Chapter 1- Everett
Everett POV
Mr. Halvorsen is talking about derivatives. I’m not.
I’m drawing the edge of my notebook. A pine tree, half a hand, the curve of a coffee mug. Anything that isn’t a function. The clock says we have eleven minutes left, and Liv has been quiet for forty, which is a record.
The note hits my desk like a thrown rock.
Folded into a triangle. Loose-leaf. Her handwriting bleeds through the back of the page in blue ink. I don’t have to open it to know it’s from her. Nobody else still throws notes. She does it because she likes the ceremony. She told me that in sixth grade and never updated her position.
I unfold it under the desk.
Bleachers. Lunch. Bring snacks or perish.
I laugh out loud.
Halvorsen stops mid-sentence. The whole class turns. I cough into my fist, swallow it, and study my notebook like derivatives have personally betrayed me. Liv doesn’t even look at me. She’s writing in her planner like she didn’t just blow my cover. I can see her bottom lip caught between her teeth, fighting the smile.
She wins. The smile stays put. I lose three more minutes pretending to take notes.
When the bell rings, she’s already at my desk. She picks up my pencil and slides it behind her ear like it’s hers now.
“You’re loud,” she says.
“You’re the one throwing things.”
“I throw with intention.” She walks backward toward the door. “Bleachers. Twenty minutes. Don’t be late or I’m eating your fries.”
I tuck the note inside my Cassese textbook.
The bleachers in April are the best place in town. Empty field. Sun on the metal. The whole baseball team is at an away game, so nobody’s around to make us move. Liv’s already up at the top when I get there. Knees pulled to her chest. Sunglasses pushed into her hair. Two paper bags from the cafeteria balanced beside her.
She doesn’t look up. “You’re forty seconds late.”
“I had to lock my car.”
“Excuses.”
I climb up. Drop my bag. She hands me a bag without looking. Inside, the fries are still hot. She got me extra ketchup because she always gets me extra ketchup. I don’t say thank you. We don’t do thank you for fries.
“How was your morning?” she asks.
“Halvorsen.”
“Right.” She bites a fry in half. “Sorry. My bad.”
The sun is hitting her at a stupid angle. The light catches in her hair and turns it the color of something I don’t have a word for. Honey, maybe. Or the inside of a piece of toast right before it burns. Her eyes look almost amber when she squints into the light. I’ve known her my whole life, and I still notice when she’s lit like this. Like the day knows what it has and is showing off.
She leans over and drops her head on my shoulder. Mid-chew. Casual. Like a cat finding the warmest spot.
I don’t move.
I don’t want to.
This. This right here. The metal of the bleachers warming through my jeans. Her hair smelling like the same coconut shampoo she’s used since freshman year. My pencil behind her ear. A paper bag of fries on my knee. The good life. The actual, no-asterisk good life.
I open my notebook on my other knee. Quiet. She doesn’t see.
I draw her hand first. Her fingers wrapped around the paper bag. Her thumbnail painted half-off. Then her jaw. Then the line of her shoulder against mine. I keep it loose. I keep it small. I’m going to do it properly tonight when the house is quiet and my parents are asleep. I want to draw what the sun is doing right now. I want to get the amber in her eyes and the gold across her cheek and how she fits against my shoulder like she’s been doing this since we were kids, because she has.
I’m allowed to think this. We’ve been friends long enough that I’m allowed to think this.
She lifts her head. Steals two of my fries. I let her.
“Are you done with your college applications?” she asks.
“Almost.”
“Almost is not done.”
“Almost is more done than not started.”
“Everett.”
“Livi.”
She narrows her eyes at me. Bites another fry. “I’m submitting Harrington tonight.”
I look at her properly then. Notebook forgotten. “Tonight tonight?”
“Tonight, tonight.” She tries to sound casual. She isn’t. Her thumb is worrying the edge of the paper bag. “It’s the one. It’s my dad’s alma mater, and they have a really good law program, and I’ve wanted it since I was twelve. I’m just going to do it. Tonight. I’m submitting it tonight.”
“Liv.” I bump my shoulder into hers. “You’re getting in.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that.”
She rolls her eyes. She’s smiling. She wants to be told. She wants to hear it out loud.
“You should apply,” she says. The words come quick, like she’s been holding them. “I heard your dad in the kitchen last week. He was telling you about pre-law. I wasn’t trying to listen, I was returning your mom’s casserole dish. But.” She picks at the bag. “Harrington has pre-law. You’d get in. And.. ”
“And?”
She doesn’t look at me.
“And we could do it together.”
The sun keeps doing what it’s doing. My shoulder is still warm where her head was. My pencil is still behind her ear. Somewhere far off, someone hits a baseball, and the whole field exhales.
I want to say yes.
I want to say yes so badly that for one second I forget about Mark’s voice in the kitchen, and how he sayssonlike it’s a job title, and the brochure he left on my desk last Tuesday with the corner already folded.
“Maybe,” I say.
She nods. She doesn’t push. She never pushes. She’s the only person in my life who doesn’t push.
My phone buzzes against my hip.
I don’t pull it out.
It buzzes again. Then again. Then a fourth time, fast and impatient, like it only does for one person.
Liv tips her chin toward my pocket. “You good?”
“I’m good.”
“You sure?”
I look at her in the April sun with my pencil behind her ear and the bag of fries on her knee and the smile she hasn’t quite put away yet.
“I’m good,” I say. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
My phone buzzes again.
