Petra’s mother sighs. “Petra’s always off helping everyone. That tutoring center runs her ragged. She’s always there. It’s a wonder she has any time for her own homework much less being valedictorian!” Petra’s mother, completely oblivious to the wide-eyed look that Petra is sending her, puts her hand on my shoulder.
I grit my teeth. “Yeah, I know. Isn’t that great?”
Petra rolls her eyes as her mother’s hand falls away from me. “Mom, we’re kind of in the middle of something.”
Petra’s mother claps her hand over her mouth and turns to leave the dining room, sending us a friendly wave as she goes.
“I’m guessing you don’t often discuss your academic competition with your mother,” I say as soon as she’s gone. “Wouldn’t want her to know you might not make val.”
“Yeah, except I’m going to make val, so why would I even bring it up?”
I slam my calculus book closed. “What makes you so sure? We’re still tied.” Probably. I haven’t been to the counselor’s office since the day I found out we were tied, since I’m always rushing from last period to Spirits and am usually doing homework before the first bell.
Petra stops rifling through her own textbook. “You’re too distracted. You’re trying to divide your time between looking good for Stanford, trying to get Jackson back, and working at that record store. You’re trying to juggle too much, and all you’re doing is making it easier for me to make val.”
I tap my pen against my notebook. I hate that she looks so smug, closing all her books with her shoulders pressed back and her chin high. “Okay, genius. You want to be my life coach? Give me some pointers.”
She gives me a firm look, lacing her fingers over her notebook. “You’re really serious about this?”
I feel my stomach twist. I don’t know if she means serious about being valedictorian or serious about wanting her advice. In the end, it doesn’t really matter. The answer is yes.
She narrows her eyes at me, and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I can tell I’m not going to like this. “I think it’s time for you to let go of Jackson.”
I sit back in my seat with a huff. “I’m not—”
“I’m serious, Amy,” she says more forcefully. “Boyfriends are a bad idea, but pining for ex-boyfriends is even worse. It makes it impossible to think straight.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“And you have to quit your job.”
Petra’s words stop me short. “No, I can’t quit. I’m working there while my stepdad finds a new job.” But it’s more than that. It’s something burrowing under my skin. Spirits is the only place where I feel like I belong and it stopped being about Carlos a while ago.
Petra drops her head in her hands. “So what you’re saying is you want this but you’re not willing to sacrifice anything for it?”
That makes rage simmer beneath my skin. “I’ve given up my social life, my free time, my relationships—”
“—just to fail,” she finishes for me.
We stare at each other for a long time.
“I’m not going to fail.” I reach down to put my book in my backpack, my hands trembling either from adrenaline or from anger.
Petra blinks up at me. She opens her mouth to say something else, but a loud crash emanates from the kitchen, and I use the opportunity to see myself out.
OLIVER
I CAN’T SAY I’ve completely forgotten about Dad. There’s no forgetting Dad. Ever. But I have mostly managed to keep my mind off him since the last time I saw him. I heard secondhand that he was sentenced with what seemed to me like a lifetime’s worth of community service hours. Much deserved, in my opinion.
And that’s why I should have been expecting to run into him. Of course, I should have. Because I should have known that he would pop up in my life when I was least expecting it, once I’d let my guard down.
And when I’m least expecting it is when I’m hopping on the highway to get to the hardware store on the other side of town, and there he is, standing on the side of the road with a garbage bag and a trash poker.
I think about stopping. I think about pulling over right now and telling him that he’s the thing I’m most ashamed of in my life. I think about pulling over and telling him to grow up. To grow up so that I can figure out what the hell I want to do with my life without taking his needs into account. I want to tell him that he should have stood up to my mother all those years ago, stuck around, let me be my own person, so that I don’t have to feel like a piece of shit now for wanting to do what I want.
I keep driving. Because I would never say those things to him, no matter how pissed off I was.
But then a little thought starts to wriggle its way into my brain.
I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to need something like alcohol to keep my mind off my dissatisfying life. I don’t want to be hopeless and directionless and a complete waste of space.
And maybe that’s why Mom is right. Maybe the key to never becoming Dad is going to college, even if it’s right here in Missouri, where I would never really be able to escape the things that have been keeping me here all this time.
Maybe I should apply to MBU and just be done with it.
Maybe Amy would look at me differently if I was a college guy. Maybe she would look at me the way she looks at her ex.
Maybe she would love me if I had any clue what I was doing.
AMY
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, I stand in front of my mirror and stare. I’ve been doing this for the last half hour, trying to decide if this is really what I want to do. Do I want to spend my Friday night at a basketball game in hopes that I might see Jackson there? Do I really want to waste prime studying hours?
All I can think about is the way he looked at me across the table when he bought that gram, the way that being close to him still sends butterflies alive in my stomach, like I’m living in my own personal fairy tale. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
I can’t get valedictorian with Petra around, and I can’t make Stanford accept me.
But I can get Jackson back.
I’ve forgiven him for being an asshole at his birthday party, and I can’t stop thinking about what he wrote on that Valentine-gram, can’t stop thinking about how both of the grams are now in one of my drawers, constantly reminding me every time I open it just how much I miss him.
I don’t understand the majority of the rules of basketball. I know that the players are trying to score a goal, that the goals are worth two points, and that traveling is a call the referees make, but I don’t actually know what traveling is. Also, I know that Jackson would play basketball if he was any good at it, but he’s really only good at track.
Half an hour later, I’m standing beside the bleachers, still invisible to everyone in the gym, deciding whether I can do this or not.
I take a step toward the court and peek over the bottom of the bleachers. I see Jackson immediately. He has on his pilot jacket, with the wool collar, and he looks amazing. And he’s all alone.
I take a deep breath. If I’m going to do this, if I’m really going to make a play for Jackson, at least one more, I need to do it now, before I lose my nerve. I step around the side of the bleachers just as our team scores a goal, and the crowd erupts. I watch Jackson jump to his feet, clapping loudly and then cupping his hands around his mouth to yell, “That’s it, Number Twenty-Three!”