Famous in a Small Town(18)

“That’s like asking a mom to choose between her kids,” he replied, deadpan.

“Jesus Christ, give me both, then.”

I handed them to August as Kim rang me up. “Enjoy.”

“I said I wasn’t hungry.”

“I said not to pay for me.”

“She’s got you there,” Terrance remarked, and then batted his eyes at Kim. “I’m going on break. Try not to miss me too much.”



* * *



The three of us sat on the back steps to the building while we ate, and Terrance chatted amiably with August. A tiny part of me was irrationally annoyed that Terrance was crashing whatever this was—a date? Did it count as a date if Heather basically contrived it for me?—but I knew Terrance would be a good person for August to hang out with. Terrance could make friends with anyone. It was one of my favorite things about him—there wasn’t a person he couldn’t talk to, or an awkward silence he couldn’t transform.

Despite saying he wasn’t hungry, August tore through the fudge and cookie in record time. He handed the waxed paper packets back to me when he was done, and “Thanks for your trash” was on the tip of my tongue before I realized there was a piece of each remaining.

“Try them,” he said. “They’re good.”

“It’s the best fudge I’ve ever had,” Terrance reminded us. “And I’ve tried every fudge on earth ninety-seven times.”

He was ridiculous, but he was right. It was incredible.

“Is this place hiring?” August asked as I ate.

Terrance shook his head. “Nah. Not right now. They just hired. McDonald’s might be, though, you should ask Flora.”

August nodded. “I put in an application there. And at Pizza Hut.”

“Somewhere’ll take you,” I said. “I heard someone say there was an opening at Dollar Depot.”

“I’ll look there too, thanks.”

He and Terrance had exchanged numbers by the time Terrance had to go back in, Terrance inviting August to the pickup football game he and Dash were playing in that weekend.

I was almost finished with my cone by the time Terrance went back to work, but I gave in to the temptation to stretch it out, holding the last pointy bit of it longer than I should, managing the drips that tipped over the jagged edges while August and I kept talking. He was sitting on the step below me, leaning back on his elbows so his face turned up whenever he looked my way.

I didn’t know you could simultaneously find someone easy to talk to, and yet somehow be conscious of everything you’re doing around them. Like how your body exists in space, and where your hands are in relation to theirs. August managed to inspire it. I couldn’t tell if it was mutual. I wanted it to be.

Finally I had to finish the cone. It was soggy, and basically empty, but I ate it anyway. I wiped my hands on my shorts. We talked some more.

“Do you have a curfew?” he said eventually.

“Sort of? Not really. Like, I usually just go home.” Maximum coolness.

“Mine is soon,” he said, and he sounded like maybe he regretted it, but then again maybe I was just imagining it.

“This was Heather’s idea, though, so I feel like there might be a bit of leeway there.”

He smiled, and I was almost certain there was a little regret when he said, “Probably shouldn’t risk it.”



* * *



I couldn’t get to sleep that night, and sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I thought about my colleges. I had created a broad list at the beginning of junior year, as The College Collective had advised, and had slowly whittled it down over the course of the year, after a lot of research and consideration.

Each one of them was a possibility, a different fork in the road. Each one had the potential to make me into a different person.

I stared at the ceiling and thought about them in groups first. Community colleges. State schools. Private universities.

Then I ranked them from likelihood of my acceptance, which coincidentally was the same order as when I ranked them in likelihood I’d be able to afford going.

Then I ranked them as distance from Acadia.

I squeezed my eyes shut. I remember Ciara getting her scholarship packet from Tufts. She had already been accepted to a few places, had already gotten a great scholarship offer from the University of Illinois. She would have to make a decision. But when that stuff from Tufts arrived … I knew it wasn’t really a decision at all.

I remember googling the distance between Acadia and Boston. It was a sixteen-hour drive. If I needed her, there would be sixteen hours’ worth of road between us.

I had spent my whole life with her sleeping in the bed across from mine. Until suddenly she wasn’t.

There was Skype, though, and phone calls.

There were texts.





eleven


Sophie:

Do you ever feel like you have two lives now?

Ciara:

Girl it is LATE

Shouldn’t you be sleeping?

Sophie:

Shouldn’t YOU?

Ciara:

I’m in college, it’s allowed I woke up at noon and ate cocoa puffs for lunch Why are you still up? Everything okay?

Sophie:

Yeah just thinking

Do you ever feel like you have two lives?