“You want me to make you all a snack or something?”
“That’s okay, Mom. We’re just going to hang out in my room. Come on, guys.” I head upstairs and the two of them follow me.
“Thanks anyways, Mrs. Green,” Rory says over her shoulder.
They both flop down on my bed while I turn my desk chair around to face them. The two of them look like they feel more comfortable in my room thanIdo.
“I saw on Instagram about UNC,” I say, pointing to Rory’s baby-blue T-shirt. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing it. You’ve been talking about going there since like seventh grade.”
Rory beams, glancing down at her shirt. “Thanks! Yeah, I can’t freaking wait.”
“I’ll have to come visit you. It’ll give me a good reason to get the heck out of Wyatt once in a while.” I let out a sigh. “You guys… I can’t believe I’m going to Bower.Whyam I going to Bower?” I ask, looking between the two of them.
Rory shrugs. “Honestly, I don’t know. It made no sense to us, either, but you made it seem like youwantedto stay close to home.”
We never talked about it?
Savannah rolls over onto her back and hangs her head off the bed, looking at me upside down.
“So, you like…reallydon’t remember the past two years…” She pauses, raising one eyebrow. When I shake my head, she continues, “Then you don’t remember losing your v-card after prom?”
“What?”I drop my jaw, my eyes widening so much, it feelslike they’re going to pop out of my head.I had sex?! I’ve never even kissed anyone!
“And if you don’t remember that, then youdefinitelywouldn’t remember your pregnancy scare. Right?” Rory asks. Savannah drops her face into my comforter.
“Mywhat?” I yell, breaking out in a sweat all over my body.Does my mom know? She would’ve blown a gasket. Is that… is that why things feel so off between us?
“Rory,”Savannah says into my mattress, and that’s when I notice her whole body shaking with laughter. I take a breath, letting all my muscles relax. Rory bursts out giggling, and Savannah lifts her head up and meets my eyes.
I’m not finding it funny right now, but I force out a laugh anyway while I blink the tears out of my eyes. I wouldn’t have expected that kind of joke from them, considering the circumstances. It feels a little too far.
“I can’t believe you bought that. Puh-lease, Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes?” She squints at me. “You didn’t evengoto prom.”
“I didn’t?” I ask, the room still spinning a little from their joke.
“No, you had to work,” Rory answers.
“Oh, at that coffee shop?” I ask. “My parents told me about that, but I can’t believe I really missed senior prom. Damn.” I was never the type of girl to spend her nights dreaming of prom, but still, I never thought I’dnotgo.
“Yeah, well, you’ve missed a lot of stuff this past year. Dances, parties, and basically every weekend when we ask you to hang out,” Savannah says lightly, but there’s a pointed edge to it I’ve never heard before.
“Oh.” I pick at the wood of my chair. “What was I doing? I couldn’t have been workingthatmany hours.”
She shrugs. “That was always the excuse you gave us. If I didn’t know you, I’d have guessed you were sneaking around with some boy…” She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously.
“Look, I might not remember the last two years, but I’mpretty sureif I was, you guys would be the first to know,” I reply with a laugh. What I’m really thinking is that I literally have never had a crush on a single guy in my life. I’ve never toldthemthat, though. I mean, it’s always felt so… not normal. Almost embarrassing, like there might be something wrong with me. But maybe that finallydidchange. I hope so, at least.
“Really? Because we never really bought into the wholeI have to workthing. You would’ve been working like sixty hours per week, which isn’t even legal,” Rory says.
“Guys, I don’t… remember. I don’t know what to tell you.” I shrug, at a loss for words, and almost a little frustrated. It’s like they care more about getting answers than what happened to me. But I shake it off and try to move on. “Who’d you guys go with? To prom?”
“Van’s dating Jake Mackey,” Rory sings.
“You are not,” I say, surprised, remembering the scruffy guy in our class with a comically lifted pickup truck. “Does he have to boost you up into his truck or do you bring your own stepladder?” I ask, but neither of them laughs.
“You’re just jealous.” Savannah rolls her eyes. “He’s actually really great and really hot now.”
“I was just kidding.” I shrug, but nobody says anything for a little while and the silence is getting painful, so I spin aroundslowly in my chair to avoid their eyes for a second. But then it gets worse because the two of them start talking quietly behind me about something that happened this past weekend at Truck Night. Truck Night, the monthly gathering where country boys measure dicks by showing off their big trucks. So I obviously don’t know anything about it. Nor would I want to. I can’t believe Savannah and Rory go to that now. We used to make fun of the fact that something like that even exists.
