By the time Zoe appeared at Woodmont High, I’d given up on finding a best friend in high school, and certainly didn’t expect one in her. But shedidlet me read the short story, and Ididdraw designs for the Princess of Elthior that night. When I showed them to Zoe during our next study hall, she loved them, even put them on her Tumblr feed with the story itself.
After that, Zoe Grant became my best friend. We’d go to Friday night football games together covered in red paint. We’d gossip over our English teacher’s toupee. She’d write stories; I’d illustrate the characters’ outfits.
And eventually, Zoe told me what happened between her bestfriend in Austin and her twin brother, Will—whom I tolerated but didn’t often speak to directly. Mainly because he was sullen and unfriendly, but also because he’d hurt Zoe’s feelings by stealing away her best friend and he hadn’t even realized.
I invited her to Sea Island with my family over fall break. When we started applying to colleges, Zoe informed me I’d love the University of Texas. I didn’t think I’d get in, but Zoe convinced me to apply anyway. She wanted to go somewhere more prestigious but never made me feel dumb for not being as smart as her, for not having a chance at the places she was applying. (In return, I never offered opinions on Zoe’s outfit choices, even though I wanted to.)
It was my favorite year of high school. My parents even released me from the usual Sea Island obligation over spring break so I could go on the senior trip with the rest of my class. I was determined for it to be the best trip ever. I wanted to finally feel like I had become part of the group, to make memories and remember high school fondly.
And then Will Grant and I kissed on the beach, and the only thing I became was another villain in Zoe’s story.
A sharprapstartles me enough to drop my phone on my face.
“Ow,” I grunt, my nose scrunching.
“Josie!”
I turn my head sideways. My friends Giovanna and Leonie are in the middle of my rosebushes, their faces pressed up to my living room window. Behind them, the sun is dropping. Gio points at it emphatically and taps her wrist three times.
“Coming!” I shout, launching off the couch. As quickly as possible, I change into shorts, a tank top, and my tennis shoes, and then I’m at the kitchen sink, filling up a water bottle. They meet me by my garage door. I strap on my helmet and check my tire pressure.
Giovanna is a slender, gorgeous Italian woman with dark hair and olive skin. I met her during cycling class—a single-hour PEcredit we took when we were college sophomores, which we proceeded to make our entire personality. Her girlfriend is Leonie, a naturally blond and waiflike full-time yoga instructor who met Giovanna a couple years ago during a one-on-one yoga class that endedunprofessionally,as the story goes. They have a combined following of one hundred thousand people on Instagram and are considered the lesbian darlings of Austin.
“Let’s get going before we lose the sunlight,” Leonie says when I’m ready. “I still want to get in twenty miles if we can.”
“You lead,” I say, and Leonie takes off.
“Everything okay?” Gio throws me a concerned glance as she hooks her leg over the bike and straightens her handlebars.
“I’m fine.” I climb onto my own black-and-pink Liv bicycle. “Just distracted. This will help.”
“Did you get hydrangeas?”
I follow her gaze to the flower beds that line the left side of my place. Four giant hydrangea bushes are in bloom, the petals shifting in an ombré from pearl white to baby blue. Beneath them, a fresh bed of mulch has been laid.
“Huh.” I stare at this addition to my foliage for the first time.
“When did your landscaper come?”
I think on it. “Two weeks ago?”
“Josie,” Gio says.
“Gio,” I say.
“And you only just noticed?” She rolls her eyes and starts pedaling. “Does your brain ever turn off?”
“Honestly? No.”
I look back at the hydrangeas one last time, pleased now that I’ve taken the time to notice them. My landscaper has been servicing this house since Cami and I were just renters and the property belonged to our landlord. We moved in first thing after college graduation. Cami lives with her fiancé now, but I grew so attached to thehouse that when our landlord put it on the market four years later, I made sure to offer.
I pedal behind my friends, settling into the rhythm as we cruise down one street, then the next. With the sun creeping lower and the wind slipping past my skin, the scent of barbecue in the air, the feel of the rubber beneath my grip, I’m back in the present. Here. Now. I’m twenty-seven years old, with a mortgage and a business and a best friend who’s getting married soon and abiker gang.
Today was an off day, but everyone has those. Tomorrow, I’ll refocus. No more spite, no more vulnerability. Or shame, or self-consciousness, or doubt. My reunion with Will Grant is just a means to an end, and that end is: B Corp Certification.
We ride hard, making up for the twenty minutes of lost time by pushing ourselves against the sunset, but it’s exactly the workout I need. At 8:26, we climb off our bikes at the Austin Beer Garden and lock up, ordering beers and wedging our salt-kissed bodies onto the end of a family-style picnic bench outside.
“Should I be worried my older brother’s teenage son wants to do his own laundry?” Leonie asks with no preamble.
