I bit down hard on my lip and shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you always tell me everything, Hannah. Please. You can trust me.”
I held my breath and told myself to keep the words inside, locked away where they belonged. I couldn’t tell Mom. She’d go straight to Emory’s mom. And Emory would hate me forever for betraying her.
I needed to get out of there, fast.
“This is between Emory and me.” In hopes of killing the conversation, I added, “And Jesus.” Mom didn’t say anything else, but I could feel her eyes on me as I opened the front door.
As soon as I reached the bottom of the steps, I took off running. I hung a right and rounded the corner, heading in the opposite direction of Foothill High School. It was after six thirty. I couldn’t risk crossing paths with Emory on her way home from rehearsal.
Later that night, I opened my laptop and started making a list of some of my favorite testimonials.
There was Kevin Anderson, whose parents were semi-famous and had split up in an ugly and very public divorce, and Bailee Parnell, who had to change schools after she was caught doing drugs in the girls’ bathroom during her sophomore year. Skylar Bagatti had been struggling with anxiety and depression since she was eight. And then there was Kaitlyn and the mysterious rumor.
I remembered each one of them standing at the podium on the stage, telling their stories, and thinking they weren’t immune to gossip, just because they were here. But I also remembered how my eyes drifted over to my dad as they spoke. He looked proud. And I was reminded that, for all Covenant’s imperfections, he had created something unique.
There were plenty of stories like theirs, but four seemed like a solid number to start with. I sent individual texts to each one, explaining the video project and asking them to meet us the next day at lunch at the Grove, a small area at the edge of campus that was surrounded by trees. Within twenty minutes, they had all replied yes.
I looked at the string of responses, feeling a little better. I had no idea if any of it would help, but it least it felt like I was doing something. Which seemed like a lot more than Dad was doing.
“Ow!” I shot Charlotte a look in the full-length mirror as I twisted out of her grasp.
“Hold still. You’re going to mess me up.” Charlotte pulled another chunk of my hair into her hands, wrapped it around another piece, and pinned it into place.
“Don’t make it look too fancy,” I said. “I’m going to a lacrosse game, not the prom.”
“Trust me. This one’s complicated, but it will look totally casual when I’m done.” She pulled at one section and started braiding it. “Ooh…wait.” She stopped. “Want me to weave some green-and-white ribbon in as I go?”
“God, no.”
“Why not?”
“Um, maybe because I’m not six years old.”
She stared at me with wide, exaggerated eyes. “Well, someone is certainly lacking school spirit.”
“Seriously?” I pointed at the gigantic white number thirty-four on my chest. That alone seemed like more than enough school spirit for one person.
Charlotte went back to braiding, and when she reached the end, she handed me her compact. “Take a look.”
I spun in place, turning my back to the full-length mirror. “Wow. Sorry I ever doubted you.”
Charlotte was messing with another loose piece when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in.” I expected it to be Mom. I turned around and started to ask what she was doing home so early, but I saw David standing there instead. “Oh…Hi.”
“Hey.” He folded his arms across his chest in that buff-dude way, like he was trying to impress us with his bulk. “I just got home from New York.”
I squeezed the compact as hard as I could.
“I’m looking for your mom. I heard voices and thought she was in here with you. Hey, Charlotte,” he said.
“Hey, David.” She said it way too cheerfully.
“Gig in the city. Home at eight.” I always answered D-bag with the fewest possible words. He didn’t deserve full sentences.
“Oh, okay…I didn’t realize it was going that late or I would have stopped at my loft on the way home from the airport.”
His loft? Pompous dickhead. I squeezed the compact even harder.
“When is her big fund-raiser?” he asked casually. “Is that this Friday?”
He knew the answer. Aside from the wedding, that fundraiser was practically all Mom had talked about for the last month. Was he actually trying to make polite conversation?
“Mm-hmm,” I mumbled.
“Good. I wanted to be sure I was going to be in town. She’s planning to stay at my place afterward.” He leaned against the doorframe. “Are you heading out?”
“Big lacrosse game at school,” Charlotte told him.
“Cool. Well, have fun.” He closed the door. I didn’t let my breath go until I heard it latch.
“David’s so nice,” Charlotte said. “I don’t understand why you don’t like him.”
I felt sick to my stomach.
“He’s not David to you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You seriously want me to say, ‘D-bag is so nice.’”
“Yes, I do, but without the inaccurate ‘nice’ part.”
“You know, he’s going to be your stepdad in a few months. You should probably stop calling him D-bag.”
“Never.” I stared at her in the mirror.
Charlotte stared back at me. “You did catch that, didn’t you?” She rested her chin on my shoulder. “Someone’s got the whole house to herself on Friday night.”
When I arrived at the stadium, all Luke’s friends were clustered together in the bleachers, decked out in green-and-white Falcons gear and impossible to miss. I spotted Mr. and Mrs. Calletti right away, and they waved. Aside from their group and a few other parents scattered around, the bleachers were fairly empty.
“Where is everyone?” I asked Addison.
“It’s California lacrosse, not Texas football.”
