Add on top of everything else, I have to be out of here soon if I want to make it to my shift at Spirits on time, and I’m feeling pretty antsy.
I’ve been thinking about Spirits all day, realizing slowly, like a cold coming on over multiple days, that Spirits has become the highlight of my week, and being here, in the middle of the chem lab, trying to focus on ballot counting, is a form of psychological torture.
I don’t realize I’m causing the table to shake until Petra reaches over and puts a hand down hard on my leg, effectively making my knee stop bouncing and also making me lose count.
“Dammit,” I say, tossing down the stack of ballots I was counting.
“Did you start using?” Petra asks, bending over and looking into my eyes, like I just might be hopped up on something right this second. “Because you know people claim those drugs help you focus, but I swear, it’s a downward spiral.”
I roll my eyes and start counting again without answering her question. When I’m done with my stack, I jot down the number on the clipboard beside me. “I’m just anxious about getting to work, so can you shut up so I can count?”
Petra nods, and I get side-eye anyway.
I slap my stack of ballots in front of her. “My stack says underwater theme. See you later!” I’ve already got my bag in my hand, and I’m at the door of the chem lab when Jackson appears in the doorway, and I almost run into him.
“Can we talk?” His gaze goes over my head, and I turn to see Petra’s eyes glued to us, her hands frozen with the ballots in them. She doesn’t even pretend she’s not watching us.
“Yeah, come on,” I say, taking Jackson’s hand, and getting that same thrill in my stomach that I have every time I’ve touched Jackson for the past eleven months, like there are sparks going off under my skin.
When we’re farther down the empty hallway, and I’m trying not to think about the fact that I’m definitely going to be late to Spirits now, Jackson stops me and says, “So, I’ve been thinking…”
“Me, too,” I interrupt him. “So, don’t tell anyone because we’re not announcing it until Friday, but the prom theme is officially ‘Under the Sea,’ so I’m thinking an aquamarine dress to match an aquamarine tuxedo vest. What do you think?”
“I think we should take a break.”
Everything comes to a screeching halt.
Jackson’s eyes go over my head again, and I recognize the way he’s fidgeting, like he’s nervous, which makes me nervous, because he’s serious about this. “Ames, I love you so much, but you’ve been so different these past few weeks. All you can talk about is Stanford and valedictorian, and it’s just too much stress for me right now. I know you have a lot to worry about, but this is senior year, and I just feel like we’re not having fun like we’re supposed to.”
“But … but I was just—”
I was going to say that I was just talking about what we’re going to wear to prom, and how can we be taking a break, because we’re going to prom together, and Jackson and I have been together for almost a year, and how can he even be saying something like this? Weren’t we just curled up on his couch, making out and laughing and being completely in love?
But he goes on. “I know you’re working hard, but that’s the problem. You’re so busy with everything you’re trying to do that it’s like I’m not even here. I barely see you, and when I do see you, you’re so distracted.”
“What about the other night?” I keep coming back to it, how good things were, how happy we were.
Jackson shrugs. “It was great. But one good night every few months isn’t enough.”
I feel my chin trembling now, and my mind is going to all these weird places, and all I can think about is how Jackson’s birthday is this Friday. “What about your birthday?”
Jackson’s eyes get this sad tilt to them, and he looks like he’s about to smile, but he just sighs and says, “Maybe you can sit this one out, okay? Look, maybe once things have settled down, we can reevaluate, but right now, you should focus on school, and I’ll focus on track, and we’ll just take it one day at a time.”
A tear finally makes its way down my cheek, and without even hesitating, Jackson wipes it away. He kisses me, soft and gentle, and then walks away, and I’m left standing in the hallway, trying to figure out what the hell just happened.
OLIVER
AMY IS LATE for her shift, and I feel a weird kind of mixture of anxiety and frustration. Brooke thinks I hate Amy, so she always makes Amy shadow me, even though she’s way past the training point. She’s already been working at the shop for almost a month. I thought it would bother me, but Amy has a weird kind of energy that I like. She’s focused and determined and she gives a shit about everything she does.
Or at least I thought she did. Tonight, she’s supposed to be helping me get the rest of these records put into the system, but instead I’m doing it by myself and only mildly seething because I really thought I pegged her wrong, but now she’s almost an hour late, and that’s just so annoying and—
“Sorry I’m late!” Amy stops at the end of the counter, right beside the computer I’m using to catalog. She’s huffing and puffing, and she’s also holding a pair of slide-on house shoes in her hand that have koala bears on them, and all this is almost enough to distract me from the fact that she’s clearly been crying, but not quite. Her nose is red and her eye makeup just a little goopy and her cheeks splotchy.
She swallows. “I, um, had to stay late for this whole prom thing and then, um, and then…” She trails off and clears her throat before saying, “I forgot that it was wacky shoe night, so I had to rush by my house on the way here, and then all I had were these house shoes, so I grabbed them but…”
Her eyes have wandered down to my own feet. They widen. “Are you wearing…?” But before she can finish her sentence, she’s started laughing.
I look down at the cowboy boots I borrowed from Marshal, our weekends-only cashier, last week, and even though they’re definitely not something I would have picked out for myself, I don’t think they’re that funny. But Amy has her head thrown back, and seeing her like that, laughing up at the ceiling, makes me smile.
After a second, I roll my eyes and focus back on the computer. “Just go clock in.”
She’s suppressed her laughter by pressing her fingertips to her mouth, and she just nods before vanishing into Brooke’s office, and I forget what I was even upset about.
When Amy comes back, we create an assembly line behind the counter. I’m printing barcodes while Amy sits at my feet, wearing her koala shoes, sticking the barcodes onto the corresponding records. We work in silence, the way we always do.
“Hallelujah” is playing over the speaker system, the Jeff Buckley version, and I follow along with the lyrics in my head as a girl in Crocs designed to look like watermelons walks by the counter.
“God, I love this song.” I don’t even really intend for Amy to hear me, but she cranes her neck to look up at me. There’s already such a big height difference between the two of us that now that she’s sitting on the floor, she’s bending back far enough that she looks like she’s stargazing. Her face twists into a confused expression. “Are you serious?”