Page 81 of The Academy
“No,” Dub says. “He told me he lost it to some chick at Dartmouth. The student athletic trainer. During his recruiting trip last semester.”
Involuntarily, Taylor moans.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Dub says. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to know.”
“I don’t care,” Taylor says. To prove her point, she dips another chip and chases it with more tequila. She’s starting to feel it now. “I’m the reason he and I aren’t together anymore.” She looks at Dub, who is staring at his knees. Since football season, his hair has grown back all curly and wild and she longs to run her hands through it. “I don’t want Hakeem, Dub. I want…”
“Today is Cinnamon’s birthday,” Dub says. “February twenty-first. She would have been seventeen.”
“Oh god,” Taylor says. “I didn’t know.” But then she recalls the year before, Cinnamon’s sweet sixteen. Davi made a pink balloon arch outside 111 South. Cinnamon and Taylor had both been in rehearsals forGrease,and Dub had shown up in the auditorium with an ice cream cake from the Carvel in Haydensboro.
“It’s okay,” Dub says, though obviously it’s not okay. This explains the darkened room, the candles, the maudlin playlist. The song now playing is “Jar of Hearts.”
Taylor offers Dub the bottle again. He drinks, then attacks the chips and salsa. Taylor watches him eat the snacks she brought him; she feels like such a trad wife.
She hits the tequila for what is probably the fourth or fifth shot; she’s to the point where she doesn’t even notice how disgusting it is.
Taylor is smart like Cinnamon, she now has the lead in the musical like Cinnamon, she even considered dyeing her hair auburn over the holidays, but then decided that was psycho.
Taylor’s and Dub’s hands brush when they both reach into the chip bag; Dub pulls away, saying, “Go ahead.”
Taylor lifts his chin so he’s looking at her. “Why do you never touch me?”
Dub chugs what’s left in the water bottle, then shakes his headand gasps. “I have something to tell you,” he says. “But you can’t tell another fucking soul.”
“Okay?” Taylor says.
“Taylor.”
“Okay!” she says. “I won’t, I promise.”
He studies her, shakes his head.
“Do you not trust me? We’re best friends, Dub.”
She’s nearly drunk enough to sayI love you,but not quite.
“Fuck it,” Dub says. “I have to tell someone because this thing is eating me alive.”
“What is?”
He opens the laptop on his desk. He brings up his Gmail account and scrolls through a thousand marketing messages from every athletic brand in America: Nike, Under Armour, Rawlings. He dives all the way back into the previous spring. Taylor makes two fists. May 20, May 17, then finally, she sees it. May 12 from Cinnamon Peters. Subject line:DO NOT OPEN THIS FILE UNTIL THE MORNING OF OUR GRADUATION.
He clicks on the message and Taylor reads:
I mean it, Dub. Save this in the vault until May 29, 2027. You’re the only one I can trust. I love you and you’re going to be fine, I promise.
Cin.
Below is an attachment.
“What is it?” Taylor says.
“I haven’t opened it, obviously.”
“What do youthinkit is?” Taylor asks. “A letter, maybe, to our class?”
“I don’t know, Tay,” he says. “She asked me not to open it untilnext May and I’m not going to.” He runs a hand down his face. “But just having access to it is driving me fucking crazy.”
