They all start to look the same after a while. On the cover is either a portrait of overly enthusiastic college students, cheering at a sporting event or participating in some sort of club activity, or else there’s a picture of the biggest building on campus, surrounded by greenery and blue skies.
When the delivery guy rings the doorbell, my eyes have started to fall closed. I take a deep breath and push up off the couch to answer the door. He doesn’t say so, but I see the recognition in his eyes when he looks over my shoulder and realizes that he was here two nights ago, and just like then, I’m completely alone.
“Thanks,” I tell him, leaving him a moderate tip.
I turn off the TV and power up my turntable instead. It’s better than the late-night talk shows anyway. I sit on the couch and munch on the pizza while my newest album, purchased just after the shop closed today, blares in my ears so loud, I can almost forget the silence ever existed.
AMY
I TUG AT the bottom of my shirt and sit up straighter in my chair. I can hear the meeting going on through the open door of the counselor’s office. The person inside is trying to figure out how they’re going to graduate when they failed their last required math class. I try not to eavesdrop because I know I wouldn’t like it if someone was eavesdropping on my meeting.
I scrape at the pink polish on my nails.
“Amaría Richardson.”
I look up in time to see the boy I heard talking to Mrs. Grimes rush out of the office, his head down. I look away from him, in case he’s trying to be invisible. I stand up and follow Mrs. Grimes into her office. I don’t close the door behind me. I don’t have to. Mrs. Grimes isn’t actually allowed to say my rank out loud, so it isn’t like anyone is going to overhear.
“How are you this week, Amy?” she asks without taking her eyes from her computer. I tap my fingertips on my knee impatiently. She doesn’t have to ask me why I’m here. She knows. I’m here every week to check my rank.
“Fine, thank you.”
She makes a humming noise in the back of her throat, and I know something is wrong. She squints at the screen, her eyebrows furrowing deeply. Then she reaches across the desk, grabs the marker she always uses to copy the ranks onto a sticky note, and writes a number down. But then she crosses through it, writes another number, and then she sighs and pushes it across the desk toward me.
“Okay, Amy. This is a weird situation, but, um, you’re actually tied with another student. So this number is very tentative.”
I blink at her for a long time, the sticky note just sitting on the desk between us, until finally, I open my mouth. “Tied? What do you mean, tied? That can’t be possible.” I reach out and grab the sticky note, which at least says 1 even if it’s not really true.
Mrs. Grimes smiles in a weird way. “It’s extremely possible. We still have plenty of time before the end of the school year for the tie to break.”
My brain is moving in a million different directions, but I can only think about one thing. “But what if we’re still tied at the end of the year? What happens then?”
Mrs. Grimes’s mouth twists. “You can’t be tied at graduation. We’d further evaluate your grades if your GPAs are exactly the same, and we would use your grade points instead of your grade-point average to determine the valedictorian. But don’t worry. This won’t be a concern come the end of the school year.”
And then another thought makes its way to the front of my brain. “Who am I tied with?”
Mrs. Grimes sighs. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
But she doesn’t have to. I’m already out of the chair, the sticky note clenched in my fist, and before Mrs. Grimes can say anything, I’ve rushed out of the office and into the hallway, following the flow of traffic to get to Petra’s first-period class. I know she has economics because I almost took the class but signed up for AP bio instead so I could be with Jackson.
Petra is already in her seat, flipping through her textbook, and I sit down in the seat in front of hers, spinning around to face her.
Her eyes are wide, but then she sees the sticky note in my hand and rolls her eyes. “I wondered when you would be demanding to know if I’m the one you’re tied with.”
I clench the note tighter. “So it is you?”
She slams the textbook shut, and the girl across the aisle jumps at the sound. “Of course it’s me. Who else would it be? I’ve known since before break. I can’t believe you didn’t check before you left for the holidays.”
I was so happy to be spending Christmas with Jackson that I walked out of school the Friday before break without even thinking about my rank. Obviously, I was too confident, too cocky, because I thought I didn’t have anything to worry about.
Clearly, I was wrong.
I’m not going to let her have it. Petra gets everything she wants, and she can have it all. But she isn’t going to have valedictorian. Valedictorian is mine. I worked too damn hard. I gave up everything: my social life, my sanity, everything. I’m not going to lose val. I’m going to do everything I have to in order to keep it.
I stand up. I’m not often afforded the pleasure of looking down at people, but I look down at her now and nod once. “Get your salutatorian speech ready.”
As soon as I get to first period, I pull out my planner and begin making changes. I can get in an extra hour of studying every night if I cut my sleep schedule short, and I have to make time for my homework in the evenings. I’m doing homework over breakfast way too often, and the feeling of being rushed is causing me to make mistakes. I’m skimming some of my chapters in my readings—completely unacceptable. And now that I have to factor in a job, I have to be more strict with my time, more structured.
I put my planner away and wait for Jackson at our lab table. We’ve been partners in AP bio since the beginning of the year. I’m organizing my stuff exactly the way I like it when he shows up. He kisses me on the cheek, and just that tiny act makes it all start to well up inside me again, and suddenly, right in the middle of the science lab, I’m biting my lip to hold back tears.
“Ames? What’s wrong?” Jackson knows me well enough to ask this quietly. He knows I don’t want to draw attention to myself, that crying in front of people is not something I’m interested in ever doing, and all that just makes me want to cry harder.
I lean in close to him and whisper, “I’m tied.”
For a second, he just blinks at me. “Tied for what?”
I stare at him, my whole face tight. “Tied for valedictorian.”
Jackson’s still staring at me, and I can almost see the moment that confusion shifts to realization. “Oh shit, Amy. I’m sorry. How can you be tied?”
I shrug. If I try to explain it all to him, I’m just going to start crying, so I shake my head and turn away. It wasn’t smart to bring it up right now anyway. What did I think I was going to accomplish by bursting into tears in the middle of AP bio?
“Ames, I know you’re stressed, but everything’s going to be okay.” It’s exactly the kind of thing that I would expect Jackson to say, and maybe on any other day, it would be enough. But today, it feels like empty words.