“I really am going to miss hating him next year,” I say as my mental gears kick into overdrive. I defeat McNair, and I’ll have accomplished something on that success guide, arguably the biggest, grandest something. A perfect ten.
Kirby and Mara exchange a glance. “Don’t you guys text each other ‘good morning’ every day?” Mara asks, tentative.
“We tell each other to have a shitty day,” I explain, because I imagine it’s easy even for my closest friends to misinterpret the relationship I have (had?) with my rival. “It’s different.”
“You’re going to miss him telling you to have a shitty day?” Kirby asks, and shakes her head. “Straights, I swear.” She tucks a wisp of hair back into her crown braid. “If we’re all dead by tonight, we should have a sleepover. It’s been forever.”
“Definitely,” Mara agrees. We used to have a sleepover every last day of school. In fact, there used to be a time we slept over at someone’s house once a month before surrendering to the stress of senior year.
“I—um…” I stumble, because tonight is Delilah’s signing.
I can go to the signing and still best McNair, but if Howl hasn’t ended by then, I’ll have to sneak away from it. While I’m not worried I’ll see any of my competitors there, I don’t know if I can explain the signing to Kirby and Mara. I can’t tell them how badly I want to see Delilah’s signature rubber stamp, the one made from a mold of her lips that she presses into crimson ink so it looks like she’s kissed every book.
The fantasy: my friends love Delilah Park’s books as much as I do.
The reality: my friends think my favorite books are trash.
Once at the mall, we passed a bookstore display of romance novels, and Mara scoffed at it. The way she tore them down with a single sound made me ashamed I’d read every book on that display. Another time, Kirby noticed the romance novels on my bookshelf. “They’re my mom’s,” I lied. Kirby proceeded to pull them out one by one, laughing at the titles. My face flamed, and I didn’t know how to ask her to stop.
Once upon a Guy: that one distracted me in the hospital waiting room freshman year when my dad needed an emergency appendectomy.
Lucky in Lust: that one made me realize women could make the first move in a relationship.
The Duke’s Dirty Secret: well, that one just made me happy.
“Let’s see how Howl goes?” I finish.
The bell on the restaurant’s door dings, and I glance over on instinct, not expecting to see McNair’s three closest friends: Adrian Quinlan, Sean Yee, and Cyrus Grant-Hayes, presidents of the chess club, the robotics club, and the Anime Appreciation Society, respectively. McNair is notably absent, which immediately raises alarm.
I used to go to school with these guys, I think, because after today, it will be true. Seattle will be full of used-to-be’s.
“I’m going to get more food,” I say, pushing out my chair and getting in the buffet line behind them.
“?’Sup, Rowan?” Adrian says, scooping basmati rice onto his plate.
“Hey, Adrian. Where’s McNair?” I ask as casually as I can.
Individually, his friends are decent humans. As a group, they’ve assisted him with the Roth-McNair war on a number of occasions. There was the time he stacked student council with them to swing the vote his way, and once they did, they immediately dropped out. Then there was the time they teamed up to mess with the curve on a calculus test. Most of the time, though, they just shake their heads and smile, like we’re a show they’re not that invested in but that entertains them just enough to keep it on.
Cyrus goes for the saag paneer. “Already missing your other half??”
The question throws me. Other half. I’ve always hated being paired with McNair, but there’s something about the way Cyrus says it that makes me hate it less than usual. Almost like it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
“Miss him? I just want to make sure he’s ready for Howl. I don’t miss him. I saw him a couple hours ago,” I say, forcing a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of Cyrus’s suggestion. “And I’ll probably see him again in another hour. I definitely don’t miss him.”
“Chill,” Adrian says. “Dude’s not here. There was some emergency, and he had to pick his sister up from school.”
“Oh.” An emergency? “Is everything… okay?”
I should have just sucked it up and signed his yearbook. We’ve exchanged so many jabs over the years, and yet it’s only now that I managed to hurt him with a single word. That hallway version of McNair seemed oddly vulnerable, a word I’ve never associated with him simply because he’s never shown any vulnerability. No cracks in his armor.
Sean shrugs, adding a couple samosas to his plate. “He didn’t say much about it. He’s… not the most forthcoming about his personal life.”
“Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I was at his house,” Cyrus says.
Adrian gives him a pointed look I can’t interpret. “He doesn’t really have people over much.”
I take stock of what I know about McNair’s personal life. He must live near Westview, but I’m not sure where. Evidently, he has a sister, but until Adrian said that, I would have guessed he was an only child like me because he’s never mentioned siblings. Not the most forthcoming about his personal life. What could be so, well, personal, that he wouldn’t share it with his friends?