“But why wouldn’t he have told me that?”
“Maybe he didn’t want you to think he only wanted to be your love interest because of her?”
“Please never call him my love interest again.”
“Fine. Maybe he didn’t want you to think he only wanted to be your kissy-face partner because—”
“We haven’t kissed. You know that, right?”
Oh no.Was there a universe where we had kissed? I didn’t know if I wanted that universe to exist. I hadn’t made up my mind about that universe yet, and I didn’t want some version of me to have figured it out before this version of me.
“I think that’s probably it,” Em said. “It’s weird, you know, how famous she was. Some people don’t know how to deal with that. Remember when Mae Bryant started crying because you knew what was going to happen to Alvin and Margo before she did?”
“I do remember that, yes.”
“It was even weird for me sometimes, and I’ve knownyour aunt since I was a toddler. She was practicallymyaunt, but there were still some days I didn’t know how to act around her.”
“I guess so.”
I wasn’t convinced. Well, part of me was convinced, but the other part of me wondered whether that first part of me was only convinced because it really, really wanted to find an explanation for all of this. Like, really.
“I’m sure he’ll tell you,” Em said. “If he was friends with your aunt, he’s probably grieving too.”
I shoved another small mountain of popcorn into my mouth and lay back on the carpet. I was still angry at Sam and not really interested in giving him an out, so I changed the subject.“One week,”I said when I swallowed. “Can you freaking believe it?”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was six years old and my mom first told me I had to spend nine months out of the year in a jail cell,” Em said. “So yes, I can believe it, because it has been the sole goal of my life thus far. Surviving high school.”
“That has a ring to it. Maybe you should write a book?”
“I should! Young, queer, raised by a country-music-obsessed mother who mostly hated who I became with every ounce of blood in her body.”
“Stop,” I said.
“It’s true. I can’t believe I’m almost out of here. I don’teven have to visit if I don’t want! There are no laws that say I have to visit.”
“That’s true. Do you think you’ll miss it?”
“Absolutely not. The things I’ll miss will stay with me. You. Jackie. Lunch period.”
“I’ll miss how easy it is,” I said. “I mean—I think I will. How I never had to think about anything. You just know what you have to do. You wake up, you go to school, you do your homework. There aren’t any choices.”
“You like not having any choices?”
“I’m just saying that pretty soon people are going to consider us grown-ups. Do you know how to do your taxes? How to relight a pilot light if it goes out? How to change the oil in your car?”
“Okay, first of all: Jiffy Lube. Second of all: you are freaking me out. Can’t you let us just enjoy this small sliver of freedom between the end of high school and the beginning of college? Can’t you just give me these next three months before you make me take a class on how to light a pilot light?”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, and I love you, but you’re stressing me out.”
Em flapped the edge of our blanket house to get the air circulating. It was getting stuffy, but I didn’t want to leave. I wondered if there could be some version of us, some Em and Lottie in a galaxy far away, who stayed hidden in a blanket fort forever.
I woke up on the floor the next morning, my neck stiff, the ceiling of our fort tucked around me, a blanket again. My phone was chiming its daily wake-up call and I realized this was the last Monday I would ever spend in high school. That both freaked me out and made me unbelievably excited.
I read Aunt Helen’s next letter from the floor.
Lottie,
