My father looks like he’s near tears. “Here and there. None of it’s open. That bottle of Jack was the first one since I quit, I swear. All this is just in case.”
I reach out and snatch up a bottle. “Just in case doesn’t exist. Just in case isn’t an option anymore.” I gather the bottles in my arms and head for the door, ready to smash them all on the pavement outside when Dad says, “I’m sorry about the girl. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wanted to keep you from getting hurt again.”
I open the screen door without looking back at him. “Whatever you told her, you were right.”
AMY
I’M NOT SURE what I was expecting. I gave Oliver the concert ticket in hopes that he would meet me there, but the concert isn’t for another month, and I guess I was hoping he’d read the letter, forgive me, and show up at my doorstep.
But that doesn’t happen.
I spend the rest of April focusing on my schoolwork. My break up with Oliver plunges me into motion. Once the sadness is over, I barely take a breath between student council, volunteering on the weekends, and getting ahead on homework. I feel like a machine.
Staying busy keeps the sadness away, even when it kills me a little to walk by Spirits on my way to the tutoring center, where I’ve been working part-time. Every time I’m inside, I have to avert my eyes. Looking at Spirits is just as painful as looking directly at the sun.
While everyone else celebrates the end of senior year, I spend it locked away, because making valedictorian is the only thing I have left.
OLIVER
I SPEND THE rest of April in a haze. It’s hard to explain it, really. I go to work at Charlie’s, I come home and make sure Dad isn’t drinking, I go to church with my mom on Sundays, but at the end of every day, I lie in bed, staring up at my ceiling, wondering.
Wondering what would happen if I just left.
What’s holding me here?
Dad hasn’t had a drink that I know of since that incident, Mom seems to be doing just fine without me, Charlie’s will find another waiter as easily as they found me. I fantasize about getting in my truck and driving until I don’t recognize anything anymore. I imagine leaving Kansas City and going to Boston or New York or L.A.
MAY
AMY
WE GET THE call at the end of the month, in the middle of last period.
“Amy,” my teacher says. “You’re needed in the office.”
Everyone’s eyes are on me as I grab my stuff and head for the door, but I already know what’s going to happen. All my other responsibilities, all my clubs and duties, are over. School is almost over. Finals have been taken. There’s only one thing left.
Petra is already waiting when I get to the administration office. She’s got her hands folded in her lap and her legs crossed beneath her chair, and I take the seat next to her.
We sit in silence for a second. We’ve been hanging out a lot since prom, since I cried in her car. Studying in the library after last period, eating lunch together in the cafeteria, planning last week’s ice-cream social to mark the end of student council.
She reaches over and takes my hand.
“You nervous?” she asks.
“No, my palms are always this sweaty.”
She laughs, and I suddenly regret so much. I regret all the times I didn’t tell Petra that she was the closest thing I had to a friend, all the time we spent fighting instead of being friendly. I think it would have been nice to have her on my side. I open my mouth to tell her these things, but the principal’s door swings open, and his eyes go back and forth between us before finally deciding on me.
“Amaría, why don’t you come in?”
I stand, and he steps out of the way to let me through. I was nervous before, but now I feel like I’m going to be sick. I’ve been working toward this for four years. Four years of hard work and dedication, and when he sits in front of me, his mouth a solid line, I already know what he’s going to say.
I fucked up, letting everything else in my life get in the way of this. It’s irreparable, that much I’m sure of.
“You seem to think you already know what I’m going to say.” Principal Cohen’s face is completely impassive.
I shrug. “I had a rough semester. I didn’t do my best, so I don’t expect to get valedictorian.”
His whole face seems to crease. “Your grades tell a different story. And your standing doesn’t just depend on you. It depends on Miss Johnson, too. And it seems you both had a hard time this semester. I even hear from your AP biology teacher that you cheated on a test.”
A surge of anger rushes through me. “I didn’t cheat on that test. Jackson copied off me.”
He holds up a hand. “What’s done is done, I’m afraid. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. Even with a zero on that test and what you think was a bad semester, you still pulled out quite far ahead of everyone else. So, you better start writing your speech.”
I stare at him for a second. “I … I got it?” I stammer.
Principal Cohen smiles at me. “Yes, Amy. Congratulations.”
I’m going to cry. I can feel it starting in my throat, pressing against my eyes, but when Principal Cohen reaches across the desk to shake my hand, it knocks me out of my shock.
“Thank you,” I say.
He lets go of my hand and sends me a confused expression. “You have no one to thank but yourself.”
That settles in my brain as I open the door and see Petra in her seat right outside. Her head comes up, and it only takes a second before she’s standing up, grinning at me.
“Damn, you have the worst poker face,” she says, and her words cause the dam to break. I stand in Principal Cohen’s doorway and cry. I feel Petra’s arms come around me, smell her laundry detergent on her shirt, and I hug her back.
“I’m sorry,” I say when I pull back, wiping away the tears. “You worked hard for it, too.”
She bites her lip and nods. “That’s true. But you won it, fair and square, and that’s all I could have asked for. A true competitor. And honestly, I’m just relieved.”
I look up at her. “Relieved that I got it?”
“Relieved that it’s over.”
I know exactly what she means. We swap places and she closes the principal’s door behind her, even though it’s useless now. We both know what he’ll say to her. Standing in the office, quiet since all the office attendants are getting ready to go home, I pull out my phone and grip it hard.
All I want is to call Oliver. I want to tell him about this, I want to tell him that I love him, I want to tell him that I couldn’t have done any of this without him.
I already know what will happen when I call the number that’s saved in my phone.
I’ve called it a thousand times. Maybe more.
But I dial anyway.
We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is no longer in service. Please hang up and try again.
OLIVER
“I’M SO GLAD you’re here,” Mom says as she puts a plate of lasagna on the kitchen table in front of me. “This place is so quiet without you. What’s it like living with your father?”