13. Caplan

"God, she's weird," Quinn says happily, watching Mina through the glass cafeteria windows, stomping off in the downpour.

"So she said yes?" Hollis asks.

"Yeah, I'm weak. I can't believe it. Thanks for making me. Caplan said there was no way."

"Why would you say that?" Hollis asks me.

I shake myself. I've been feeling strange all day. Bleary and numb, like sleepwalking. "I just didn't think Mina was the dating type. She's not even, like, the friend type."

"Yeah, remember when she literally didn't talk for like a year in middle school?" says one of the guys, Noah. Noah, who I'm pretty sure poured the vodka on Mina.

"All you morons could stand to talk less," Hollis says.

"I just think it's weird she doesn't have any friends who are girls," Becca says.

"Yeah, red flag," says Ruby, who literally always agrees with Becca.

"She doesn't have any friends, period, besides Cap," says another one of the boys.

Hollis nudges me with her elbow. I blink at her.

"She has other friends," I say.

"She has other loners she sits with," says Becca.

"Quinn," Hollis says, turning toward him, "I think it's awesome."

"Thanks, Holly," he says, but he's looking at me, not Hollis.

"Me, too," I say.

Regrettably, Becca walks with us to history.

"Ugh," she's saying to Hollis, "so we like her now?"

"Becca, we are hot girls, not mean girls," Hollis says. "And being bitter is for losers."

"I'm not bitter—"

"I know you wanted Quinn to take you to prom—"

"That is just—I never even said—" Becca splutters.

"But this is all for the best because Noah wants to ask you. He told Caplan so."

"Wait, really?"

Hollis gives me a hard poke in the back.

"Yes," I say.

"What exactly did he say?"

I tune out as Hollis takes over and they set to discussing Noah's height and whether or not Becca can still wear heels. I wonder if Hollis has already clued Noah in or if I am going to have to play some part.

As I sit down in history, I pull out the paper that Mina did end up editing for me late last night. Everything's annoying me today for no reason. I can't pretend that the idea of Quinn taking out Mina is a personal thrill. I've worked for the whole part of my life that I can remember, the whole part that counted after that brief spell in elementary school, to look out for her. To make sure she's safe and happy. And now I'm going to watch my second-closest friend take her for a test drive and then potentially hurt her feelings. Quinn's a flirt. He flirts with everyone and has endless flirting currency but no follow-through. I'll be involved. They'll drag me in. It'll be messy. Best-case scenario, it'll be awkward, and my big wish for Mina, whose whole life has been one terrible unfair thing after another, is to have some ease. Some fun. I just wanted to get her to prom. And don't even get me started on Hollis's support. Knowing her, there's something else afoot. I don't want anything afoot. I want everything to stay normal, and I'm also feeling sick of everything and everyone. The two feelings are a bad cocktail.

For the first time, I allow myself to consider that Mina really might also go to Michigan. That it might, in the end, be the best thing for her. That if everything is about to change—and end—the one thing that would just stay the same would be the two of us. The idea is a relief. How many times have I learned not to assume what is right for Mina? If she wants to go to Michigan, I shouldn't fight her on it. I'm not much of a fighter, anyway.

She rushes into class with the bell, head down and dripping wet, and sits in front of me. I kick the back of her chair. She flips me off without turning around. I kick her chair harder, and she turns, with a funny combination of blush and pride on her face.

"What?"

I beam at her. "Are you excited for your date?"

"Yes. Don't make fun of me or you'll ruin it."

"I would never."

"I know it's—but if everyone else is going to act insane, so will I," she says and then turns back to the board. I lean forward.

"I was thinking—"

"Please change the subject."

"I know. I was about to."

"Fine. What?"

"I know the reason you don't want to go to Yale couldn't be more fucked up or unfair, but I'm so excited you might go to Michigan."

She turns toward her shoulder, so I can see half her face, one dimple, so I know she's smiling.

"Really?" she says.

"Yeah. Let's just do whatever we want forever."

The next day, the sun comes out, and all of a sudden it's summer. The school's AC has been broken for as long as we can all remember, which means it's disgusting inside, but I never mind because it always means we're getting close to vacation and there's something fun in complaining about it all together, even the teachers. I lie on the floor in Spanish, because Mr. Ochoa is cool and doesn't give a shit as long as we do our work, and heat rises, obviously. Quinn says from above me where he's drawing a dick on the side of the desk, "I can't believe this is the last time we'll have sweaty balls in our sweaty high school."