As soon as I sat down, Lara leaned forward. “Oh my God! Your hair looks amazing. Did you do that by yourself?”
“Nope, all Charlotte.” I pulled my phone from my back pocket and clicked on her Instagram account. “You should check out her stuff. Her tutorials are really easy to follow.” I handed my phone to Lara. She watched, and then passed it around so everyone could see.
And then I unzipped my sweater, showing off what I’d done to Luke’s jersey.
A professional seamstress had been at the theater earlier that day, altering the costumes for Our Town. I showed her Luke’s jersey and asked her if she could do anything to fix it, and her eyes lit up. “Give me fifteen minutes,” she’d said. I watched her cut the whole thing along each side and sew it back together, transforming it into a cute, form-fitting dress.
“I want to do that to Dominic’s!” Ava said. She’d tied the bottom of his jersey on one side, at her hip.
“Come by the theater during lunch or after school. The sewing machine is all set up. I’ll do it for you.”
The horn blew and the announcer’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
“I don’t think I’ll ever understand this game,” I admitted as the two teams ran onto the field.
“It’s like ice hockey,” Addison said.
“Yeah, I don’t have a clue about ice hockey.” She looked at me like I just told her I had eleven toes. “What? I don’t have a sporty family like you do.”
My parents never watched sports when I was growing up. I couldn’t remember a single time my dad threw me a ball or even tossed me a Frisbee. But apparently, things had changed, because when I went to visit him and his replacement family last summer, he took us all to a Chicago Cubs game. They had season tickets and everyone was totally into it. I didn’t know when to cheer, so I just sat there nursing a Coke and working on my tan.
Addison pointed straight down at the white line that cut the fie
ld in half. “Okay, stay with me. There’s Luke. He’s a midfielder, so he and two other guys on the line can run the whole length of the field.”
She pointed to the three players on the far right. “Those are the attackmen. They stay close to the cage and try to score.”
And then she pointed to the left, and I followed her finger. “The three defenders stay down there with the goalie and try to stop the other team. All the players use those sticks to pass that little white ball around and beat the crap out of whichever guy has it.” She looked back at me to be sure I was keeping up. “That’s pretty much all there is to it. Next week I’ll make Luke take you to one of my games and explain how women’s lacrosse is played. It’s totally different.”
“Why?”
“There’s no contact. I used to play men’s lacrosse so I could smack people, too, but then the guys got a lot bigger and my parents decided it was too dangerous.”
The horn blew again, and her head whipped back to the center of the field. Dominic Murphy and some other guy were crouched low on the ground, staring at each other.
“That’s called the face-off,” she said. Then she cupped her hands to her mouth and screamed, “That’s yours, Murph!”
I stayed quiet, watching the game, taking it in. At first, I mostly watched Luke, but after a while I tried to follow the ball instead. When Luke finally got it, and started sprinting toward the Falcons’ goal, I found myself leaning forward just like Addison did, craning my neck to see what was happening, unable to take my eyes off the action. He pulled his stick back and swung it toward the goal, and the ball slammed hard into the upper right corner of the net. Everyone in our section jumped up, clapping and screaming as the announcer called out, “First goal for the Falcons by senior Luke Calletti, number thirty-four!”
As Luke was running back to the white line, he looked up at the stands and when he saw me, he gave me a little wave. I waved back. And then I yelled, “Go Luke!” louder than anyone else.
By halftime, I was completely into it, yelling along, jumping to my feet every time we scored, and covering my mouth when any of the guys took a hard hit. Luke got another goal in the third quarter. And he had three assists, which sounded like a big deal when Addison explained it to me.
When the game ended, we gathered our stuff and I put my sweater on. Addison started to say something, but then she looked past me, over my shoulder, and said, “Oh, hey!”
I turned around and saw Luke’s parents. Mrs. Calletti gave me a fist bump and said, “Well, it looks like you survived your first lacrosse game. What did you think?” Her dark hair was peeking out from under her Falcons cap, and she was wearing one of Luke’s jerseys, too.
“I loved it,” I said. “But I had no idea how hard they hit each other!”
“Just wait until next year,” Mr. Calletti said. “That was nothing.”
His comment didn’t register right away. Not until I took in his outfit. He was decked out in Denver gear. Denver cap. Denver jersey.
I was at a loss for words, so I made a joke instead. “Is there anything you didn’t buy?”
“Nope.” He lifted his pant leg to show off his Denver socks.
Luke’s dad was beaming at me, eyes full of pride, and I tried to match his expression, but out of nowhere, it had hit me. I’d never wear Luke’s Denver jersey. At some point in the not-too-distant future, some other girl probably would, but it wouldn’t be me. My throat tightened. I bit the inside of my cheek, pushing the emotions back down where they belonged.
Addison must have been able to tell I was upset because she took one look at my face and changed the subject. “We’d better go. Everyone’s heading to the diner.”
But I didn’t want to go to the diner. Not yet. I gestured in the opposite direction. “I’ll meet you there in a few minutes. I need to grab something from the theater.”
