Page 47 of I Hope This Doesn't Find
“All you do is work and study and live for other people,” she goes on, gesturing to the stacks of textbooks on the floor, the shiny awards and sports trophies on the bookshelf. “Yes, you help out a lot, and I’m very grateful for it; the bakery wouldn’t be running without you. But I’d much rather see you enjoying your teen years while you can. I worry that you’re going to look back when you’re twenty or forty and all you’ll remember is your desk and the dishes. Really, it would ease my guilt if you did.” Her smile is sad. “I never wanted you to have to grow up this fast.”
My head buzzes. I can’t believe it. It’s like spending years of your life training for a game only to realize you understood the rules all wrong.
“I’m going to make that soup now.” Mom stands up. “Stay here.”
And then she heads into the kitchen, leaving me to reassemble all the pieces of my life I was once so certain of.
Everyone hates the Athletics Carnival.
Everyone.The nonathletic kids hate it because it’s one whole day spent sweating in the open and stumbling after your classmates. The athletic kids hate it because there’s an incredible amount of pressure to perform, and someone always ends up with a sprained ankle or torn ligament.
Though I fall into the latter category, I don’t usually mind the event as much as the others. But after spending the weekend hungover and miserable, it’s difficult to drum up any enthusiasm.
“I have a solution,” Abigail says as we walk into the rented stadium, our duffel bags bumping against our knees. The sun is unreasonably bright today, and the temperature rises anywhere the light touches, so that soon most students are shrugging out of their thick sweaters and tracksuits. Better this, I guess, than the year the school insisted we run in a literal thunderstorm. More than one person sprained their ankle that time. “What if you ran me over gently with a car? They’d have to cancel the carnival, right? I’m willing to take one for the team.”
A small snort escapes my lips. The stadium is so vast that it takes us ten minutes just to reach the stands and plop our water bottles down on the plastic seats. Every year, we come here, and every year, I still find myself intimidated by the sheer size of the running track.
“If you want to take one for the team, you could join the relay,” I tell Abigail while I slather multiple layers of sunscreen all over my body. Those year-round UV radiation infographics they shoved down our throats in primary school have really stuck with me. “We still have an opening left.”
She makes a face. “Listen, we both know I’m multitalented, but running is one of the only things I’mnotgreat at.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll run fast enough to make up for it.”
“Could we please at least consider the idea of hitting me with a car?” she whines.
“Abigail.”
“Fine.” She throws her hands up. “Only because I still feel guilty about leaving the party early.”
My gut squirms at the reminder, but I force myself to smile. “I told you, it’s fine. It went well.”
“That’s not what everyone else is saying.”
I make an effort not to react.I don’t care.I squeeze more sunscreen into my palms and smear it thick over my neck, the strong, artificial smell burning my nostrils.I don’t want to know. It’s better if I don’t know.“What . . . What is everyone else saying?”
She hesitates. “That you kind of, like, flipped out.”
They’re not wrong, but it feels like a slap in the face anyway. A hundred protests and explanations and apologies make their way to my lips. I swallow them all down. After my little breakdown, I’d promised myself I would listen to my mom. I would give it time. Resist picking any unripe watermelons, or whatever the metaphor is meant to be.
“Also,” she says, frowning, “I heard that something . . . happened with Julius?”
My stomach contracts. “Hang on. First tell me what happened withyou,” I say, wiping the excess sunscreen on my arms. I’m mostly changing the subject to buy myself time, to figure out how I’m supposed to tell her I kissed the boy I’ve been ranting about for the past decade. “Did you manage to help your sister?”
A shadow crosses her face. “I did. Well, kind of. I helped her with the car, but . . .” She chews her lower lip, then heaves a sigh. “The reason she and Liam were fighting was because she found out he’s been cheating on her. Not just with one person, butmultiple people.”
I wince, sympathetic but unsurprised.
“I can’t believe I didn’t know,” she says, kicking at the artificial grass. “I even encouraged her to stay with him the last time they fought. I should have been able to sense something was off.”
This is the thing about Abigail: She might not have the best grades or the most reliable career plans, but I know she prides herself on having good instinct, whether it’s about shoes or boys or if the teachers will actually be collecting the homework on Monday. She makes all the calls, gives out the advice. She’s always right—and that’s a direct quote from one of the sticky notes on her lunch box.
“I just— I thought I was doing what was best for her,” she continues in a small voice.
And I realize that I absolutely can’t tell her what happened between me and Julius. The party had been her idea too. The last thing she needs to hear right now is how much I regretted the whole night, how it’s made my weird relationship with Julius a thousand times more complicated. “You couldn’t have known,” I reassure her. “It’s an unfortunate feature of douchebags that they’re good at hiding their douchebag tendencies. And by the way, you were totally right about the party.”
“Really?”
The fact that she’s even asking is proof she’s just suffered a terrible blow to her self-esteem. “Yeah, seriously. Like, yes, I kind of lost it at the end because things got a little out of control, but before that, I had so much fun. I haven’t felt that enthusiastic about life since I finished color-coding all my history notes.” It’s a miracle I don’t choke on the words. Before she can detect my lie, I spin around. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go get a bunch of people to sign up for races they would rather die than run.”
