Once I stop laughing, I almost follow, but that’s when I notice that Junior is surrounded. The team, the crowd that’s pouring in from the bleachers, the radio announcer that’s asking for an interview. His face is flushed, and he’s smiling, and I think it’s not fair that he’s been hiding himself from the world all these years.
But there are the girls from tryouts, with their tiny tank tops and their long hair and their perfectly applied lipstick, and it doesn’t matter that things didn’t work out with the Hair Pony, because there’s a stable full of them out here, and one of them is touching his arm, and there’s something alive and clawing in my chest, there must be, because I can barely breathe.
It hits me then, as I stand on the side of the field, as everyone else takes their turn congratulating the boy who has made my life livable for the past five years:
I lost my best friend all those years ago because I was hiding. Because I didn’t think there was another way.
And I’m about to lose Junior too.
I don’t think any more after that, I just charge into the crowd, pushing aside shoulders and backs and arms until I reach him. One of the guys from the team is approaching, too, but I don’t care. I grab Junior’s elbow, and I turn him toward me, and his eyes widen a little as I throw myself into his arms, hugging him like I never want to let go.
After a moment of shock, he hugs me back. Hard. Like he doesn’t want to let go either.
“Don’t go with them,” I say, as Royce jumps up on top of the Starry Night board to accept the adulation of the masses.
“Go where?” he asks, his lips twitching upward.
“To whatever meatheads and waifs party they’re about to invite you to.”
“Why not?” he asks, and I can’t quite tell if he’s being sarcastic. “It sounds so fun.”
I take a deep breath. “Because I don’t want you to.”
His eyes get more focused somehow, like he’s just tuned out everything besides the answer to this question. No pressure. “Why not?”
“Because I have an idea?” I say, and it’s true. One is just occurring to me, in the wide-open space where my fear is fleeing the scene. But it’s a not good enough reason, and I knew it wouldn’t be. “Because,” I clarify. “I want you to come with me instead.”
His smile is ten winning cornhole shots. It’s tacos al pastor with just the right amount of lime juice squeezed on top. It’s everything.
“You got it,” he says, and when he takes my hand I don’t let go.
“There’s just one thing,” I say, and his smile gets more familiar.
“Of course,” he says. “We’ll pick up Lita on the way.”
“Did I hear someone planning an adventure?” comes a voice from behind us.
It’s Cole Kendall, his arm in a sling, and he’s smiling too.
“Don’t you have plans?” I ask, and we all turn as one to see Royce stage dive off the cornhole board into a crowd not quite big enough to catch him.
“Oh, all this?” he asks with a smirk. “I think I can handle missing one night.”
Leaving behind the crowd, now chanting Royce’s name like he made the winning shot, the three of us walk back to the parking lot, to the root-beer-brown Pontiac Junior’s mom let him borrow for the game. As Cole slides into the back seat and I get in beside Junior, I get that weird fluttery feeling again.
The kind that tells me this is gonna be quite a night.
Lita
THE DAY AFTER the talent competition, I ask Bruja Lupe to tell my friends I’m not home, or that I’m sick, or anything to make them hang up or go away.
I don’t think any of them will try talking to me, not after what happened, but just in case.
That night, the sun is barely down when I put on my favorite pajamas, one more thing I’ll miss (along with the hundred-washes-soft tank top I have on underneath). They’re patterned with shooting stars arcing across a cotton-candy-pink background like they’re comets, rainbows in place of their tails.
I think about missing them, because it’s too big to think about everything else I’ll miss, everyone else I’ll miss.
The stardust hasn’t burst onto my arms. Not yet. But it’s all over my legs. From my thighs to my ankles it looks as silvery and glimmery as a mermaid’s tail.
My arms are next. I can already feel the buzzing feeling under my skin.
Alien. Alien. Alien.
The word spreads out in my brain like a coyote’s call through the desert.
When I come back to my room after brushing my teeth, Cole Kendall is leaning against my open window.
“Why are you in my room?” I yell.
He must catch that I’m more startled than annoyed, because he smiles.
I look at his sling. “How did you even get in here?”
“First-story window?” Cole asks. “Easy. Do you know how many times Kendra and I have snuck in at two a.m. after a party? If I can get my drunk, belligerent sister in a window, I can get myself in with one hand tied behind my back.” He glances down at the sling. “So to speak.”
“Belligerent,” I say. “Nice word.”
“Adjective,” he says as though reciting from a dictionary. “Definition: My sister after her third Jell-O shot.”
I laugh. “What are you doing here?”
“You just kinda bolted after the talent thing,” he says. “I thought I’d give you space, but when none of us heard from you, I got worried. Then when you didn’t show up for the championship, I really got worried.”
Junior. I say a little prayer that God let the stars in the sky give Junior a little extra luck today.
Missing it gave me a sad, hollow feeling that still hasn’t gone away. But showing my face at the championship right after I bailed on the talent portion, for no reason the audience could see, felt as impossible as Chicky and me being friends again.
“Did he win?” I ask.
“If you wanna know that,” Cole says. “You’re coming out with me.”
I cross my arms, pajama flannel scritching over pajama flannel. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not letting you mope in here all night.”
“I’m not moping. I am brooding.”
“You can brood any other night. But sorry, not tonight.”
“Why are you even here?” I ask. “Did you not see the fiasco I was onstage?”
Fiasco. That’s another good word. I wish I could take more joy in it right now.
“I don’t remember any fiasco,” Cole says.
“Are you kidding?” I ask. “If Miss Meteor pageant had a talentless competition, I’d take first place.”
“You handled an asshole as well as anyone could’ve.”
I stare up at my star mobile as though there is not a boy standing in my room. “Thanks for checking on me, but I’m staying in tonight.”
“Fine,” Cole says. “But your friends are gonna be really disappointed.”
Friends?
Plural?
Cole lifts his hand, showing me his palm. “I can tell you no more. I am merely a messenger.”
He’s given me just enough to make me curious.