"Do you think you've drawn enough dicks on enough desks?"

"Not even close," he says. "But an artist's work is never done."

"Let's watch Superbad tonight."

"I can't," he says, using his eraser to make some highlights. "I'm going to the movies with Mina."

"Oh shit, that's right. What are you seeing?"

"That movie about Blake Lively fighting a shark." He looks at me. "What?"

"Nothing," I laugh.

"Hey, she picked it," he says. "It was that or something called Me Before You."

"Sounds romantic."

"Do you think it matters"—he frowns at his desk dick—"that she didn't pick the romantic one?"

"Hey, don't ask me," I say. "You're going where no man has gone before. There's no map for Mina."

This makes him grin. "I'm a man on the moon."

"No, you're still on the treasure hunt."

He turns the dick into a rocket ship and is just starting work on all the planets when Mr. Ochoa comes over and gives him detention, but not before cracking up.

For three years in a row, somewhere around elementary, I was an astronaut for Halloween and Quinn was a pirate. My mom has a picture of each consecutive year printed and framed in my room. We did it again this year for old times' sake. Hollis wanted to murder me, because she had this whole plan for us to be Daphne and Fred. I think we broke up over it, actually—more of a symptom than the cause—but we made up at the Halloween party. She still wore the purple dress and the green scarf thing, and I'm only human. We made a lot of jokes that night about the doghouse.

I text her—

remember when we had sex in the bathroom on halloween and Quinn walked in by mistake and you called him a meddling kid and slammed the door

She responds right away—

Yeah I do

Then—

It's so fucking hot I want to die. I'm in a sports bra in the library

I say—

dress code

She says back—

Doghouse.

woof

I'm sweaty.

gross

Should we have sex in the library?

yeah probably.

Come here.

actually?

No, of course not.

Then—

Third floor girls room is out of order

coming

We're late to lunch, and no one's at the usual table outside, so we check the caf. I'm shocked to see Mina sitting with everyone. She has her book open in front of her, but she's there at the table next to Quinn. When we sit down, she's actually laughing.

"Why are we inside?" Hollis asks.

"Well, Mina sat in here, and I followed her," Quinn says. "But where were you guys, and why are you so sweaty?"

"Everyone's sweaty," Hollis says, pulling me down to the other side of the table. Everyone else is here, too. I guess they followed Quinn. "Get your mind out of the gutter."

"Can't," he calls. "I live there."

Mina snorts. He makes a face at her, scrunching up his nose. She makes one back.

"It's definitely weird," Hollis says to me in a low voice as some other conversation strikes up, and Mina looks back to her book, biting down on a little smile. "But I also think they make sense."

"I don't know about all that," I say, "but she seems happy."

"Yeah, Quinn is, too. They were texting till three a.m."

"How do you know that?"

"Quinn told me. He said he felt like a seventh grader, in a good way, giggling at his phone under the covers. He sent me screenshots."

"I didn't get screenshots—"

"Cause you're not good at texting."

I don't have an argument there, so I take the apple from in front of her and bite into it. It's warm mush.

"She's really funny," Hollis says, now considering Mina, who's back to reading but with that little smile on half her face. "I didn't realize she was so funny."

"I've been saying that to you for years," I say. "This apple is gross. Everything in here is warm and gross, including us. We're all sitting in a warm, gross pot getting hotter and hotter, and we're gonna boil alive and not notice."

"You haven't, actually," says Hollis, now considering me with the same look. "You've always said you wanted us to be friends, but you never really tried to make it happen."

"I would do anything," I say, "to not have this same conversation again."

"Fine. Wanna come over tonight since all your other friends are busy?"

"I have more friends…"

"Cap." She takes my face in her hands and gives me a little shake. "I'm teasing you. Stop being grumpy."

"Sorry," I say, pushing my forehead against hers for a second and then pulling away. "Yeah, I'll come over. I just have to help hype Mina up first."

"I should come, too," Hollis says. "What are you gonna suggest for her outfit? The classic black Cons? Basketball shorts and a striped T-shirt?"

"Hey, I didn't get screenshots," I say. "Let me have this."

"Fine," she says. "FaceTime me in if you need me."

Just then, Noah squeezes in between us.

