Page 21

The entire rest of the morning is a blur, and the afternoon even blurrier. Once I’m back in the dorm, I don’t come up for air from my laptop even once, existing off the stack of extra pancakes Betty sent me with (“Eating his breakfast is the best revenge”) and listening to Christina’s lo-fi playlist on repeat for so long that I don’t even register the sun starting to go down. When I hit Send on the final draft of my piece, Christina opens the door to the dorm room to find me slouched over my laptop like a feral raccoon in the dark.

I’ve felt the ghost of the tension we left in this room ever since I got back, but now I feel it in full force. Christina ended up going home for the weekend, but that text from her was the last I heard. Even in the chaos of everything that’s happened, our fight has weighed on me, left a faint ache in my chest that tightens now that we’re finally together again.

Christina flicks on the light. I pull off my headphones. We both open our mouths like we’re trying to remember our lines, but we’ve never fought like this before. We’ve never fought to the point of dead silence, which suddenly feels so thick that I’m scared we can’t come back from it.

Then Christina tilts her head. “I have some questions, but first of all, what on earth are you wearing?”

The relief would be enough to knock me over if I weren’t already sitting down. I have to stop my eyes from tearing up as she steps closer, examining me. I examine her right back, glad to see her looking more herself than she has in ages. She’s in a favorite pair of jeans I haven’t seen her pull out all semester, her face is bright from sleep, and her hair is tucked into a braid so tight that I know her mom must have done it before she left. She’s even sporting a fresh claw mark on her hand that can only be evidence of Blorbo’s love.

I unslouch myself from the laptop so she can see the handwritten sign I’ve taped to my sweater. It reads SORRY FRIEND .

“Oh,” says Christina, bewildered. “Is this a hip new thing we do in college now? Communicate via sweatshirt?”

I shake my head. “It’s my costume. We’re doing a mini Alphabet Party, you and me.” I pull out the candy stash my parents sent Seb for me, adding Snickers, Symphony bars, and strawberry sours. “S-themed candy. And we can watch one of your favorites, Stranger Things or Succession. And then we can finally cross one of your things off the Bitch List once and for all.”

Christina’s eyes well up. “Dammit, Sadie. I thought I cried myself out yesterday, and you had to go do something this adorable?” She leans in and hugs me hard. “Thank you. I love this. Sit tight while I grab the green paint.”

I shudder as she releases me. “Too soon,” I tell her. “Anyway, I just wanted to say I shouldn’t have assumed I knew what was best for your situation. And I’m here for you whenever you do decide what’s best.”

She plops down on the edge of my bed, nodding. “I’m sorry if I came unglued at you a bit.” She fiddles with the end of her braid. “Probably for the best, because it made me finally go home.”

“Did it help?” I ask.

“Yeah. After I woke up from a thirteen-hour nap, that is.” She starts unwrapping a Snickers, splitting it to offer me the other half. “It was good. Opening up to my parents about it. They knew something was up because I wasn’t calling much, so it wasn’t like, the biggest shock. But they were pretty upset hearing about how intense the schedules were and all the academic hoops they were making us jump through.”

I take a bite of my Snickers half. “Did they not know about all the GPA stuff?”

Christina sighs, leaning back to prop herself against the wall. “Yeah, no. I didn’t really get into it with them at the time. I didn’t want them to feel weird about me needing a scholarship to come.” She tongues some chocolate off her teeth, considering. “I think it’s that they’re not big into sports, so I get the sense they were like, guilty about me running? Like they thought I was doing it for the scholarship. When really I just love to run and it was cool that I got good enough at it to qualify.”

I find myself smiling, remembering a tiny Christina zooming up and down the playground at summer camp. “Yeah. I remember when you first started out. You were so happy,” I say. “And I was sitting there thinking to myself, I can’t believe I’m best friends with someone who keeps running on purpose. ”

Christina laughs. “I think that was a reminder I needed, too. That I love running. Just not like this.”

I want to ask her what the plan is, but I hear Marley’s voice in my head reminding me not to put too much pressure on the situation. To just listen when she decides for herself. So instead I ask, “Are you going to be okay for the rest of the semester?”

She takes another bite of Snickers, considering. “I hope so. This is dweeby, maybe, but—my mom is going to talk to my coach.” She aims a small smirk in my direction and says, “She says even if you and crew actually manage to score us mental health advocates that she’s still going to be the first in line to be mine.”

I find my own eyes welling up at that. We’ve both been stubborn in our own ways about letting our parents in, about worrying we’ll let them down. The last few weeks have knocked us around in separate ways, but at least we both understand now that even though we’ve left home, we have soft places to land.

“That’s sweet,” I say.

She rolls her eyes, but I can tell she’s genuinely relieved. “But yeah,” she goes on. “I might do some reevaluating after this season. I don’t know yet.”

