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The next few minutes are quiet, except for the sound of Lindsay yanking at stray threads on the bath rug. Silences aren’t supposed to be uncomfortable between close friends, but this one makes me itchy. Makes me wish I’d talked more in the weeks surrounding my own fateful test—if not to Lindsay, then to Adina, who clearly wanted to.
When her phone timer goes off, Lindsay snatches the two sticks and exhales deeply. “Negative. Thank God,” she says. “I’m going to buy a jumbo box of condoms this weekend.”
We’re lying on pillows on the floor in Lindsay’s room, an empty pizza box between us. Lindsay painted her nails gray and I painted my toes a glittery blue while we quizzed each other on Hamlet for our AP Lit test next week. We have school off tomorrow, and it’s been eons since I spent the night here. I’d forgotten she keeps a bottle of vodka (certified kosher, according to the label) hidden in her underwear drawer, which we drank shots of with our veggie pizza.
I’ve missed all this, as unremarkable as it is.
“Somehow, I thought senior year would be easier,” Lindsay says. “But it’s just as much work as ever. More, actually.”
“It’ll be worth it.”
She examines a smudged gray nail and twists open the polish to touch it up. “Can you believe I applied to fifteen schools? A little excessive, but I have to get out of this gloomy place. California sounds nice. Or Florida, or Arizona . . . somewhere warm.”
“?‘What made you decide to apply to our fine institution?’ ‘Well, I want to finally get a tan.’?”
“Direct quote from my application essays.”
High school graduation is an exodus. Most AP kids will be leaving Washington for universities with impressive names. I’ve always known Lindsay and I would end up at different schools in different states, and surely Adina and I will too.
Picturing Adina at conservatory chips at my heart. She’ll be struggling with her result so far away from the rest of us. A harrowing thought slams into me: this might be my last year with my sister, who, despite everything she’s done to me, was once my closest friend. If I haven’t already lost her, I’m in the process of it.
Something on Lindsay’s bookshelf catches my eye. Makes me forget Adina for an instant. That’s the maximum amount of time I can ignore what’s happened to us: a single instant.
“You still have that thing?” I ask as I get to my feet too fast, the vodka warping my surroundings, sloshing my brain around inside my head. I teeter over to the shelf and pull out a slim purple binder.
“I guess so?” Lindsay says, blowing on a nail as I sit back down and splay the binder between us. “I haven’t thought about it in forever.”
The first sheet of paper says ANTI-MAN CLUB in silver Sharpie bubble letters. The rest of the pages are filled with boys’ names and, for lack of a better word, infractions. We passed the binder back and forth throughout middle school and the beginning of high school—right up until Lindsay started dating Troy and was no longer AM enough for the AMC. There are sixty-seven names on it, and it would be a creepy thing to own if either of us was ever on trial for murder.
Maybe a pregnancy scare and the Anti-Man Club will bring Lindsay and me back together.
Lindsay starts reading. “Number twelve, Oliver Kang, for trying to look up my skirt when I was wearing a thong. Number twenty-nine, Cole Hammond. He copied my answers on a test in freshman-year English, and Mr. Jacobs gave us both zeroes. Number thirty: Mr. Jacobs. I haven’t forgiven any of them.” She flips the page. “Hey, Zack’s on here.” She squints at number forty-one, which, sure enough, says Zack Baker-Horowitz. “We wrote ‘Kelsey’ next to his name. Do you have any idea what that means?”
“Yeah. Kelsey Rawlings.” I grit my teeth, remembering. “She was the other sophomore class rep that year. Zack asked me about her. If I thought she’d be interested in him.” The two of them dated for only a month, though.
“And you were jealous.”
“Yes. Yes, I was.” I peek at the list again. “I’m going to show him.” In my altered mental state, it seems like a good idea.
Do you remember that list Lindsay and I made about all the guys we didn’t like?
Zack’s reply appears after a few minutes.
Yes. Troy and I always tried to steal that from you.
I snap a photo of number forty-one. You’re on it.
“What’s going on there? With you and Zack?” Lindsay asks, shutting the binder and settling back against her pillows. I groan. “What? You don’t like him?”
Typically I never have the courage to rip Lindsay from Troy, even when I need her more than he does. Tonight I like having her to myself, even under these strange circumstances. After all, there’s no one else I can talk to about this.
“No . . . I do.” My mind is fuzzy and goopy, my synapses firing slower than usual. I throw back another vodka shot. It burns the back of my throat.
“What is it, then?”
There’s nothing stopping me from acting on my feelings for Zack. That’s part of the gift of this negative result.
“I’m . . . scared. Sometimes I start thinking about being with him, or kissing him, and then my mind inevitably jumps to sex.” I whisper the last word. Why does it feel so weird to say out loud? “I feel like I’m fourteen that it still embarrasses me like this.”