I hugged Mrs. Calletti, and then Mr. Calletti, and waved good-bye before any of them could question me or offer to come along. I followed the walkway that led from the stadium to the theater in a daze, and I when I arrived at the backstage door, I was relieved to find that the janitor hadn’t locked it yet.
I slipped inside, walked straight to the stage, and sat down on the edge with my feet dangling over the side. I looked around, taking in the room. The aisle lights were still on, casting a glow on the dark red velvet seats, and I inhaled the scent of old wood and damp towels. They say our sense of smell is most closely linked with memory, and I believed it. I already knew that any remotely similar scent would forever bring me right back to this room.
It was almost over. All of it, and all at once. High school. Performing on that stage. My relationship with Luke. Mom and me, and our family of two. It was bad enough that I’d already lost Hannah. Soon, the rest of it would be gone along with her.
I looked down at Luke’s jersey-dress, staring at the number thirty-four, thinking about the end of us, and feeling this uncomfortable tightness in my chest. But I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried, and I wasn’t about to do it now. Not yet. There were still 159 days until we were officially broken up. Still, I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep it down that long.
As I sat there in the silence, I realized what I had to do.
I stood and left the theater, stepping into the cold night air, walking to the diner with a determined stride and rehearsing what I was going to say to Luke when I saw him. But when I got to the parking lot, I couldn’t go in.
I could see everyone through the window. Luke and his teammates must have just arrived, because they were still standing in clusters, taking off their jackets, trying to figure out where everyone was going to sit. By contrast, on the opposite side of the restaurant, I saw Charlotte, Tyler, and the rest of my drama friends, looking like they’d been there for hours. They were smashed into one booth, even though they probably would have been more comfortable divided up into two. The table was littered with empty plates, dirty forks, crumpled-up napkins, and half-empty glasses.
There was a little flower garden overlooking the parking lot, complete with flamingos and garden gnomes, and it cheered me up a little bit. I sat on the curb and took a few deep breaths, clearing my head. I was about to make my move when my phone buzzed.
I checked the screen.
Luke: Where are you?!?
I typed back.
Emory: Outside
I stood and watched him spin a slow three-sixty, trying to figure out where I was. When he finally spotted me, he furrowed his brow and held up a hand.
I held mine up, too.
“You okay?” he mouthed.
I shrugged.
And then he held up a finger, as if to say, “Wait there,” and I watched him pocket his phone and leave. I returned to my spot on the curb and waited for him to round the corner.
“Hey.” He sat next to me.
“Hi.” I scooted closer to him until our hips were touching and rested my arm on his leg. I looked up at him. “You were amazing tonight. I can’t believe how fast you were out there. Seriously, I had no idea that would be so fun.”
“Addison said she explained the game to you.”
I smiled. “She’s an excellent teacher. I’ve got it down now, so if you need me to explain it to you or anything…”
He smiled back. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Then he bumped his shoulder against mine. “Stop making small talk. What’s up?”
“With me?” I asked.
“No, with that garden gnome behind you,” he said. “Yes, with you.”
“Nothing.” The word caught in my throat. I didn’t want to talk about it. We couldn’t talk about it. We’d promised each other that we wouldn’t even think about it until we were packing our respective bedrooms into boxes and taking trips with our moms to buy new sheets and storage cubbies for our dorm rooms. August was five months away. We were supposed to be making the most of our time together, and that meant ignoring the inevitable end.
Luke looked at me.
“I g
uess it’s just all hitting me, you know?” I finally said.
I could practically hear the clock ticking in my head and see the second hand speeding up. I bit the inside of my lower lip until it hurt. And finally, I said what I’d been thinking ever since I saw that wedding dress on my table a few days earlier. “I’ve just been wondering if, maybe…we’re making this whole thing harder on ourselves than it needs to be, you know?”
Luke made a face. “No. I don’t know.”
“Do you think we should break up?” I spat the words out as fast as I could before I changed my mind.
Luke started laughing, but when he realized I hadn’t even cracked a smile, he stopped cold. “No. Why would we break up?”
“You’re going to Denver. If I’m lucky, I’ll be at UCLA, and if I’m not, I’ll be at some other California school. But I’ll be here. And you won’t be. You’ll be living a thousand miles away from me.”
“In five months.”
“But it’s inevitable.” I massaged the back of my neck.
“So, you’re saying you want to break up now, because it’s only going to get harder to break up later? You know that’s ridiculous, right?”
The way he said it, the expression on his face, everything about that moment made my heart feel like it was being squeezed in a vise.
“We could try long distance,” he said, as if he’d been thinking about it, and I smiled at him, because it was a sweet thing for him to say, and even sweeter because I could tell he meant it. But we’d already talked about that.
“No, we can’t.” My parents started dating in high school, and they stayed together, even when they went to colleges on opposite sides of the country. Mom never said she regretted it, but I’d always wondered if she had. Either way, it didn’t work out so well for the two of them, and I wasn’t about to go down the same path. “That’s too much pressure. You’re going to meet new people and I’m going to meet new people….It isn’t fair to do that to each other.”