"Yo, Hollis let slip that one of the girls recently said she was into me, but she won't say who because girl code or some shit." He rolls his eyes at Hollis. She takes a delicate bite of her salad, ignoring him. "But I need a date to prom, and sophomore Sophie turned me down." I laugh halfway through my sip of water and he claps me on the back. Hollis gets up at that moment to toss her trash. I'm still choking, and Noah says, "Can you find out for me?"

I clear my throat and beckon him closer. "I already know. It's Becca. But you didn't hear it from me."

"Good looks," he says and rejoins the other end of the table.

"You should get an A-plus for all your work on prom," I say to Hollis as she sits back down. "Your greatest project so far." More shit talking always goes on when we sit inside, because the indoor tables are long, like the Last Supper. The outdoor tables are round and intimate. Harder to get away with side plotting or mid-game commentary when everyone is facing each other. Obviously, this is something Hollis first pointed out to me.

"Thank you very much," she says. "The genius of this was not telling him outright, because boys are naturally curious, like toddlers, and they like to conquer small tasks and mysteries. Plus, once they have an intense thought about something, they can't even tell what kind of thought it is. The ball just rolls."

"All the way to prom."

"Exactly."

"Everyone should know who was responsible for manipulating them," I say. "They owe you a thank-you."

"I just want us all to be together. And it's important to do good deeds," she says seriously, "especially when no one's watching."

When I go over to Mina's that afternoon, I find her in her bedroom, lying face down on the bed, with all her clothes all over the floor.

"I have to cancel," she says, her voice muffled in the pillow.

"Okay," I say, stepping over the clothes. "How come?"

"Because everything I try on makes me look like I'm playing dress-up and I'm all sweaty and I would really rather just watch a movie with you."

This gives me a dumb little whoop of joy in my stomach.

"Yeah, no shit. That's always what we'd both rather do," I say, picking up some of the discarded dresses. "But life persists."

She flips over onto her back and glares at her ceiling fan.

"That's my app's word of the day. Persist."

"That's a little easy for you, I think," she says.

I hold out the blue dress she wore to Hollis's birthday. "You should just wear this one again," I say. "It looked good."

"What do you mean, ‘It looked good'?"

"I mean I looked at it, and to me, it looked good and not bad."

"Well, I can't do that, because then it looks like I only own one dress like fucking Cinderella."

"Cinderella is like the hottest princess."

"Cinderella was a loser pushover with no dad."

I can think of absolutely nothing to say to this. She passes me her phone.

"Make up an excuse and be believable but also kind." She rolls back over onto her stomach. "And then leave me here to die."

I open her messages with Quinn. He's texted her.

im scared of sharks and dates but im also so excited to see you

whats up with that?

"You have a text." I hand her the phone.

She looks at it. She makes this face for one second, a face I've literally never seen her make, with her mouth sort of open. Then she bites down on her lip and flops back onto the bed. "Mother fuck fuck fuck."

"All right." I stand and pull out my own phone. "Three fucks. Time for the big guns." I FaceTime Hollis.

"What are you doing?"

Hollis picks up with the smuggest look of all time. Upon hearing her voice, Mina's eyes go wide, and she starts shaking her head vigorously.

"Hi," I say to Hollis, swatting Mina away. "You were right and I was wrong and we need help." I duck as Mina throws a shoe at me. She's hissing something about this being a very vulnerable moment.

"Okay, let me talk to Mina."

I hold the phone out. Mina literally stomps her foot, and then takes it.

"Hi," she says to Hollis, totally composed. "Sorry, this is embarrassing—"

"Are you joking?" Hollis says. "This is my favorite thing. Do you want to look fuckable or adorable?"

"Um, I guess, like, both?"

"Totally," Hollis says. "Okay, do you have a plain white tank top, like the kind we wear in gym?"

"Yes?"

"Right, you're gonna put that on and have Caplan make a little cut on the side like right beneath your boobs. Or a little lower, whatever you feel good in. And then take it off and crop it to that length."

"Okay—"

"And do you remember that white skirt you wore in ninth grade for the spring chorus concert?"

"Um, yes, I think."

"I've been thinking about it lately. I want to wear one like it to my grad dinner, but I can't find the right thing anywhere, like simple, cotton, A-line, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Lena in Greece vibes—"

"It's from Old Navy, like ten years ago."

"Do you still have it?" Hollis asks.

"I might," Mina says. "I have to look. It'll be small on me now?"

"Just try it for me. Cap, go get scissors!"

When I come back into the room, Mina's on her hands and knees in the depths of her closet.

"Okay," she says to Hollis, "found it."

