“Do you want to have a sleepover tonight?” I ask. “Just us, like old times?”
We turn down the stairwell that leads to the art wing. Descending from the plain halls covered in school projects, club posters, and athletic event flyers, we enter the center of Kristen’s universe. The walls that were virtually empty at the beginning of the semester are now plastered in projects: photography projects, paintings, sketches, cases filled with ceramics and sculptures. It’s colorful and abstract, collaged with realism, just like Kristen.
“You know,” she says after a moment of thought, “let’s totally do it.”
“Really?” I stop in the middle of the hallway and pull on my backpack straps like I’m holding on to a roller coaster.
“Yes! Just let me grab the camera.”
After an overcast photoshoot in the farthest acre of the Haverford Tree Farm, showers, a ten-minute deliberation with Kristen’s mom, and a placed pizza order, Kristen and I start setting up the den. I blow up the king-size air mattress we always use, double-checking the tape covering the tiny holes we’ve accumulated over the years. I find a spare set of sheets in the linen closet in the hallway and run into Kristen on her way back from her room. She nearly barrels into me since she can’t see over the pile of blankets filling her arms.
She laughs when she realizes I dodged her, and we file back into the den, her dog, Skittles, on our heels. Her dad had theaddition built onto the house when we were in elementary school. The walls are made of wood from the farm and so is most of the furniture: The coffee table is a flat plank of knotted pine and the bookshelves still have their rich cedar scent.
I love this place. My second home.
Kristen starts fluffing pillows while I arrange our snacks on the coffee table at the foot of the bed. I watch her for a moment as she buzzes around, checking the corners of the fitted sheet and doubling back to adjust the lights. The way she smiles to herself as we work in quiet harmony makes me wonder if she’s missed this as much as I have.
I know we haven’t changedthatmuch, but we aren’t the same as we were before this summer. A bitter part of me wonders what right now might look like if I hadn’t gone to camp. I don’t regret finding myself and finding Hannah, but in some alternate version of my life, there’s way less drama. Less stress. And Kristen and I never stopped being how we were.
When we finally sit down, I pick at the hem of the pajama pants my mom brought over, trying to ignore the twist of guilt that comes up whenever I acknowledge how much I lie to Kristen now.
“What are we thinking?” Kristen asks, sitting back with the remote. She starts clicking through the Netflix categories. “Romance, action, thriller?”
We used to tell each other everything—crushes, stupid fears, drama, whether it was ours or gossip we heard at school. Now I’m hiding the biggest thing in my life, the missing piece that completes me as my true self.
Hannah.
Thinking her name makes my chest tighten. I sent her a good luck text before Kristen and I left school. She didn’t reply until long after the game would’ve ended. I hadn’t thought much of it, mainly because I was busy with Kristen, but when Hannah asked about us FaceTiming tonight and I said noagain, I felt like whatever progress I made in finally spending quality time with Kristen was only pushing me further from figuring out how to move forward in my relationship with Hannah.
“Earth to Clarity?” Kristen snaps her fingers in front of my face, inches from my eyes. I jump, which usually makes her laugh. But when I meet her eyes, her brows are pinched in concern.
“You asked about movies?” I say, registering the list of romantic comedies filling the TV.
“You spaced out,” she says, leaning against the couch so that she’s fully facing me.
“I’m just in my head, sorry.” I grab the nearest blanket and pull it over my lap before focusing on the bright screen. The first option isTo All the Boys I’ve Loved Beforefollowed byEmily in ParisandThe Half of It.
“What’s wrong?”
My eyes snag onThe Half of It. Hannah told me about this movie. She wants us to watch it together, mainly so I can see what happens when a closeted girl’s world doesn’t end when people find out the truth.
“What do you and Vincent, like, do together? When you hang out and stuff?” I ask, desperate to know more about whoKristen is when she’s away from me now, to stop the gap between us from growing.
Her face unpinches. Instead of confusion, she looks surprised, and then her lips melt into a warm smile.
“This might sound stupid, but we really just hang out.”
“Okay, but what do youdo?”
“We take walks through the farm and in the woods behind school, sometimes we get coffee, but we usually just go places where we can sit around and talk.”
I haven’t really considered what they do beyond what I already knew… which is that they smoke on the farm.
“You don’t go on dates?”
This makes her laugh, the sound light and familiar, but still distancing. Whatever my question prompted is a thought, a memory, that I don’t know about… a reminder that we don’t talk like we used to.
“Does Vincent seem like the type to you?” she asks.