“Right. It seems like things are good with Cam.”
“We’re just friends.” I don’t know why I said it—why I just outright lied. Once the words are out of my mouth, all I can think about is how wrong they sound. “But yeah, things are good.”
“Oh.” He’s looking at me like he wants to say something, but he’s not. Logan and I have been friends since third grade, and for the first time since I was ten, I don’t know what to say to one of my best friends. Instead, we just mirror each other, leaning against the car, him looking at me, as I look at him, in a verbal stand-off.
“I’m going to visit my brother at State this weekend. You should come.” Logan dips his shoulder and lets his backpack slide down his arm. “Check out the campus again?”
Right, The Plan.I shake my head. “I’m still not sure about State.”
“Well, you should be. Going to the same college will be awesome. Anders is going. And he’s working on convincing Cort to transfer. We’ll all go.”
“Seriously? He’ll never convince her to go to State. She loves it in Chicago and she has a scholarship. Plus, there are about a million colleges out there that I want to check out.”
“Since when?”
Since I’m thinking about music again, feeling like maybe I could actually do it. Since I realized State wasn’t the only option.I shrug my shoulders.
“Think about it, Vee, if we don’t go to college together, when would we see each other? I’ve hated not seeing you the last couple months.” I feel a twinge of guilt as I look him in the eyes and see that he means it.
“We’d see each other,” I say.
“When? Holidays? I’ll get tired of coming home for those, eventually. Holidays are depressing.” Logan doesn’t talk about his parents much anymore, but I saw the Logan most people never did. The first day of third grade, I walked onto the bus with an apple cinnamon donut from my mom. My favorite. Going down the aisle, I looked at all of the names posted above the seats, looking for the spot I’d spend the rest of the school year. Logan was sunk down in his seat, his knees wedged up against the seat in front of us. Even at nine, I could tell he was upset. He didn’t talk to me that whole ride, but before we got off the bus, I gave him half of my donut. And the next morning, we talked about our favorite TV shows. It was three weeks beforehe told me his mom had disappeared two days before school started. At Christmas, he still hadn’t heard from her. By the end of the year, we were inseparable.
“We’ll visit.”Won’t we?
The look on Logan’s face answers my question. He doubts it.
“Just think about it. State would be amazing.”
It would be amazing at State, and if we don’t go to college together, we’ll drift apart. It would be amazing at State, and if you don’t go, I won’t make an effort to see you. It would be amazing at State, and if you go somewhere else, you can plan on our friendship being over.
“And it fits in The Plan. You know it does,” Logan says.
I can’t keep talking. The hot sting of tears is pricking at my eyes. “Mmhmm.”
I pull my eyes away from my feet and see Cam walking toward us. When he gets to the car, Logan slaps him on the back with a “Hey, man,” and starts to walk away, shouting, “Think about it!” before he disappears into his car. It’s like a strange changing of the guard for my heart, old to new. And that realization alarms me, the fact that Cam holds a piece of my heart now, maybe all of it.How did that even happen?
“What does he want you to think about?” Cam asks as he opens my door.
“Nothing. We were just talking about old plans,” I say, lacing my fingers together with Cam’s on the console between our seats, because it’s become habit. We’re one of those couples with our hands stitched together now.
CAM
With the wind whipping by us, Vee and I huddle on the frigid sand, a blanket burrito-wrapped around our bodies. We bothhave our heads under the blanket, our cheeks resting on the warm flannel, against the sand. I can feel her warm breath against my face as she speaks.
“Sand castles, bongo drums”—Vee kisses me on the nose with each word—“and you.”
“Three things that are all too cold to be out on the beach right now?” I ask. She smacks me under the blanket for the joke, but I’m serious. “Fuuuuck, it’s cold.”
“Three things I love about the beach.” She rolls her eyes. “It’s almost winter.” Her voice is soft. “Winter’s the worst.”
“There are good things about winter.”
“Untrue,” she says.
“What about Christmas?” This seems like a solid argument, since Vee has told me she “loves Christmas more than ice cream.” Which, for her, is really saying something.
“Christmas exists in plenty of places that don’t have winter.”
