I could almost feel her smiling back. “We could give it a shot.”
And now I’m picking her up at her house, cast and all, cap and gown and all, on our graduation day.
The graduation pairs are, for some reason, still old-fashioned boy-girl; it’s long been the plan that I’ll walk with Henna, and Mel will walk with Jared. Which will probably be fine.
“Big day,” Henna says, getting into my car. She shuts the door and looks back at her parents.
Nobody waves to each other.
“What’s going on?” I say, driving away.
“Later,” she says, smiling. “This is a happy day. In a whole bunch of ways.”
The ceremony’s at noon. The sun is already baking the trees, making the whole world smell dusty.
Mel is coming with Steve from his apartment. My mom’s bringing Meredith later and will see us at the ceremony. My dad was so drunk he passed out in his office this morning in his work clothes and couldn’t be woken. Me and Mel are just hoping he lives until rehab, though hopefully Mom will make sure of that.
Jared and his dad will be there. Which won’t be awkward for anybody.
“It’s going to be okay, Mike,” Henna says, like she’s reading my mind.
“You think so?”
“I mean everything,” she says, looking out the window as we drive down the road to school for the millionth time. For the last time. “I think everything’s going to be okay. All of it. All of us.”
This makes my stomach hurt. I squirm in the driver ’s seat so much, Henna notices. “Do you really believe in fate that much, Mikey? Do you really believe it exists only to punch you in the face?”
“It’s done some pretty good punching so far.”
She just looks back out her window. “I think it’s going to be okay. Even you.”
And I begin to count the telephone poles we pass.
I can’t seem to stop.
–But then I do.
It’s already pretty crowded when we get there, even though it’s two full hours before the actual graduation part. We’ve got some sort of practice to get through first, though how hard can it be? We find Mel and Steve in the sea of sweating black robes. Jared and Nathan are with them. Henna hugs everybody.
“Hey,” I say to Jared.
“Hey,” he says.
Everyone’s looking at us. “Oh, for God’s sake,” Mel says, grabbing each of us by the arm and pushing us towards the edge of the crowd. “Go. Work it out. It’s our last day.”
So we do. We walk away from the main field where graduation practice is starting – seriously, practice – and we head around to the back of the gym, away from where any teacher might spot us and drag us back.
“I’m sorry,” Jared says, first thing.
“I’m sorry, too,” I say.
“I didn’t mean those things. I really didn’t.”
“You did, but … I kind of deserved them.”
“I kind of deserved them, too.”
We don’t say anything else for a minute.
“Is that it?” I ask, actually curious.
“I guess so.”
“Are we okay?”
“Doesn’t really feel like it, does it?”
Another long pause.
“I slept with Henna,” I say.
He smiles, amazed. “You did?”
“Yeah. And we figured out we really are only just friends. It’s been kind of … kind of great, actually.”
“See?” he says. “There’s a secret you kept from me.”
“I’d have a lifetime to go to catch up with you.”