“I’m okay, thanks. Just crowded in there.”
I accept a high five. “I feel you,” my new friend says. “Have a good night. Good luck tomorrow.”
“You too,” I say, even though I don’t know what team the keeper plays for. It just feels nice to be supported and supportive. I wave, swat another mosquito, and consider returning to the party.
An image of Melissa’s scowling face stops me. What are you even doing here?
“Hey!” A girl from the Clear Lake team waves at me while I try to remember her name. “Good night!”
“Night.” I smile. “Good luck tomorrow.”
The smile stays after the girl disappears. None of the quidditch people question my belonging or demand explanations. Quidkids don’t make me feel invisible or unwelcome.
I swivel to press my aching head to the glass behind me. Dehydrated, probably. Should chug more water.
Melissa doesn’t belong here any more than I do. I should march back in there and tell her . . .
The door opens, and the person who steps out derails my momentary self-possession. The boy with the Prince jersey. He blinks against the darkness, takes a step out the door, turns to walk the opposite way down the sidewalk.
“Hey,” I say.
I startle him. I startle myself, too, to be honest. He recovers first.
“Hey,” he says through an ear-to-ear grin. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” I laugh, tilting my face so that my flushing cheeks cool on the window. “That’s, uh, what you said last time. That I was scary.”
“And I stand by it. My team will have to play you tomorrow, right?” I shrug because I don’t know the schedule and I’m not totally sure which team he’s on. “Suddenly I feel better about having to miss the second day of games to go to work.”
“Oh no, that’s crap,” I say. His turn to shrug. “Besides, if anything, I think our last game proved that you can hold your own against me.”
His laugh is as big as his smile. “So is this where the cool kids loiter?” he asks.
I snort. “I think it’s where the socially anxious people hide.”
“Huh. I’m surprised there’s not a longer line, in that case.”
I laugh, he grins, someone honks in the parking lot, and I prepare for the cute boy to turn away, as cute boys always do, and move on with his cute-boy life while I catch my breath.
Instead, he joins me in front of the window.
“How’d your team do today?” he asks. “Y’all have a lot of great players.”
My legs are sore and my emotions are exhausted and talking about quidditch is easy, especially with this boy who has a pretty face and a glowing smile. At some point I slip into a crouch on the cement, and he follows my lead, and soon we relax below the window with our feet tucked under us.
“I’m so mad I couldn’t get off work,” he sighs, “but at least I got to play today.”
“I guess skipping isn’t an option?” I ask, having never been employed. “Or calling in sick?”
He laughs. “Quidditch is great and all, but paychecks are necessary. Why, did you risk your livelihood to be at this tournament?”
I try my best casual laugh, but it’s not convincing.
“Wait, you didn’t, did you?” he asks. “I feel like Karey would not condone that.”
“No, no livelihood endangered.” I hold up my hands. “Just . . . I slightly maybe snuck out of my house and broke my grounding to get here. But it was an unfair grounding anyway. How do you know Karey?”
“Just a year of tournaments, plus some mutual friends at A&M. She’s great. Should I let you change the subject, or can I ask about the grounding?”
I laugh because it’s an awkward question, and it’s an awkward topic, and I’m an awkward person.
“It’s, uh, I mean, you can ask, it’s just a silly story. And a long one.”
The boy turns his high-watt smile on full blast.
“Well . . . so I pissed off my stepmom at the beginning of the summer by going to my first-ever quidditch practice . . .”
Behind us, the party gets louder, and in front of us, the stars get brighter.
“. . . and then, like, we got into some fight about feminism or something, and then my little sister acted like it was my fault . . .”
“Ugh, who even argues with feminism? Like, do you want to be the villain in a docudrama fifty years from now? My parents pull that crap all the time . . .”
“. . . and she was so freaking rude about Karey, who’s, like, the sweetest person in the world, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“Obviously!”
There is something undefinably cozy about finding someone who likes the same things you like and hates the same things you hate. Our conversation meanders comfortably, which makes me feel better about what is becoming a pretty long rant about my dysfunctional family.
“Such trash! I have this econ professor who’s the same way. Sorry, background tangent, but he’s probably the richest, whitest, straight-cis-est old dude in the history of rich white straight-cis old dudes. And—speaking with all the privilege of a straight-cis white-ish Greek dude—he’s completely insufferable. Like, okay, we get it, capitalism has worked really well for you, specifically . . .”
My head spins from the noise and the dehydration and the laughter.
“They never listen!”
“They don’t listen, and they refuse to learn.”
“And she’s just so— She hates me, and I don’t know why. I’m never good enough.”
“Can I offer some advice?”
I meet his suddenly serious eyes.
“I mean, maybe it’s terrible advice considering I don’t actually know your stepmom or your complete situation or even you, really. But, uh, when you have toxic people in your life, even in your family . . . just speaking from personal experience, sometimes it’s better to just ignore them.”
“Talk to the hand, Connie.” I smirk.
“I know, I know, it sounds silly. But I mean it. Don’t measure yourself by their standard. Don’t wear yourself out for their approval. Don’t let their voice be the voice in your head. Just . . . let it go.”
“That . . .” That’s remarkably similar to what I was trying to do when I planned this trip, isn’t it? I wanted to not care what anybody thinks of me. But it’s already not working. I can’t imagine not caring about Connie’s jabs, her sharp breaths, her fiery glares. I can’t imagine not seeing myself through her eyes, not expecting everyone to look at me and find the same flaws. And if ignoring Connie seems difficult, Dad is impossible. “I don’t know if I can.”