But I didn’t call.
We’ve been kind of set free from our classes the last two schooldays of this last school week.
Senior privilege again, which you can take or not. I took it, going everywhere I could with Henna: the little northwest zoo just up the road, where we saw moose and elk panting in the sun; the bigger zoo in the town about an hour away, where a rhinoceros did the same; miniature golf again; the movies.
Even just sitting in my room looking at our phones for hours on end. But doing it together.
Either way, I didn’t go to school. Mel went, but she said Jared wasn’t there either.
Mel’s thing is still churning, my mom still fighting it, helped a lot by Mr Shurin dropping out of the race. Not helped by Cynthia deciding she’s going to run instead. For most of the week, Mel’s stayed over at Steve’s – who my parents now know the existence of and are seemingly in no position to argue that Mel wants to hang around him and not them – so I’ve barely seen her either, except over the phone on videos and chats.
Nothing more happened with the blue lights, though we’re all worried that means we’re leading up to something even bigger and more horrible that’ll end it all.
“As long as we can graduate before they blow up the school,” Henna said.
Because Henna.
Because Henna, because Henna, because Henna.
We slept together. It was everything I’d ever wanted, everything I’d ever hoped for, even the parts where I’d imagined we were in it together and it was something she wanted as much as I did and we were a team and it was for us both.
It was beautiful and amazing and so hot I’ve pretty much jerked off to it every day since (shut up, you would, too) and the way she smelled and the way her skin felt and the way we laughed sometimes (quite a lot over the condom) and the way we were serious other times and just the being there, in that way, her body against my body and mine against hers. It felt like my heart was breaking – and it was breaking, over Jared, over graduation, over everything – but it was okay because Henna Henna Henna…
It was all those things, and it was also more. Because we realized something, both of us.
We don’t belong together as boyfriend and girlfriend.
“I think I see what you mean,” I said to her, after, arms around each other. “About being each other ’s question.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It was the car accident that made me finally want to know the answer. You were there, holding my hand, and I thought, Is it him? Is it really him? ”
“I’ve been asking myself that since we were kids.”
“It always kept me from really committing to Tony. I kept thinking, in another life, if I made different choices, it could be you and me instead. I suppose I just got sick of expecting somebody else to give me the answer.” She leaned up on one elbow. “I love you, Mike.”
“I love you, too, Henna.”
“And I loved that, what we just did. But this isn’t us, is it?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think it is.”
“It’s love. But it’s a different kind.”
“Doesn’t make it any less love, though.”
She lay back down and snuggled into me. “Just think, all this time we could have been each other ’s best friend.”
“That would have been awesome.”
“Still can be.”
I smiled. “The spirit of exploration?”