Opposite of Always(36)

Maybe somehow I’m supposed to help her not die.

Because Kate’s future wasn’t supposed to end.

Maybe everyone replays parts of their lives. But it’s so unbelievable that no one talks about it.

When I get home, Dad’s snoring on the sofa, so I decide to test my theory on Mom.

“Uh, what’s up, Mom?”

“Just thought I’d catch up on some canning.”

“It’s three in the morning, Mom.”

“Well, we can’t all take midnight bus rides for fun.”

“You got me.”

“Mm-hmm, I know.”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

To which Mom responds with a championship-caliber eye roll. “There better not be any court dates in your near future, Jackie Ellison.”

I kiss her cheek, and she shakes her head, stirs her peaches.

“Mom, can I ask you something?”

“Oh, Lord.”

“At any point in your life, have you blacked out, suffered through an agonizing pain and wondered if you were about to explode into human confetti, only to wake up several months back into the past?”

Mom sets down the ladle, cleans her hands on a dish towel. “Jackie, are you high?”

Since sleep is still elusive AF, I invest my time elsewhere. Wake my laptop. Compose new message.

Dear Kate,

When you saw this in your inbox, I know what you thought. So, let’s just deal with the elephant in the email first, shall we?

This email is not, in any way, a follow-up to the question I asked you the other night in the gorges, the question that you told me you’d think on and get back to me (“in a reasonable amount of time”—your words). So please, please, please, whatever you do, do not feel any pressure to reply with an answer to that question. Because that is not what this email is about, okay?

If you’d like to reply to that question with your answer, please do so on your own time. Because this particular email is all booked up, okay?

Good.

I’m glad we got that out of the way.

Now we can move on to the actual business of this email. Namely, to mom you. Because who doesn’t like to be mom’d every now and then, especially via email from a mostly complete stranger, right?

So, are you eating okay? Getting enough fruits and veggies, because they’re easy to forget. My mom likes to sneak them onto my plate. Sometimes she disguises them as meat. She’s incredibly crafty. She’ll carve an eggplant into the shape of a T-bone. And she’s forever preaching this body-to-soul connection—the health of your body, Jack, reflects the condition of your mind—I know, absurd, right?

Stop reading me like that, Kate. You see right through this, don’t you?

Okay, so maybe I stretched the truth a bit.

And I know, I know—dishonesty is so not the way to kick off a relationship (friendship or otherwise). But I’m nervous. TBH, I’m petrified.

I admit it, this email is sort of (solely) about my question the other night in the gorges. Because I want you to say yes.

So here’s some info about me that I’m hopeful may sway you, should you happen to still be mulling over your decision.

I am 5’9 . . . in (very high) high-tops. This information may prove beneficial should we engage in any high-top-appropriate activity.

My favorite food (other than cereal) is pork belly. Mainly because people are less judgmental about pork belly than bacon, although they’re basically the same.

I (inexplicably, if you ask my best friends Jillian and Franny) love popcorn-flavored jelly beans. I also dig reading books in actual book form (the smell of paper does it for me), and like everyone else in the world, I love love love long walks on the beach. I distrust Siri, but I heart Google. I want a chocolate Lab, but my dad pretends like he’s allergic to dogs when in reality he’s just afraid; so for now I get my fix watching chocolate Lab puppies doing adorable things online.

I’m mostly opposed to school dances, prom included.

But I’d make an exception for you.

No pressure.

With tons of pressure even though I concluded the email with no pressure, but really I’ll understand if you can’t make it, or if you just don’t want to go, I mean it’s a high school dance, so of course you don’t want to go, but you know if you were willing, that would be cool, too, anyway, totally no pressure either way, Jack





Way More Than 100%


I text Jillian to ask if she’s still giving me a ride to school tomorrow, but she never replies. She’s turned off read receipts on her phone, so I can’t tell if she’s simply ignoring me.

That’s why I’m surprised when she shows up at our usual table in the cafeteria.

Which is a relief because 1) Franny’s skipping lunch to work out and 2) I was faced with the unwelcome decision to either eat by my lonesome or disturb the finely tuned cafeteria ecology by joining another table mid–school year, an impossible feat.

“Hey,” I say.

“Where’s Franny?”

“Pumping iron,” I say. I flex my nonexistent bicep.

“Oh,” she mutters. Which I take to mean that she probably wouldn’t have shown up had she known it was just us.

Uncomfortable silence ensues.