“Well, I’m here with snacks in the meantime. I hope it works out.”

I leave a space open for her to say anything else she wants to get off her chest, but I can tell she’s talked this whole scenario inside out and backward with her parents this weekend already. She nods, and I can feel the conversation come to an easy close when she says, “Me, too. Can you imagine me having to find another hobby after all this?” She gives a theatrical shiver. “I might end up in that bird-watching club.”

“Poor things could use a jock in their midst.”

She shifts herself on the bed, then, so we’re sitting beside each other, moving my laptop so it’s halfway between to cue up Netflix. Then for the first time in weeks, we get to live out our quintessential college-roommate dreams: sitting in our sweatpants eating candy and watching TV, not one study guide or practice schedule or catastrophic email from the dean in sight.

We pause after the first episode for a snack refresh break, and Christina says, “You didn’t tell me how the rally went.”

I blink only because I realize that in the brief time Christina was gone, she missed an entire cursed three-act play’s worth of drama, romance, and pancakes.

“It went well,” I start.

Christina narrows her eyes at me. “You’re making a face.”

She’s not wrong, because in an attempt not to make a face, I’ve made an even weirder one. I also realize if I don’t say something now, I’ll be in Best Friend Jail for withholding later.

“So I kissed Seb.”

“What?” she demands, sending several Skittles flying. “And you’re just sitting here with me watching middle schoolers get psychologically scarred in the woods? Where is he?”

“Home,” I say, bracing myself for more projectile candy. “He got suspended. Possibly expelled.”

It’s the unsuspecting Sour Patch Kids this time. “ What? ”

“It’s fine. We’re working on it. You’ll see tomorrow,” I tell her, my hand hovering back over the space bar to start the show again. If we dip even one toe into the bajillion-step plan I set in motion today, we’ll be here all night. “I have a good feeling it’ll work out.”

And strangely, I do. We’ve got weeks of work building up to this, a ton of good people on our side, and one hell of a Sadie-wave on the horizon about to shake things up. Jury’s out on whether I’ll be banished with Seb in the suburbs or here at Maple Ride by the end of it, but that’s something the old Sadie would have worried about. This one isn’t avoiding fights, because she’s not going down without one.

“Except for the part where you were body-snatched and have way too much chill about this. I need details, ” she says, swatting my leg.

I nudge my leg into hers in protest. “I’ll tell you. But I think—I want to know how this plays out first,” I tell her. “With Newsbag and with Seb. Everything’s up in the air right now, and I think what we’ve got up our sleeves tomorrow is big.”

Christina’s brow furrows like she’s deciding whether to press the point, but the misadventures of latchkey eighties kids must win out. “All right. This is all very mysterious and intriguing of you,” she says. “Except for the part where you and Seb are the most inevitable thing that’s ever happened on planet Earth, and I legally am allowed to say ‘I told you so’ with any and every breath I take until the day I die.”

I sigh deeply. “As is your unfortunate right,” I say, mostly to stop myself from saying the truth. That I’m more confused about this situation with Seb now than ever, enough that I can’t let myself think about it or it’s going to consume me. I can’t let it—not if I’m going to get him back at Maple Ride, where he belongs.

I settle back in then, one eye on the kids outrunning Demogorgons, one on my phone. Around the time Steve and Nancy are necking as Barb gets dragged into the Upside Down, I finally get the all-clear email from Amara I’ve been waiting for.

Your piece is phenomenal. Everything is ready for the printer. Link will go live at 7am, graphic attached if you want to post on social. Fair warning next time I see you I’m going to hug you so hard your eyes bug out of your head.

I give myself a quiet moment to savor the relief, then I save the graphic and open a new text addressed to Seb. It’s the first one I’ve sent him all day. Mostly because once we started setting my loose plan into motion, there wasn’t any time. But also because I can’t help being angry with him. He didn’t lie, but he didn’t tell me the truth, either. He just went radio-silent.

It would have been upsetting on its own. It’s something else entirely that it happened on the heels of that kiss.

I draft a few versions of a text. A Hey what the actual fuck?? A sincere Why would you ruin your chances like this? A borderline pathetic What am I supposed to think when you KISS ME and then DISAPPEAR INTO A SUBURBAN BLACK HOLE , because of all the texts and calls I’ve been fielding today, not one of them has been from Seb.

In the end, all I write is This is going live at 7am, if you want to put that Instagram of yours to good use.

Then I send him the link and the graphic and settle back onto my pillows. Joyce Byers is frantically chasing Christmas lights by the time Seb’s response comes in.

I know this could only be your idea. Good chaos written all over it.

That night when I come back from showering, Christina has put the Bitch List back up on the wall. There’s a glittery check mark under her name for the Alphabet Party, and a check mark for a new line item directly under my name: BE THE BIGGEST BADASS MAPLE RIDE HAS EVER SEEN .