Page 27 of 16 Forever

“Can you scroll back anyway? I want to see something.”

“Um, maybe. I don’t know if I can find it again.”

“Just scroll back. It’s right there.”

“Yeah, oh, is it? I guess you’re right.” He’s being very weird.

The pic is up on the screen again, what I can now see is a girls’ cross-country meet. One girl is crossing the finish line with twoothers just behind her, friends and family cheering on the sideline. It’s a cool action shot.

But that’s not why I wanted to look at it.

When the photo initially blurred by, I thought I saw...

Yes. It’s her.

The second girl in the photo—not the one crossing the finish line but the one right behind her—is the crying girl from my first day back at school. I’ve passed her in the hallway a few times since then. She even looked at me once, just for a second.

“Who is that?” I ask, pointing at the screen.

“Uh, who?”

“This girl my finger is literally touching.”

“Oh, her. I think, um... Maggie something? Or maybe it’s Lindsey. Yeah, I think it’s... Lindsey. Or something.”

“Why are you being weird?”

“Me? I’m not. This is how I always am. And also I don’t really pay attention to the cross-country team. Boys or girls. They’re not, like, on my radar. So that’s why.”

“Okay.” I don’t believe him, but at least now I know her name is Lindsey. Or Maggie. When she first walked by me, all I took in was that she was crying and tall, almost awkwardly so, but now I see she’s also really pretty. Her dark brown hair is in a ponytail, and her cheeks are flushed, and her legs are long.

“Anyway,” Bodhi says, scrolling onward and stopping at a new pic. “Check this out. My crowning achievement. I wrestled the Ridgedale Colt.” It’s a photo of him on the ground with his arms around someone wearing a horse costume.

“Nice,” I say, and even though I wanted to look at Lindsey a moment longer, I let it go. Bodhi takes me through more photos,giving me glimpses of everything I’ve missed. Or didn’t miss but can’t remember. It’s jarring every time I see myself in a photo, like I’m staring at someone else.

As we move further back through the years, I start to see some faces I remember. It’s a relief. But then it gets kind of depressing. All of these people have moved on. Maybe their younger siblings are here, but not them. It’s just me. Stuck here.

Forever.

“Yo,” Bodhi says, obviously picking up on my vibes. “Let’s forget about these.” He closes the laptop. “I have an idea.”

“You really think this is going to work?”

“Iknowit will,” Bodhi says.

We skipped out of yearbook early, Bodhi explaining to Ms. Himberton that flipping through the past had been very triggering for me so he was going to take me outside to decompress. Which, honestly, was the truth.

But he left out the part about us driving to the liquor store.

We’re in Toro, Dad’s old Honda Accord—I drive to and from school now; it only feels a little bizarre—with Bodhi sitting shotgun.

“Look, dude,” he says, “you’re legally twenty-two. You’ve been on this earth for that many years, and your license confirms this fact, and that’s just reality. So you’ll be able to get us some liquid treats.”

“That does make sense,” I say, surprised it hadn’t occurred to me yet.

“Also I know it’s gonna work because we’ve done it before.” Bodhi extends his hands like a magician after he’s made somethingvanish. “Last year. When you were technically twenty-one. Heh heh.”

“Oh. So, yeah. That’s encouraging.” I only have one memory of drinking: Manny and I snuck a couple of his dad’s IPAs out of the fridge and each drank one really fast in the basement. It tasted okay, not amazing, and it made me feel silly and loose. And then vomity. “Have we, like, gotten drunk together?”