After class, I hit my locker for a book to read in study hall. Luke reminded me to bring one, since Ms. Mason apparently gets mad when we talk to each other.
As I approach, I find Jamie standing there waiting for me.
“Hey,” she says softly when I stop in front of the metal door.
“Hi,” I say. We’re both silent; I stare at my lock. Without tomorrow as reference, the combination isn’t coming to mind. I pull out my cell, where it’s stored.
“Thirty, twenty-two, five,” Jamie says before I have the chance to look it up.
“You’ll always have my back,” I reply, spinning the dial.
“And you’ve always had mine,” Jamie says.
I look into her eyes and know that this is it: we’re okay.
“I’m sorry for getting so mad at you about… everything,” Jamie begins.
“I’m sorry for the awful things I said,” I reply.
“Do you remember what you said?” Jamie asks.
I cringe at that part in the notes. “Yes,” I say. “I forced myself to remember.”
“That was cool of you,” Jamie says. She waits a beat and then gives me a quick hug.
“I missed you,” she whispers into my hair.
“Same here.”
“Liar,” Jamie says playfully as she pulls away. “You can’t even remember me. How can you miss me?”
“Oh, I remember you,” I say. “Do you want to know all the things I remember?”
“No!” Jamie shouts with a laugh. “Keep your fortune-telling to yourself!”
Jamie and I link arms and start down the main hall. We laugh together as we walk, and I can’t help but feel overwhelmed by Jamie’s loyalty. Before we part, she turns to face me.
“Let’s never fight again,” she says.
“Agreed,” I reply, knowing that really, other than small disagreements in college, we won’t.
It makes me realize how much I appreciate Jamie’s willingness to trust me without knowing. She can’t see what’s coming. For Jamie, our relationship is a gamble. And yet she sticks with me. She keeps rolling the dice.
I stroll into the library for the last time this year, happy that my best friend is betting on us.
46
Hours later, after walking into the wrong classroom twice, seeing a little too much of Mike Norris (the boys’ bathrooms near the History wing aren’t properly labeled!), lunching with Luke, and handing in a year-end graphic design project that I could have purchased for $29.95 from CheatersRUs.com, for all I know, the school day and the school year are over.
Luke drives me home, holding my hand across the center console all the way. I feel like more than the year is ending, but I have my forward memories to prove that it’s not. Still, there’s something bittersweet about our kiss good-bye.
“Don’t stay up too late tonight,” he calls before I close the door.
“Yes, sir,” I say, laughing and trying not to think of why he wants me to be well rested. I know, but I won’t write it down tonight.
>Surprisingly, the dad thing is heaviest today. I remember bits of him. I want more.
I want a dad.