I almost run smack into my mom on the front porch. She’s clutching a green plastic watering can in one small hand and in the other is theWORLD’S BEST MOMmug that I got her a million years ago.
“Whoa, careful, sweetie.” Her dark brown eyes widen over sun-spotted cheeks as she holds her mug out to steady the sloshing coffee.
“Sorry. I uh… didn’t think you’d be here,” I say, surprised to see her. It would normally take a plague of locusts to keep that lady from her Monday-morning prayer group.
“I decided to play hooky today. I was hoping you and I could hang out for breakfast.”
“I actually have to go,” I reply before I let myself even think about it, slipping past her off the porch, eyes locked on my black car parked in the driveway.
“I thought you didn’t start work until noon today. Where are you headed?” she asks from behind me.
“I’m meeting Savannah and Rory at the Dinor,” I tell her,continuing to walk toward my car. The misspelling is so common around this part of Pennsylvania that it didn’t even strike me as wrong until my sophomore year.
“Well, wait. What time do you get off?” she asks, making me turn around, but I keep my eyes on the stained mug in her hand, focusing on a white chip in the green paint. “The summer farmers’ market opens today—I was thinking… maybe you could help me pick out a few flowers for the front step?” She motions with the mug to the bare concrete step I just walked down. There’s a big part of me that wishes wecoulddo that together. Before I can stop myself, I meet her eyes and they absolutely light up as she misinterprets it as an opening. “And then after, maybe we could take a drive out to that bistro we used to go to all the time! Or head over to Dairy Qu–”
“Yeah, probably not.” I cut her off, trying not to think about that killer chicken sandwich and laughing at our old booth in the corner. She physically deflates before I can look away.Shit. Why does she have to make this so hard? “I have to stay a little later today, we’re training a new barista,” I lie… again.
“Oh. Of course.” She shakes her head like it’s nothing, like she believes me. “You’re busy.”
“You have a ton of flowers anyways.” I try to change the subject, looking around at the slew of potted plants lining the edge of the porch.
She pulls her cheeks up, the straight line of her lips forming a small smile, but all she says is “Have a nice time with your friends,” then turns her back to me.
I hesitate there for a second, my feet feeling like concreteblocks. It would be so easy to slip back into the past, to go to the farmers’ market and Lola’s Bistro and Dairy Queen, pretend like I’m still the girl she wants me to be, someone she would be proud of.
But things are different now.Shemade them different, I remind myself. I’ve spent the past year building up this space between the two of us, but she’s the one who started it. I’m just making everything easier for when the time comes. Easier for herandme. Because come August, we won’t be a part of each other’s lives any longer. So I pick up my feet and continue toward my car.
Still, the guilt bubbles up inside me more and more with every step, so I try to picture Nora and me in California. And when the visual forms, it reminds me that it’ll be worth it. That my real life begins when we get out of here. Together.
The moment I open the heavy metal door into the Dinor, I’m hit with a wave of voices, each one desperately trying to be heard over the next. The warm yellow lights illuminate the white tables and red booths, all filled with customers. I love coming here for breakfast because it’s packed to the gills every single morning, a reminder that this town still has some life left in it. It’s a sharp contrast to the storefronts on either side, both plastered with sun-faded pages from theWyatt Argus, a newspaper that doesn’t even exist anymore.
I pause in front of the ancient gumball machine, where you can win a free cup of coffee if you can manage to snag the color of the week, but ultimately, I decide to pass. Last time I got one, it was so old and hard that it honestly might’ve been ajawbreaker. The jury is still out. Besides, I do technically work at a coffee shop, so free coffee isn’t that much of a prize.
I scan the busy dining room and finally spot Savannah’s fiery ginger hair at a booth next to one of the large windows. It was easier when she had an absolute mane of curls, but right before senior year, she decided they weren’tin. So she’s been flat-ironing them every day since, which must take forever.
“I don’t remember, it’s honestly a blur,” Rory is saying as I approach. She throws herself back up against the booth in laughter, her messy bun bobbing around on top of her head. “Stevie!” she says as I slide in opposite them. “Oh my God. You missed the greatest party of all time.”
“What happened?” I ask, though I highly doubt I missed much of anything at Jake Mackey’s graduation party on Friday. I really don’t see why Savannah is with him.
Rory sighs, shaking her head. “You couldn’t even…” She laughs into Savannah, who clutches her arm, giggling and nodding so hard that I worry her head might fall off. “Right?” Rory says to her.
“You kind of had to be there,” Savannah finishes, trying to get herself under control, wiping tears away with a paper towel off the roll at the end of the table. “Speaking of which, I can’t believe they made you stay so late you couldn’t even celebrate your own graduation with your best friends. That job is practically slave labor,” she says.
Savannah.I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste metal. It’s like she doesn’t think at all about what things mean before she says them.
“It isn’t so bad,” I tell her, remembering that night. Noraand me lying in my car with the seats reclined, watching stars dot the sky through the moonroof, Phoebe Bridgers’s ghostly voice singing softly through the speakers while we continued planning our future.
“Well, I’m just saying we miss you. I mean, I remember when we used to spend every single weekend together.”
We did, back when we were young enough to want to build forts in the woods behind Rory’s house. Before Savannah started dating the lovely Jake Mackey, who once jingled around a handful of coins in front of my face and told me that’s how they name kids in China, and all the two of them did waslaugh.
Savannah continues as if it’s all still the same. “It’s been the three of us since preschool, and this is our last summer before college. It’s already June, and I knowyou’renot getting out of Wyatt, but I’m going to be all the way across the state in Philly come August, and Rory’s heading to some school in North Carolina,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear to reveal a big hoop earring.
“UNC.”Rory karate-chops her hand against the table with each letter. “They have a great biomedical research program. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
Savannah knows that Rory is attending UNC. She just likes to get under her skin. And despite Rory’s sky-high SAT scores, she still hasn’t figured that out yet. It’s always been that way, even when we were kids.
Savannah ignores Rory’s fuming and speaks directly to me. “My point is that even thoughyou’renot leaving town,weare, and things won’t be the same. I just want to make sure we get to spend some of this time together.”
