Page 27

Fears are meant to be faced.

I just didn’t expect to be facing one of mine this early in the morning.

Perhaps later in the day, but before 8:00 a.m.?

I could barely keep my eyes open as I yawned my way down the stairs and found my mom in the kitchen.

She was eyeing the far corner cautiously, as if in a standoff with the espresso machine that sat on the soapstone countertop.

“It’s time.” She glanced at me.

Her mouth was almost a straight line, but one corner had tugged up with optimism.

“We have to try.”

“No, we don’t,” I quickly said.

“We don’t have to try anything.”

My mom turned and held up the Tupperware of biscotti Mrs. DeLuca had gifted us yesterday.

Our neighbor was the one who’d passed down the espresso machine in the first place; she’d bought a bigger one but hadn’t wanted to get rid of the original.

It was still in perfect working condition—supposedly.

We’d never used it. “Lily, we must,” she said.

“Mrs. DeLuca specifically said that the biscotti is best when dipped in a cappuccino.”

I considered the golden-brown almond biscuits.

Truthfully, they did look magnifico…

and I was hungry. “Ah, okay,” I conceded.

“Let’s give it a go.”

Grinning, my mom hugged the Tupperware and pointed to our stainless-steel Starbucks situation.

“I think the directions are somewhere in the lower cabinet.”

That was my cue.

My mom’s strengths included storing leftovers inside the refrigerator, using the microwave, and switching on the teakettle.

We’d both agreed it was best if she stuck with those.

This was my kitchen, so naturally the cappuccinos were to be my area of expertise.

I found the car manual-sized instructions and the unopened bag of coffee beans before moving to the machinery.

A cappuccino is two-thirds milk , I reminded myself, examining the steam wand.

A shot of espresso and then steamed milk with a frothy finish.

Barely coffee!

Because the thing was, my mom and I didn’t like coffee.

We didn’t like it at all .

My mom had disappeared upstairs to change out of her pajamas but was back by the time I had finished grinding the beans.

The kitchen had been engulfed by the smell of espresso, and I gestured at her outfit through the pungent smog.

“It’ll never be fair that you get to wear that.”

While I was stuck in a sundress and my school blazer, she sported purple camo leggings and a breezy lilac shirt.

The perfect model for Lululemon, especially when she dramatically jutted out her hip.

“Well, you know I’m hopping on my Peloton after first period,” she teased and gave her long hair a nice fluff.

I absentmindedly did the same to mine, only it was wavy and shockingly red instead of curly blond.

You could spot me from a mile away.

My guess was I’d gotten it from my father, but I’d never asked.

He had no idea I existed, which was fine by me.

He wasn’t missing from my life; he just wasn’t a part of it.

And I didn’t imagine I would ever need him to be.

I had my mom.

“Nice nail polish,” I added dryly.

My mom’s flip-flops showed off ten periwinkle-painted toes.

Why students had a firm dress code but faculty did not was something I would never understand.

“Where’d you get it?”

“Oh, from my favorite little boutique,” she replied with a wink and a smile.

“It’s not very far from here. Just upstairs, actually…”

I rolled my eyes but maintained my barista bravado.

The espresso brewed without incident, and after grabbing the milk from the fridge, I successfully steamed it into a puffy white cloud.

“Do we dunk first?” she asked after I’d poured the cappuccinos into two mugs.

“Or sip?”

We decided to sip.

“Pinkies up,” my mom said, and on an unspoken count of three, we raised the mugs to our lips.

“Coffee…” I soon rasped with a burnt tongue.

“It’s still coffee!”

Nose wrinkled, my mom dumped her cappuccino in the sink and waved me over to do the same.

“Tea,” she finally said.

“We’ll make tea tonight and soak the biscotti in that?”

“Deal.” I nodded.

“Now how about an actual breakfast?” I crossed the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, where two mason jars sat front and center.

“I made overnight oats for us last night,” I said.

“I think my maple syrup-peanut butter-banana slice ratio is really coming along, and I added chia seeds this time too.”

My mother considered.

“I’m more in the mood for a short stack today,” she admitted.

“May I take those for a snack later?”

I sighed and shook my head as I handed her a jar but smirked when I raced upstairs to grab my backpack.

If she wanted pancakes, we had to hurry.

Half a minute later, we hustled out the door, both weighed down by schoolwork.

The sound of the sea said good morning, and I couldn’t help but close my eyes and inhale the briny scent.

Our house—a white clapboard cottage with dark-green shutters—might’ve been on the very edge of the faculty neighborhood, but it had its perks.

My backyard being a beach was one of them.

