Page 7 of Square Waves (Big Fan #2)

VI

The next morning, Willa greets me with a bag of donuts and coffee, and we eat standing up, scattering crumbs on the newspapers she laid down before I got there. “Shit. This is good,” I mumble around a mouthful.

“It’s, like, a yeasted dough or something?”

“I can’t remember the last time I had a donut.” I search the bag for a napkin. “Breakfast in general. My mornings are usually a rush to the door.”

Willa frowns, and I mentally kick myself for broaching the subject. “Too busy for hoovering up a pastry? You might need a new job.”

I take a big bite to avoid having to answer her right away.

I managed to sidestep this topic pretty handily last night, and I could brush her off now.

But that feeling in my stomach—the one I got from lying to her—hasn’t gone away.

Willa used to be the person I told everything: what it felt like to have sex for the first time, that I was scared to move to DC for college despite my bravado.

Realizing that we’ve grown this far apart—that I don’t even know how to open up to her anymore—makes me feel like an alien to myself in a way I don’t like.

I nudge at some crumbs with the toe of my sneaker. I try to make my voice extremely casual when I say, “Yeah, actually, I’ve been thinking that maybe I do. It might be time to try something new.” Not the full truth, but closer to it than I’ve gotten with anyone else.

Willa dusts her hands off and grabs a paint roller from a bucket. “Kim Miller is opening up a med spa in Nob Hill,” she says. “How do you feel about supporting rich women on their youth-preservation journeys?”

I crinkle my nose. “I feel like you’re just looking for an excuse to show me a current photo of Kim Miller.”

Willa shrugs with a coy smile.

“I mean, good for her, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned from dealing with our donors, it’s that whatever I do next, I’d like to be further removed from the ultrarich.”

“She offered to do my elevens last time I saw her. I’m still considering it.” Willa waggles her brows.

“When was that?”

“Just a couple of months ago. Our ten-year reunion.”

Our high school doesn’t have my email address, and Willa knows better than to bother inviting me to those sorts of things. “How was that?”

Willa paints a corner as she considers her answer. She has strong arms and a steady hand. “It was kind of fun, actually. Just to see everyone and realize how much we’ve all changed.”

“Leon—” I start before I realize that I’m about to divulge too much information.

Leon said Zeke has a kid now , I was going to say.

But Willa heard every word of our conversation yesterday, and she knows perfectly well that wasn’t part of it.

Looks like I’ve encountered the limits of my ambitions to open up.

“Leon doesn’t seem that different,” I correct myself hastily.

Willa rolls her eyes. “Cassidy, for real?”

“What?”

“You saw him for ten minutes. You have no idea what he’s like. And at this point, I thought you of all people wouldn’t be so judgmental.”

My face heats, and there’s an awkward silence. Do I wish being publicly humiliated turned me into a saint? Sure. But turns out I’m still capable of being just as uncharitable with everyone as I’ve always been.

“You know me,” I say when I think I can get my voice to behave. “Never learned a lesson in my life.”

“Sorry,” she says immediately. “I wasn’t being fair.”

“No, you were. I’m definitely the biggest screw-up in our grade. Leon doesn’t even come close.” I dunk my roller in the paint tray with too much gusto.

“Okay, yeah, no. That’s definitely not my point at all.

” A lot of people are too intimidated by me—my pain, my scandal—to touch it.

But Willa puts her roller down and comes over to wrap her arms around me.

“I love you,” she says. “And I love Leon. And I wish you could see each other the way I see each of you. That’s all I meant. ”

I lean my head on her shoulder. She’s wearing a new perfume these days; she doesn’t smell like Marc Jacobs Daisy anymore. But she’s still familiar in the most important ways. “I love you too.”

She gives me a squeeze and lets me go. “You two have always been square waves.”

I have no idea what that means.

“Still not an ocean person—why do I find that comforting? They’re two dueling waves that make for bad conditions. For everyone.” She points to herself.

“Okay, so paint me a picture.” I focus on the wall, on actual paint. “Tell me about the Leon you know.”

She nods. “He’s curious. Like, when the kiln stopped working a few weeks ago, I just hired someone to come fix it. But Leon spent the whole afternoon with him. Learning what had gone wrong and what else could go wrong with kilns like ours. He wanted to understand more about it.”

I nod. Roll up, roll down. Up, down.

“And he’s learned how not to be such a perfectionist. He tries stuff, even if he thinks he might be bad at it.”

I can’t help myself; I make a little scoffing noise.

“What now?”

“I just... that’s not how I remember him. As like, striving for perfection .”

Willa pauses to check her phone. Her lock screen is dense with notifications, and she triages for a minute before turning back to me.

