“It’s not about what she did to me, Paige, it’s about what she did toyou.”
I shift uncomfortably at Zara’s penetrating look.
The only fight Maisy and I have ever gotten in was senior year, when she outed my anonymous poetry from that literary magazine to the entire school. Sounds bad, and it was, but we got through it, and from the bottom of my heart, I know Maisy didn’t do it maliciously. She told everyone because she was proud of me.
Maisy Morgan didn’t ever come into my life, and I didn’t come into hers. Our mothers grew up as neighbors, both married their high school sweethearts, then found themselves living as adults on the same street. When we came along with the exact same birthday, they practically forced us into codependency. Whichstucklong after my mom split.
Suffice it to say, we’ve always been linked, and our shared birthday was no exception. Every May, her parents and my dad reserved the picnic tables at the Bristol Aquatic Center, where we’d grill out and devour Krispy Kreme donuts with birthday candles, slurping on orange Fanta, our noses sunburnt. Our presents, too, were given in tandem: new bikes, nail polish kits, sparkly pink soccer balls. I’m pretty sure Maisy’s parents just got duplicates for me and credited my dad, but I never minded.
It’s always been my favorite day of the year. Even when we turned fifteen and snuck beers from the adult table, absconding to sip alcohol only to get grounded that night when we threw up. Or when we turned seventeen and Maisy invitedboys, none of whom realized it was my birthday, too (but that year, Maisy threw awayhalf the cards and reassigned the boys’ presents to me when she thought I wasn’t looking).
I certainly had days when I was envious of Maisy, but on others, I pitied her. Like when we were fourteen, and her mom told her not to eat her birthday donut, that she might need to return her gifts for a larger size. Or our senior year, when we were getting ready for a Friday night football game together, and she stared at herself in the mirror blankly for two solid minutes until she started to cry.
I tried to be a good friend in those moments, but I’m not sure my words of affirmation ever really took. And in the end, I could feel privately sorry for Maisy Morgan all I wanted, but that didn’t change the fact that everyone else in Bristol viewed me as her tagalong. That everyone else felt sorry forme, because ofher, and how obviously she outpaced me.
“I think you might still be playing a role you’ve almost outgrown,” Folly said to me once, the week before she moved to Portland, in response to me telling her I wasn’t going to a farm bonfire since Maisy was sick.
“What role?” I’d asked her, immediately defensive.
“The side character in the protagonist’s story,” she explained. “But I think you’re on the brink of changing your mind.”
I was so embarrassed by her analysis that I stormed off, pretending at anger. She was gone days later. We never finished that conversation.
But now, as the Tennessee sun beats down on us and Zara reaches into her bag for the sunscreen, I know that if Folly comes home—if she contacts me in any capacity—I’ll tell her she was right. But also, that things are different between Maisy and me these days.
For example: when we had dinner last week and I finally told her Evan and I were through, that Liam and I had kissed, Maisy lectured me about the perils of college athletes by saying, “You’re a game, Paige, you’re his shiny new game.”
But I held my ground, told her I thought this was different, and promised Maisy that even if I was wrong, I could handle myself no matter the outcome.
“Here’s the thing.” Zara snatches my drink and takes a sip. “I’m moving to New York in one month, and you and Maisy barely see each other anymore. I think you can admit you’ve been growing apart for a while.”
“And because you’re leaving, I need a new babysitter?”
“How on earth did you getbabysitterfromboyfriend?” Zara asks. “I’m trying to say it makes me happy, that you’ll still have a person here once I’m gone.”
“Liam is getting drafted this summer,” I remind her. “He could wind up on the other side of the country in a few months. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
Can I, though?
The prospect of Zara leaving Knoxville, of my friendship with Maisy dwindling, ignites a terror in my gut I don’t know how to process. With Dad doing his agritourism thing abroad and my sisters all gone from Bristol, there’s nothing left for me there.
What if, come summer, there’s nothing left for me here either?
Find out what you want from your twenties and figure out how you get it. Don’t wait for it to find you, or you’ll turn into Folly, aimless and confused.
“I just don’t want you to turn into—”
“Folly?” I snap. “I’m my own person. And you are, too, so stop acting like Maren. For the record, there’s nothing wrong with being a waitress or being single or not having my future figured out when I’m twenty. There wouldn’t be anything wrong with it atany age.”
Zara sighs, turning back to the field. “It’s not about any of that. It’s about the fact that he’s good for you, Paige.”
Liam strikes out a player, which is announced over the loudspeaker, and Zara leaps onto the bleacher, cheering at the top of her lungs. Every person in a twenty-foot radius turns to stare, asdo half the players, including him. The brim of Liam’s baseball cap tips our way.
After the game (which they win), we head to the athletes’ entrance, where Liam told us to meet. We’re in a horde of people who’ve spilled onto the walkway that bisects the baseball stadium and parking lot. I turn to ask Zara if she’s familiar with this part of campus only to discover I’ve lost her. I spin in circles, searching for our telltale mop of dark curls in the crowd.
“Hey.” That voice.
Slowly, I rotate on my heels, aim a plastered-on smile up at Liam.
