.
“I mean, I don’t know what happened,” I say. “Maybe I should hate him. If you tell me to hate him, I can try to hate him.”
“I just said that it was fine.”
“I know, but, like, we can talk about it, and I can—”
“I don’t know how else I can say it’s fine,” she says. “Disney was a stupid idea. This isn’t last year.”
“It wasn’t a stupid idea.” I have a feeling I’m supposed to apologize for bringing Quinn, but last year was literally us and our boyfriends? Why was I supposed to leave out my girlfriend? “I should have told you and I don’t blame you for calling me out and I’m also sorry if I should have said something about Quinn, but—”
“I feel like we’re now having a conversation about a conversation,” James says. “A conversation we literally just had.”
“James, I just want to fix whatever happened! Just tell me and I’ll fix it! I’ll go in and wrestle that pug dog if I have to!”