“I don’t remember,” Amber says now, clearly lying. “Honestly, it was so stupid.”
I don’t like any of it: the fact that my friends are fighting at all, and the fact that it’s not over something minute enough for me to just tie-break away. “If it was stupid, why hasn’t she come back?”
“Maybe she got caught up in another conversation?” Talon offers.
“I’m going to check that she’s okay,” I say.
Amber sighs. “Sure. Fine.”
“Epic,” Talon says, and I try not to flinch. Talon uses that word like most people use “awesome” or “big” or “happy” or “sure.” Basically, most things in his mind are epic.
My search for Monique takes me throughout the entire downstairs level of the house, which is roughly the size of my whole home. I traipse through the family room and the piano room, andthen open the door that leads into the garage. There, I come upon…Marcus Riddick.
There are three expensive cars in the massive garage space, but all I see is him.
He’s slumped over in a chair, legs outstretched, head thrown back. For one second, I worry he’s not breathing and my heart flips in my chest, but a big noisy inhale quickly cures me of that concern.
“Unbelievable,” I mutter to myself. Marcus gets his legendary status from the time he allegedly crashed so hard after a game that he made it all the way to Cranwell before he realized he’d been sleeping in the back of the wrong team’s bus, and no one laughed harder than Marcus.
Before I can take this opportunity to confront him, to tell him that I’ve been looking for him for days, my phone vibrates with a text from Mo.
SOSis all her text says, and I’m already moving back the way I came. I slam the door shut as I leave, the image of Marcus jerking awake in alarm bringing a smile to my face.
On driveway, a second text says before I can send one asking where she is.
On my way, I write back.
***
Mo generally doesn’t send SOS texts; she answers them, always ready to fix a problem. Maybe it’s a side effect of being the oldest of four kids who were left to raise themselves. Or maybe it’s just the personality you need to want to cure the world’s most pressing diseases in your lifetime.
I button up my cardigan because outside is getting more Maine-y by the day. I know it’s controversial, but I love that we get actual seasons, that the air gets sweater-weather cool in fall and the kind of cold that forms icicles in your nostrils in winter.
I find Mo sitting on the driveway, looking miserable. She’s not even working on her app, which she isalwaysdoing. I plop down next to her and rest my head against hers. “What happened?”
She echoes Amber’s words. “It was stupid.” We are both silent for a while, then Mo says, “Do you know Ambs thinks she’s found her soulmate?”
I groan. Because three months is in no way enough time to know someone is your soulmate. Plus, Talon is in his second senior year. I like him, but I might be fighting with Amber too if she told me he was her one true love.
For all the guys Ambs has dated, it’s never felt like we actually had to share her with anyone until Talon.
“If I hear him say the wordepicone more time, I’m going to throw something,” Mo says.
We burst into laughter, but then she continues, “We’reeighteen. We’re supposed to be living our best lives, making memories before college. It’s never going to be like this again, where we all live in the same town and know all the same people and see each other every day. Everything’s going to change. I feel like I’m the only one who realizes that, and it sucks.”
Mo has always liked it best when it’s just the three of us—no boyfriends, no stragglers—and I wonder if she is already anticipating facing UMaine alone next year. Ambs and I have known for years that we wanted to leave for school—her for culinary schoolin New York and me for the best school I got into. If it’s New Jersey I go to, New York is pretty close, but it’s not like Amber and I are going to the same place without Mo; still, it must be hard to be the person getting left behind.
“I know. I don’t think I’m ready for how much things are going to change.”
“And then don’t even get me started on the concept of soulmates,” Mo rants. “It’s so obnoxious. Like, why is everybody trying to couple up when we have our whole lives ahead of us?”
Her words remind me of Marcus’s sarcasm the other day.It’s so romantic when teenagers take a marriage vow when they can barely vote or see an R-rated movie.
“You think me and Jay are obnoxious?” I ask, terrified to know the answer. First, because Mo is not necessarily Jason’s biggest fan. Second, because it feels like her verdict matters.
Monique tilts her head as she thinks. “Well, not really.”
A week ago, that answer would have thrilled me. It would have been proof that Jason and I are the exact right balance of in love. That we’re Not Like Other Couples. But now her response startles me. Shedoesn’tthink Jay and I are soulmates, or she doesn’t think we’re obnoxious?
