I Wish You All the Best(85)

I throw the ball down the lane, scared for a moment that I’m going to go along with it, but it slips right off my fingers and glides smoothly, striking the pins right in the middle and sending all of them toppling. The big screen above me flashes with a huge red X.

“That’s good, right?” They should probably find a better way to show off a strike. The three of them are all clapping for me when I take my seat again.

“We’ll say it’s beginner’s luck.” Nathan pats my shoulder.

“And we’ll say it’s you being a sore loser.” Sophie takes her turn.

It’s actually pretty fun, as much as I hate to admit it. Nathan’s as terrible as Meleika promised, barely scraping by with a 60. According to Meleika, that’s the highest she’s ever seen him get. At first the strike is just beginner’s luck, but after a while I get the hang of it and end up with 200.

“Are you sure you aren’t some secret professional bowler, and you just want us to feel bad about ourselves?” Sophie drops off a basket of fries in the middle of the table. More and more people have begun to flow in, meaning there is a line for the lanes now. So we only get in one game before we have to take a break.

“I promise.” My phone buzzes in my pocket.

Mariam: officially landed in NC, gonna nap for 15 hours. Don’t ever fly, Ben, it’s not worth it.



I laugh to myself and send them a few kissy emojis.

Me: sleep well, see you tomorrow.



“Who is that?” Nathan leans over my shoulder. “Texting quite a few kissy faces.”

My first instinct is to throw my phone across the room. “No one,” I say, sipping my drink.

“So, what do we do now?” Meleika bites a fry in half.

“What are we supposed to do?” I ask.

“It’s just whatever we want to do,” Sophie says. “The school rents out the whole place until like six in the morning, so we’ve got plenty of time.”

I check my phone again. It’s only nine. “We don’t have to stay the whole time, right?”

“Oh, hell no.” Sophie laughs. “I’m putting on the strict one a.m. curfew for all of y’all. Unless you want to walk home.”

“We could do laser tag.” Nathan reads down the list again. “Or skating?”

“I can’t skate,” I say.

“Oh, then we definitely have to go skating.” Nathan chuckles. “I need to see that.”

“No way in hell,” Meleika says, winking at me. “I can’t skate either.”

“Fine.” Nathan groans. “Putt-Putt?”

“I’m game,” I say.

Meleika kicks ass at Putt-Putt, but the course is outside, and it’s getting pretty chilly, so after a few holes we just head back inside. There’s this whole room near the arcade rented out for dancing. Nathan and Meleika run right in, but Sophie and I hang back, just sort of standing there, staring at the entryway.

“Come on.” Sophie hooks an arm through mine, and we head toward the arcade. I’ve been waiting all night for her and Meleika to say something about the art show. But they haven’t. They didn’t even say anything at school yet, but maybe they were waiting to get me alone.

Or maybe they aren’t planning on saying anything at all? Maybe they’re just trying to be as normal as humanly possible with me because they think that’s what I need right now? I hope it’s the last one. Because I don’t want to talk about it anymore.

I want to forget that night ever happened.

“What do you want to play?” Sophie asks.

I look around, and nothing seems all that interesting, and ever fewer games are two-player, so we end up in front of the claw machine game. And Sophie’s pretty amazing at it. Like, ridiculously amazing.

“My dad taught me a few tricks.” Sophie aims the crane just right, so she picks up this cat from an anime I’ve never seen. Her tenth win in under half an hour. “Here.” She hands the cat to me.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve already got one of him.” Then she starts to wrestle with the bundle of plushies on the floor. “Mind helping me?”

I take most of them, trying to balance them all in my arms. It really should not be this difficult to carry around a bunch of stuffed animals.

“So, this is where you two ran off.” Nathan’s laugh makes me jump. “Aw, cute.” He taps the nose of the pink Yoshi at the top of the pile.

“Shut up.” I almost throw one of the plushies at him, but I think I’ll drop them all if I do.

“Mel wants to do laser tag next. Y’all game?”

“Yeah.” Sophie wrangles her keys out of her purse. “Here, you want to go put those in the car?”

“Come on.” Nathan grabs the keys. “We’ll meet you two over there.”

“Just don’t take my car on a joyride.” Sophie winks and walks off in the direction of the arena.

We brush past our classmates, Nathan waving to people every now and then. I try to tell myself they’re staring at Nathan, or the bundle of stuffed animals in my arms. Because that’s what they’re doing. No one cares about the art show; no one cares about what happened there. I just have to keep telling myself that.