I had been falling asleep to the Atlantic Ocean’s rolling waves for sixteen years now, ever since I was two.

I’d practically lived my whole life on the Rhode Island coast. Or more specifically, I had always lived here , at the Ames School.

“Hello, Hopper ladies!” someone called as we speed walked through the neighborhood, my mom’s flip-flops slapping against the pavement and my ballet flats warning me my day would end with blisters.

“Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”

“Gorgeous!” my mom called back to Penny Bickford, who was walking toward the main campus in one of her chic power suits.

I caught her assessing my mother’s athleisure wear, but Ames’s head of school said nothing.

She never did because my mom was the most beloved teacher in the English department—maybe even the whole school since the yearbook’s superlatives did not lie.

Favorite teacher? That title wasn’t up for grabs.

Ames’s Almanacs hadn’t come out yet, but with only twelve days left before graduation, they would soon and everyone knew Leda Hopper was a lock.

And as her daughter, I was fortunate to be a student here.

If tuition wasn’t free for faculty members’ children—or “fac brats” as most people called us—we never could’ve afforded a prep school like Ames.

“Congratulations again, Lily,” my headmaster said with a proud smile.

She’d known me so long that she treated me like a granddaughter.

“I’m sure your speech will be marvelous.”

“Thank you.” I smiled back but felt my cheeks warm.

Last week at our all-school meeting, I had been announced as this year’s salutatorian.

It was an honor, but I was also dreading it.

Because while the valedictorian had the main stage at graduation, the salutatorian spoke at the senior class dinner the night before and was supposed to give a humorous address instead of a serious speech.

The goal was to make your fellow alumni-to-be laugh .

I wasn’t exactly known for my stand-up comedy routines.

“Okay, be cool, be cool,” my mom stage-whispered once we’d crossed the covered bridge that led to campus.

We slowed our pace to a casual walk.

Beautiful brick, clapboard, and cedar-shingled academic buildings and dormitories rose in front of us, and students were everywhere.

Some were on their morning runs while others had clearly just rolled out of bed to drag themselves over to the dining hall for breakfast. I overheard a group of girls giggling about their upcoming freshman formal.

“Yeah, Ross asked me last night,” one girl said.

“It was super sweet. He asked for help on our math homework, and under the final question, he wrote ‘Will you go to formal with me?’”

“Good for you, Ross,” my mom murmured, smiling.

Her students didn’t just talk to her about grammar and The Great Gatsby .

She had a way with them, a way that encouraged them to truly open up to her.

Insisting they call her by her first name instead of “Ms. Hopper” was always an effective first step.

She was a beyond-tough grader, but they adored her.

The freshmen soon noticed us.

“Leda, guess what?!” they shrieked, and while she got all the exciting details, I pretended to listen along but really thought back to my own freshman formal.

He’d called me, introduced himself as if we weren’t already acquainted, and then asked if I wanted to go with him in a nervous rush of words.

“Yes, that would be nice,” I’d replied, and several weeks later, my gold dress had been splashed with salt water and sand by the end of the night.

While walking me home, he’d raced me barefoot along the beach and I’d kissed him as soon as he’d caught me up in his arms. His lips had been warm despite the wind.

“Tag,” I remembered whispering afterward, my smile so wide.

Both of us were breathless.

“You’re it,” he finished for me, then laughed before I kissed him again and took off into the darkness, hoping he would follow.

I wish we could go back , I thought, the words a murmur in my mind.

I wish we could go back to the very first night…

“Lily?” I blinked to see my mom looking at me.

The freshmen were gone; they must’ve migrated toward the dining hall, but we hadn’t strayed from our route to the historic Hubbard Hall.

My mom held the door open and ruffled my hair as I walked through it.

With soaring white columns, distinguished brick chimneys, and innumerable windows, Hubbard Hall looked like a mansion that once belonged to the last great American dynasty.

It had a rooftop balcony and housed the Alumni Relations, Financial Aid, and College Counseling departments on the upper floors, but Ames’s student center ruled the ground floor.

Leather couches and wing-backed armchairs and an array of Persian rugs created a lounge-like lobby, and every time you looked at the cream walls, you noticed something new.

There was a rotating gallery of student artwork and Ames memorabilia from the library’s archives: old newspaper articles, photographs, and even antique school flags.

Beyond the lounge, the hall’s huge limestone fireplace was flanked by built-in bookcases and study nooks.

To the left were the newspaper and yearbook offices and the mail room, and to the right was what everyone simply called “the Hub.” The little restaurant was the student center’s main attraction.

Vintage nautical lanterns hung over each booth, and the white beadboard walls held an impressive collection of black-and-white photos featuring generations of fishermen showing off their catches.

