Page 75 of 16 Forever

“Janessa Suher just had the most amazing finger roll of all time,” Bodhi says, “and you completely missed it.”

“Oh man, I suck. I’m sure she’ll do something else cool.”

“Also,” Bodhi adds, “instead of being all up in your phone, maybe you want to sit over there with Tatiana. At some point.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“What were you even doing? Randomly scrolling?”

“No. I just got a notification because... Big news. Layla wrote back.”

“Whoa, for real? Old Layla who you dumped?”

The crowd erupts again. Janessa Suher just stole the ball. I lift my camera to my eye and snap a shot of her heaving it down the court to her sprinting teammate. I pull the camera down to check out the view screen. It’s a blurred mess. You can’t even tell it’s a basketball game.

“Yeesh,” Bodhi says, peering over my shoulder. “You need to focus the lens.”

“I know, I know. I’m not used to action shots! It’s different than taking pictures of you and Robbie walking past a tree.”

“You’ll get better. You did last year, anyway.”

“Right. Maybe.” It’s weird feeling jealous of myself.

“So, that Layla lady, huh? What did she say?”

“That she’s down to talk.”

“Dude!”

“I know.”

“That’s not big news, it’s humongous! She finally hit you back!”

“I nudged her again last week. So.”

“Persistence! I like it. So what’re you gonna tell her?”

“I’m gonna say yes, let’s find a time to talk ASAP.”

“Ooh, yeah. That’s a good response.”

There’s a groan in the crowd as a towering girl on the other team blocks a shot from Ridgedale’s star forward, Elise Alexander.

“It’s good you didn’t take a picture of that,” Bodhi says. “That would be embarrassing for everyone. Especially Elise. Imagine showing your yearbook to your grandkids and being like, ‘Oh, and here’s when I got dominated in the paint and felt horrible about myself.’”

“There should be a whole yearbook of bad memories,” I say,laughing. “Just everyone’s worst moments of high school captured in one book.”

“Here’s when I failed my geometry test.”

“Here’s when my crush told me they just want to be friends.”

“Here’s when I got cast as a cactus in the spring musical.”

“Here’s when I woke up and found out I was stuck in a horrible nightmare, reliving my sixteenth year over and over again.”

Bodhi stops laughing. So do I. “Aw man,” he says. “Don’t worry, dude, this Layla thing is really promising.”

The buzzer sounds, and the second quarter ends.