Jane and I gave each other questioning glances, but it was obvious neither of us knew what Lily was up to. Until she came back into view carrying what looked like envelopes.
“Oh, shit,” Jane said. “Lily, we are not—”
“Yes we are,” Lily said. It came to me just as she handed me the envelope with my name on the front.
“Oh yeah, I forgot about this,” I said. “I can’t even remember how the sentence started.”
“This time next year I will be…” Lily and Jane recited together.
“Right.”
“I’ll go first,” Lily said, ripping open her envelope and pulling out a sheet of paper, which she quickly unfolded.
“We arenotreading these out loud,” Jane said defiantly, but Lily kept going.
“This time next year I will…” She smiled down at the paper. God, she was a beautiful girl. “Still be madly in love with Lucas Kade.”
“Oh, gross,” Jane exclaimed.
“Lame,” I added.
“Boo,” from Stick.
Billy just leaned back and spread his arms along the back of the loveseat we shared, keeping quiet.
“Damn straight you are,” Lucas said. “And right back at you.”
Lily leaned over and kissed him, then looked up at me. “Who’s next? Syd?”
“Man, I can’t even remember what I put,” I said. We’d done this little exercise the night before Montrose had asked me to stay after class, so I was sure there wasn’t anything embarrassing about him on my paper. I opened it up and read, “This time next year I will…not be afraid that I don’t fit in at Bribury.”
Silence. “Who’s lame now?” Jane finally said. “Of course you fit in at Bribury. You always did.”
I gave a grateful look at Jane who just rolled her eyes at me. “Get a grip,” she said.
Billy rubbed on my back. “And? Did it come true?” he asked.
I nodded, then smiled at him. “Yes.”
“Good,” Stick said. “Still, kind of anticlimactic. Here’s hoping you’ve got a good one, Jane.”
“Yeah. No. I think I’ll just keep mine private, thank you very much,” Jane said.
“Oh, come on,” Lily said. “It’s just for fun.”
“Is it about me?” Stick said, grabbing at her envelope, which Jane held out of his reach.
“Don’t be an idiot. We did these last year.”
“Yeah, but we danced at your sister’s wedding before New Year’s.”
“But we filled these out before we left for break.”
“Oh,” Stick said, sitting back in his seat.
“Come on, Jane, read it. We all read ours,” I said.
She looked at me and quirked an eyebrow, then ripped open her envelope, looked at her paper and read out loud, “This time next year I will…have finally banged Montrose.” There was a tiny gasp from Lily as she looked over at me, trying to gauge my reaction. “And he’ll beg for more,” Jane finished reading and looked at me with a “happy now?” look.