Oh, and the mouthwatering diner food.

Everyone was always trying to squeeze in a quick bite between classes or during their free periods.

But only seniors and faculty were allowed to eat breakfast here.

We pushed through the door to find the place packed.

“Well, it’s a good thing I made special arrangements,” my mom said, leading me to a table in the back.

I’d wager it was only empty because of a folded piece of paper that read, RESERVED!

My mother plucked it off the warm wooden table and slipped it in her tote bag, but the Hub’s head honcho was on us the second we got comfortable in our teak chairs.

“Reservations are not allowed,” Josh said, all deadpan with a pencil tucked behind his ear.

“I will have cinnamon roll pancakes,” my mother replied brightly.

“Please do not skimp on the vanilla frosting.”

Josh gave her a look.

“Leda.”

She tilted her head and smiled.

“Josh.”

I glanced around the Hub, not interested in listening to my mother and her boyfriend flirt today.

It would sound like bickering to anyone else, but Leda was the ray of sunshine to Josh’s seriousness.

Any true romantic would agree that they were a perfect match.

Half the boys’ lacrosse team had jammed themselves into a booth and were rehashing their recent playoff loss, cradling invisible balls in their invisible sticks.

At the next table over, Zoe Wright caught my eye and threw up her arms. You lost!

she mouthed. Get over it!

I smiled and shook my head, then spotted Tag Swell and Alex Nguyen sitting together at the counter.

Alex was talking a mile a minute and taking colossal bites of his waffles while Tag strategically squirted ketchup all over his scrambled eggs.

Gross , I thought but continued to watch him with a pang in my stomach.

He liked putting ketchup on everything.

“But like, are you sure ?” Alex said.

“Because…”

I rolled my eyes.

They were most likely talking about Tag’s latest breakup.

He and Blair Greenberg had gotten together last year, and their relationship had been a feast for the hypothetical tabloids.

One second, they were stupidly in love, and the next, they were a hot mess, shouting at each other during Saturday night dances.

The student body had been pretty much over the whole song and dance until Tag broke things off with Blair yesterday.

“Who cares anymore?” we’d mumbled to ourselves, but the truth was, everyone cared.

We all wanted to know what went down between them.

Would this be the last time?

The final time they went their separate ways?

Or would they get back together in a couple days?

Because again, it was the tail end of Ames’s “senior spring.” With less than two weeks left in the term, we upperclassmen cared about approximately three things.

The prom was one of them.

And Tag Swell had dumped his girlfriend right beforehand, with no apparent rhyme or reason.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he told Alex now.

“I want to go with someone else.”

Who?

I wondered at the same time as Alex said, “Who?”

Tag finally put down the ketchup bottle.

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” He smirked at his best friend.

“You, Alexander.”

Alex didn’t miss a beat; he raised his water glass in a toast. “It’d be my pleasure, Taggart. How do you feel about matching boutonnieres?”

A small lump formed in my throat.

Tag and Alex’s bromance was one for the books; they were so close that sometimes they seemed like the same person.

“We met in freshman algebra and just knew ,” Alex once told me.

“Whoever marries him is marrying me too.”

I’d punched him in the arm.

“And she shall be the un luckiest of ladies!”

God, that had been ages ago.

Soon, I heard Josh sigh in defeat.

My mom had worn him down for the morning.

“Okay, Lily,” he said to me.

“What would you like for breakfast? Your mom”—he looked at her with revulsion—“is having cinnamon roll pancakes.”

“I’ll take an orange juice, please,” I said as I unzipped my backpack and began digging around inside.

“With a spoon on the side.” I emerged victorious with my jar of overnight oats.

“I brought my own today.”

“Yes!” Josh snapped his fingers.

It was ironic he ran the Hub because he was really a health nut.

“This is what I’m talking about, Lil. I love to see it.” He faced my mom.

“You should try eating something off your daughter’s menu.”

My mom folded her hands on the table.

“For your information, she made a lovely chicken stir-fry last night. I helped with the prep work.”

Josh turned to me for confirmation, and I nodded.

“But cinnamon roll pancakes do sound amazing,” I added.

“May I get a fork with my spoon? That way, I can steal some bites?”

We laughed when Josh groaned.

“Exasperating,” he said.

“You two are endlessly exasperating . First, reservations. And now this?” He shook his head.

“Excuse me, but endlessly exasperating?” my mom said once her boyfriend had disappeared into the kitchen.

“I’d say he finds us endlessly fascinating .”

“Yes,” I agreed.

I loved these breakfasts with her.

“Endlessly fascinating, for sure.”

Want more from K.