The Playbooks

The air in the Park house always smelled slightly of floor wax and the laundry detergent Mrs. Park favored, but today, to eigt-year-old Emily, it felt electric. She sat cross-legged on the rug of her bedroom, a coloring book spread before her. Her crayon hovered over a sunset, but her ears were tuned to the rhythmic thud of a basketball hitting the floor in the room across the hall.

Scott’s room.

“Today is the day,” Scott’s voice cracked—a traitorous, puberty-driven squeak that usually would have made Emily giggle. “No more ‘maybe’ or ‘we’re just hanging out.’ By 3:00 PM, I’m saying the words. Will you be my girlfriend?"

“It’s a big move,” Josh replied. His voice was deeper than Scott’s, steadier. To Emily, it sounded like the mahogany piano in the Adams’ living room. “If they say yes, everything changes. No more just talking about Madden. We’re talking... hand-holding in the hallway. Maybe a hug after third period.”

Emily pressed her crayon harder against the paper. She didn’t care about Scott’s grand plans for Megan from social studies. She was listening for the pauses in Josh’s breath.

“What about the kiss?” Scott asked, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that Emily could still hear perfectly through the gap in her door.

“Not today,” Josh said firmly. Emily felt a strange relief wash over her. “You gotta build up to that. But I want it to be real, you know? I want to be the guy who actually walks her to her bus. I want everyone to know she’s mine.”

She’s mine. The words echoed in Emily’s head. She closed her eyes and imagined Josh saying that about her, his hand reaching out to catch hers near the lockers. In her mind, she wasn’t four years younger; she was exactly where she needed to be.

The afternoon sun was slanting low over the Michigan pines when the front door slammed. The heavy, frantic footsteps of two twelve-year-old boys thundered up the stairs. Emily retreated to her post, her heart hammering against her ribs.

They burst into Scott’s room, breathless.

“Mission accomplished,” Scott yelled, followed by the sound of a high-five that sounded like a gunshot. “Megan said yes before I even finished the sentence!”

“Tiffany too,” Josh said. He sounded dazed, happy, and tragically out of reach. “We walked to the bike racks together. I held her hand Scott! It was... sweaty. But it was cool. We didn’t really know what to say, so we just stood there for like five minutes until her mom pulled up. Best five minutes of the year.”

Emily leaned her forehead against the cool wood of her door. She could see them in her mind: Josh standing by the bike racks, his fingers intertwined with some girl named Tiffany. She felt a sharp, unfamiliar pinch in her chest—the very first spark of a jealousy she didn’t have a name for yet.

She drifted back to her bed, laying her head on the pillow and staring at the ceiling. She didn’t see her bedroom walls or her stacks of books. She saw a version of the middle school hallway where the lockers were taller and the world was quiet. In this world, Josh wasn’t walking Tiffany to the bus. He was waiting for Emily. He was telling her that she was the one he’d been waiting to ask.

Across the hall, the boys were already transitioning back to talking about video games, their “manhood” secured by the titles of boyfriend. But in the quiet of her room, Emily was already beginning the long, slow burn of waiting for her turn.