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I didn’trunwith any one crowd. I’d avoided pigeonholing at all costs. I’d read the books and seen the movies—high school was often depicted as a nightmare gauntlet, but I hadn’t let it touch me. I had too many other things I needed to do, and I wouldn’t make the mistake of thinking high school was the rest of my life.
A foot collided with mine. “Hey,” Bubba said, nudging me. “You’re not listening.”
Nope. I hadn’t been. Frowning, I glanced around the table. “Sorry, thinking about the rest of my schedule. What did I miss?”
“Frankie, I get you have better places to be and better things to do,” Archie remarked, his tone walking the line between teasing and sarcastic. “But it’s the first day ofsenioryear. We had a deal, remember?”
A deal?
“College essays,” I murmured slowly. Yes, we had a deal. Of course, how could I forget? After wiping my hands on a napkin, I shifted to pull my phone out of my pocket and set it on the table.
“Where are we applying?” Archie prodded me, his expression sober.
“I don’t know Arch, where do you want to go to school?” Yes, now I played dumb. In 10thgrade, Archie proposed the idea we should all go to the same university. Each of us had thrown out the pros of picking the same college—first of all, we’d know our roommates, provided we could get a co-ed dorm and, if not, maybe we could all rent an apartment together. Split five ways, we could save money. Then there was all the fun and the parties we could have… that was their idea, not mine. Out of state had always been primary on my list. At the time, Coop had been focused on in-state, probably UT Austin. Bubba had been eyeing potential football scholarships. Jake was going after STEM scholarships—despite his active sports life, he was into robotics and engineering just like Archie. It was why the two exceptionally different guys got along. Their interests said MIT, and so did Archie’s grades. Jake was fighting for it.
Just like the rest of us.
“Pfft. I asked first,” Archie retorted, pinning me with that wry dark brown stare of his. It was always odd how he could wax and wane between staring through a person like they weren’t there and staring right into a soul like he could read you like a book.
In the early days of our acquaintance, I’d confused him. I wasn’t like everyone else, and he couldn’t predict or read me. In a way, I enjoyed the mystery. I didn’t want to be predictable.
“I haven’t decided,” I admitted because, despite their seeming devotion to eating their way through the stack of slices each of the guys had picked, they weren’t throwing out their answers. No, they were waiting for me. “I spent my summer doing research.”
“Weren’t you going to visit a couple of them?” Coop prodded. While I could and had avoided most of the others, Coop had been harder to shake. He lived in the same courtyard at the apartments; we saw each other all the time even when I tried to blow him off because I’d been angry. I could have yelled, I supposed. But losing my temper gained me exactly nothing, while it could cost a lot more. It was just better to avoid them and the issue. Right or wrong.
“I was but it didn’t work out.” Not elaborating, I glanced at Bubba. “How has the scouting been going?” Junior year had been an exceptional one for the football team. They’d made it all the way to the state finals before being knocked out of contention. The rise there had netted them quite a bit of interest.
“Maybe.” Bubba said by way of an answer then smothered a yawn. “All maybes. Why didn’t you get to go look at your schools? Weren’t you really looking forward to New England?”
Yeah, New England where they actually had seasons. I’d been looking at Harvard—definitely beyond my price range, but there were scholarships and dreams—and fantasies. I just liked the idea of crisp fall colors, snowy winters, and actual spring.
Texas had two seasons—summer and winter—and they often alternated days in the same week. Summer, my least favorite season, could smother me in the heat. I liked to do things outside, but I didn’t like heatstroke and, sadly, I never mastered getting a real tan. I tanned, but usually it was burnt to a crisp fading to a weak tan before I got burnt to a crisp again.
Yes, even with sunscreen.
“Car needed repairs,” I said by way of explanation. “Mom couldn’t take the time off work.” Not that I couldn’t have gone without Mom. My original plan had been to drive up, stay in an Airbnb I found for pretty reasonable, tour the school, and then drive back. If I slept in the car on the way there and back, with gas and the Airbnb, supplementing my meals with packed food from home, I could have done all of it for under five hundred.
Fixing the car, however, meant using almost all of that.
“It’s fine,” I continued. “I did the virtual tour online.” Which, while useful on an intellectual level, didn’t give me a feel for the school at all.
“Damn. Well, did you get to UNT?” That from Jake. He was the only one I ever discussed UNT with and I kind of wished he’d kept it to himself. Coop straightened and frowned at me.
“I thought in-state schools were off the list entirely,” Coop said, shoving his empty plate away before taking a long drink from the soda.
I wanted out of Texas. I don’t know how many times I’d said that over the years. It was why I focused only on AP classes. They were acceptable at most universities.
“They are,” I said with a shrug. “But I needed backup schools for the list and the counselor wouldn’t shut up about it.”
“But UNT had a program you liked,” Jake—the traitor—pointed out. “You said they had a solid journalism school.”
“They do,” I admitted. “I also don’t know that I’m going to down that route anymore.”
“Since when?” Archie’s chair dropped onto all fours abruptly as he stared at me. “You wanted to be an investigative journalist.”
No, I’d wanted to be a war correspondent. I’d romanticized the hell out of it. “Things change,” I said, spreading one hand. “It’s not important. I’ll figure it out.” Some things were too personal, and while I kind of wanted to confess all the doubts that burgeoned to the surface over the summer, wanted to vent about my frustrations with working thirty to forty hours a week while my friends goofed off—well, the people I used to think of as friends—and how Mom was so busy at work lately we had to make appointments to see each other…
