Underwater(63)

The proctor clears his throat and motions him to sign in. Another girl arrives right after, and the proctor motions her over as well. The next thing I know, we’re all settled into study carrels, and everyone is to the left of me because I planned it that way.

“You have sixty minutes and your time starts … now,” the proctor says, hitting a button on his phone that I assume offers up some sort of sixty-minute countdown.

“Yo,” Blue says to me as soon as we’re supposed to be quiet. “You got an extra pencil? I only brought a pen.” He holds it up to me. The black plastic top is flattened from his gnawing.

I turn away. I don’t want to make eye contact. I don’t want it to look like I’m cheating.

“Hey, hello? Pencil?”

I shake my head no, not looking up from my Scantron sheet even though staring at it so intently makes the letters and numbers go blurry.

“You have two of ’em. I can see the extra one on your desk.”

I finally turn to face him. “I might need it,” I hiss under my breath. “If something happens to the other one. I like to be prepared.”

He smirks and turns to the girl on the other side of him. She hands over a pencil the first time he asks. I can feel him looking at me, like he wants me to know other people are less high-strung about sharing pencils. When I don’t return the stare, he dives into his test, humming and tapping and being distracting the whole time.

We have a bathroom break in between tests. I walk out into the hallway, expecting that Evan might’ve left to wander around the school or breathe in fresh air outside. But he hasn’t budged. He’s sitting right there on the ground, listening to music and scrolling through his phone. He yanks his earbuds out of his ears when he sees me.

“Bathroom break,” I explain.

“Here, I’ll show you where,” he says.

Blue watches us walk down the hallway. I can feel his eyes on my back. Maybe he recognized my name, too. Maybe he remembers antagonizing me in our live session. Maybe he gets off on screwing with people who like to be prepared.

Two more people join us for the second test. When that one is over, I stretch in the hallway. Blue wanders off to god knows where. The other girl who started with Blue and me never leaves the library.

Evan gives me a kiss before I head in to the last test. “Almost summer,” he whispers.

I take my place at my study carrel and realize one of the two people who joined us for the second test is gone. The other one is still here. And the first girl. And Blue. Lucky me.

When the third exam is finally over, the proctor gives us a few minutes to go over our final answers. Blue leans back in his chair instead of double-checking his work. The front legs lift off the floor, but he uses the steel-toed tips of his boots to balance himself.

“Don’t fall,” I say.

He grins at me and pushes back on his chair again, like I’ve challenged him somehow. He rocks back farther, eyes on me the whole time. Farther and farther back he goes. I look down and see the chair is teetering on the very edges of its back legs now. He’s grinning. Showing off. And then the chair topples backward, taking Blue with it. He hits the floor hard, and the force of his butt against the back of the chair makes it flip back over and land on his chest.

“Argh!” he bellows.

I try to hide a snicker in my armpit.

“Screw you,” he says to me.

“You’re an idiot.” I get up, turn in my test, and step past Blue to get to the door. He stands there rubbing his chest and righting his chair. I can’t get out of the library fast enough.

“Happy summer,” Evan says, taking my hand as soon as he sees me.

“Happy summer.” I kiss him. “Let’s go.”

We push through campus corridors and heavy doors. I think of the last day of school last year. I think of the sophomore hallway littered with loose-leaf papers torn free from notebooks. Of plans made for that night and the long, slow days ahead. Some of us had part-time jobs. Some of us planned to lounge on the sand from dusk until dawn while plugged in to music playlists. Some of us were traveling to see the other half of divorced parents who lived in other states, like Evan will do in August. None of us knew what would happen when we returned. Because it was before Aaron did what he did.

It was before everything changed.

This time, the last day of school is just a time stamp on how much I missed this year.

But now, there will be summer. And summer can be everything. Evan and I will surf and swim and smell like sunblock. In the evenings, we’ll come back to Paradise Manor and jump in the pool to rinse off the sand and the stickiness. When it gets dark, we’ll watch movies until Ben falls asleep, and then Evan and I will kiss each other until our lips get swollen.





chapter forty-three

When we get home, Evan only has a little bit of time to get ready for a celebratory last day of school dinner he’s going to with his mom, aunt, and uncle. He knocks on my door on his way out. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt so worn that it clings to him. It clings in a way that makes me want to ask him to stay.

“What’re you gonna do tonight?” he asks as he hugs me against him. He smells like Evan. Like sunblock and surf wax even though he just took a shower. My own shirt rides up, and he presses his fingertips into the bare skin of my lower back, pulling me closer.