First & Then(13)

We reached my car, which was a shameful distance from the curb and sticking into the street at a really awkward angle. I couldn’t parallel park to save my life.

“Drive safe, okay?” Cas said as he took the keys out of my hand and unlocked the door.

“Oh, I was planning on driving recklessly.”

Cas clutched a hand to his chest.

“Senioritis?” I asked wryly.

“Just picturing the world without Devon Tennyson. The sky’s all black and torn open, and trees shrivel and die, and all the top-forty bands break up.”

“You notice how we never have conversations grounded in reality?”

He grinned. “I love you.”

I got into the car, half wanting to tell him not to say stuff like that and half wanting to say it back.

“Drive safe for real, okay?” he said before I could reply.

“Well, I was going to give it go blindfolded, but I guess I could wait on that. For you.”

I knew that was just as stupid as Cas’s As long as you save me a dance. And I knew that sometimes around Cas my voice turned strange, too, some sort of gravel jumped into it, trying to sound cool and sexy and cavalier but really sounding just as idiotic as Cas had talking to Lindsay. But I couldn’t help it.

He rapped the roof of the car. “Night, Devon.” And then he shut the door, moved onto the curb, and watched me pull away.





5


The second week of school is decidedly worse than the first, most especially in senior year. The first week can have its novelties: seeing who changed their hair color, who bulked up over the summer. There are new faces to familiarize yourself with. New privileges to grow accustomed to.

But by the second week, the novelty has worn off. Now you’re just back in school, plain and simple—another year that, despite Josh so-and-so’s new physique and the fact that we can all park in the senior lot, is discouragingly like the last three.

The only difference, I guess, was that now that the end was so near, it seemed further away than ever. Now the future after high school was hanging vaguely in the distance.

I began my halfhearted quest for extracurricular activities on Monday, hoping to snag something before my next meeting with Mrs. Wentworth. I didn’t know if I could handle the cold stare of disapproval from the ACHIEVEMENT lion if I went back empty-handed.

I scoured the student bulletin board between classes. There was the fall production of Pippin. Volleyball tryouts. Art Club. The Enviro-thon team. The Future Science Revolutionaries were looking for someone with a car to join so they could go to the science museum. The school orchestra needed another percussionist.

I didn’t fit the bill for much of anything. Most of the time I had a car (when, like all ancient used cars, it chose to cooperate), but I didn’t see myself as a revolutionary of any sort, and the last thing I needed was to spend more time with Foster. I was entirely too uncoordinated for sports, and entirely too uninspired for art. Enviro-thon had potential, but just the idea of spending my afternoons dissecting ecosystems and talking about the layers of the atmosphere was enough to make me drowsy.

By the time the bell rang, I had exactly as many extracurricular prospects as I did before my sojourn to the activities board: zero.




Tuesday dawned bright and early, with the sounds of Foster clattering around the kitchen. All I could do was roll over in bed and groan. Tuesdays meant gym class.

At third period, Mr. Sellers led his troop of uniformed freshmen (and two uniformed seniors) down to the varsity field with a giant mesh bag full of balls in tow. He began throwing them to us as soon as we reached the fifty-yard line.

“Partner up!” he yelled, pitching a ball in my general direction. I flung out my hands to catch it and watched it pass right over my head. “We’re going to practice passing. Remember how to place your fingers, and let’s try to get a little spin on it, people!”

I was standing near enough to Ezra Lynley to give him a glance, but I knew we wouldn’t partner again anytime soon; him with me because he was conceited, and me with him, because, well, I thought he was conceited.

A swarm of prostitots was already forming around him with a general cry of, “Be my partner, Ezra! Be my partner!”

He glanced around for a second and then pointed to a particularly buxom PT. She had tied up her maroon TS gym shirt in the back so that it was now a midriff top. “You,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. The PTs dispersed disappointed and then divided into pairs. Ezra walked off, too, but to my surprise the tied-up-shirt girl didn’t join him. I followed Ezra’s path to a point just beyond where that PT had stood.

Foster was trying to balance his football on his forehead, the way seals at the zoo balance balls on their noses. His shirt was tucked in so unevenly that it had bunched up inside his shorts, giving him the appearance of smuggling a cotton inner tube around his waist.

Ezra reached over and plucked the ball from Foster’s face. “Stand there,” he said, pointing to a spot about ten yards away. Foster grinned and bounded away.

“Ready!” he said, turning to face Ezra and jumping up and down like an idiot.

“Devon!” Mr. Sellers barked. “Partner up!”

I glanced around. A rogue PT, a straggler, was standing alone. I made my way over to her.

“Come on. Let’s be partners.”