“Not to overshare on his behalf, but it’s something he and I have talked about a lot.

And the way he describes it, he would get, like, paralyzed by how badly he wanted to be good at stuff.

So instead of trying at all, he just wouldn’t.

It made him crazy, being that hard on himself.

We were talking about the senior art show the other day, and.

..” She trails off with a chuckle. I sigh.

It’s been so long since I thought about Procrastination .

All through high school, I was in student government, and senior year, I was the events chair. With Willa’s help, I pulled together a gallery show that paired student work with local artists’ pieces. It ended up being a notably successful fundraiser that paid for new band uniforms.

I’d been surprised when Leon signed up to participate. I knew he’d been in Willa’s studio art class sophomore year, but I didn’t realize he had been that into it.

In the weeks leading up to it, he refused to describe his piece to me.

I needed to know if I was supposed to hang it or put it on a stand, if it was a drawing or a painting or a sculpture and how big or small.

What the theme was, so I could group similar work together.

But I got... nothing. So I ended up reserving a whole corner of the room for him, just in case.

When the day arrived, he handed me an index card.

It said, Procrastination: An Ongoing Performance by Leon Park.

Boiling over with anger, I stuck it up on the wall with blue painter’s tape. And of course, it was a hit. All night I had to watch people read it and laugh and congratulate him. While I fielded complaints from visitors who were annoyed that one of the bathrooms was out of order.

I think about what I said to him the other night: People like boys who fail way better than girls who succeed.

With Procrastination , it felt so clear that everyone loved him for his effortlessness in a way they’d never love me for all of my effort.

I had disliked him before, but that was when I truly started to detest him.

So despite the explanation Willa’s offering me, it’s hard for me to conjure much sympathy or understanding. “Let’s talk about something else,” I say. “Like your birthday party. I’m very excited to meet Bryce.”

“And he’s excited to meet you.” Willa stands back to consider our progress so far. “And for you to see our house. I’ve obviously been a wreck since we moved in, but he’s done a sort of miraculous job getting everything set up. It turns out he’s kind of a genius interior designer?”

If I didn’t love Willa so much, I might hate her too.

It’s hard not to feel like she has the life we’re supposed to have at our age: a sweet, caring partner; a cool job that she created for herself; and a house , instead of some tiny one-bedroom apartment she can barely afford.

I can still see my high school best friend when I look at her, but she’s grown into herself so much too. I’m not sure that I’ve done the same.

“I think Ellery is coming too. And Dana, and Izzy—half of our old study hall crew, basically.” Willa laughs. “And you’ll really like Bryce’s work friends—they’re nonprofit people too. Actually, one or two are hot and single.”

Maybe if I have another fling, it’ll wash the taste of Leon out of my mouth. “Well, I’ll make sure to wear something cute then.”

“Bonus points if it’s what you wore to my eighteenth birthday,” she says with a wink.

Oh god, the sequin minidress. Before I can remind her about what she wore to that particular event, Willa’s focus shifts back to what’s on the wall.

“Okay, sorry, but can you go over that last section again? It’s looking a little uneven. ”

We paint for another couple of hours, long enough that by the time we’re done, my forearms, shoulders, and back are all aching.

We keep talking, the kind of rambling conversation you can only have when you have a long afternoon together.

One that makes me realize how much I’ve missed Willa.

One that makes the morning fly by so much faster than it did when I was on my laptop yesterday.

I feel... useful. It’s a novel sensation, and I don’t want to give it up. I know what Tilly said yesterday, but right now it’s hard not to feel like, Fuck that, actually . I don’t need more time alone with my thoughts. I know them, they’re exhausting, and I’m tired of hanging out with them.

And then there’s the feeling I get when Willa gives me a hug goodbye in the late afternoon.

The rest of my day flashes before me: the quiet of my parents’ house.

Going for a solo walk. Having a lonely dinner.

It makes me feel like I’m staring down a long, dark tunnel.

It’s a panic I recognize. And one I can’t bear.

I blurt out, “Do you want me to come back tomorrow?”

Willa narrows her eyes. “Leon will be back tomorrow.”

“No, I know, and I don’t want to be in the way. It’s just that I was thinking—I am on this break. So I have all of this free time, and I kind of don’t know what to do with it. And it seems like maybe—”

She waves a hand at me like she’s swatting a fly. “I need so much help.” Her hands move to her hips. “But I don’t want to be in the middle of a Cassidy and Leon grudgefest for the next two weeks. I’m tired enough as it is.”

“I know. I promise—I can be cool.”

She gives me a skeptical look. One I’ve definitely earned. But then she sighs and nods. “Okay. Can you be here by ten?”