When she pulls out the skirt, a small, yellowed rectangle of paper flutters to my feet.

"Amazing. So wear the skirt and the tank top and then Caplan's dark-wash jean jacket. It's on the floor of his car, I think."

"What's this?" I ask Mina, picking up the bit of paper.

"Won't it be big on me?" Mina asks Hollis.

"That's the idea," Hollis says, "tiny skirt, tiny shirt, big jacket. But call me back if it looks shitty." She hangs up.

The paper I'm holding looks like something from a vintage scrapbook. "What's Chrysanthemum?" I ask her. "And who are all these people?"

Mina sighs. "It's nothing. It's garbage." She puts the skirt and the tank top on the bed.

I hold up the scissors.

She glares at them. "Should you just stab me?"

"Mina."

"Not, like, in the heart. Like in the thigh, or even the calf, just somewhere bad enough that we can go to the emergency room instead."

"Do you really not want to go?" I ask. "Cause you don't have to."

We look at each other for a moment.

"It's okay," I start to say. "You can tell me—"

"I really, really do want to go," she says suddenly.

"Well. Okay, then. Let's crop a top."

"Close your eyes."

She turns around and starts to pull her T-shirt over her head. I shut my eyes. Out of nowhere, I feel awkward. Like, intensely awkward. Like if I don't say something, the room is going to explode, or like I'm going to lose control of my body and open my eyes by accident and then what would I even see but Mina's back and there is nothing sexy about a back so it wouldn't even matter and I don't know why I'm thinking about it at all, maybe just because I'm adjusting to the idea of a Mina who wants to go on dates. And look fuckable.

"I'm just gonna go get that jacket," I say very loudly. I try to leave with my eyes closed and walk into the wall.

I stomp across the street, and the jacket is just where Hollis said it would be.

I offer to drive Mina to the movie theater, but she tells me I'm not dropping her off on a date like I'm her father's ghost. Then I wander around my house from room to room until my mom tells me to leave because I'm stressing her out, so I walk to Hollis's.

"Did Mina just get in a car with Quinn?" Oliver asks, passing me on his way inside.

"Yeah."

"God, you're dumb."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

He just shakes his head.

"Go jerk off," I say.

"You go jerk off."

"I don't need to. I'm going to see my girlfriend. That's like a special person who is a girl and your friend, but when you're alone together—"

He leans back out the door and hurls his lacrosse stick at my head, but it misses.

On my way to Hollis's, I take the bit of paper from Mina's floor that she'd called garbage from my pocket. I mean to toss it in one of the bins that have been brought out, since it's trash day tomorrow, but then I realize what it is. Mina used to have a collection of them when we were little—these cards from old libraries. I get stuck looking at the list of names. On a faded inked chart it says Eleanor Jacobs, August 16, 1996. April Halloway, September 1, 1996. Maggie Briggs, September 14, 1996. Then Eleanor again, like six times in a row. And then, at the very bottom, Kitty Jacobs, June 11, 1997. I flip the card over. In handwriting that is like Mina's, but smaller and softer, it says "Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, Mina's first favorite book, 2001." I put the card, careful not to fold or crease it, back into my pocket.

"How'd she look?" Hollis asks me once I've collapsed onto her bed.

"Like you," I say.

"That's not even true. I really tried to be thoughtful of her style and how to elevate it without imposing my own—"

"I'm kidding. She didn't look like you, but she did look nice."

"You don't look like you're kidding," she says.

"How do I look?"

"I don't know."

She lies down next to me and starts drawing with her fingers on my arm.

"Can I just ask," I start carefully, "why are you so into this?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

"No," I say, "nothing anyone is doing right now is obvious to me."

"Well," she says, "it might be kind of a relief to not feel like you have two girlfriends anymore."

This stuns me. "Is that how you feel?"

"Not really. I'm being dramatic."

I say nothing.

"All right, yeah, sometimes. Like Mina's your emotional girlfriend and I'm you're—I don't know. Sex girlfriend."

"Jesus—that's terrible." I laugh. "Don't say that about yourself."

"It's fine," she says. "It's my fault, too. If I were a less jealous person, I wouldn't care that your best friend is a girl, and then we'd have no problems."

Hollis's self-awareness flows like this, so easily. I'm busy being impressed and jealous so I almost miss what she says next.

"I was also just sure she was secretly in love with you."

"She's definitely not."

"She definitely was," she says, "but I don't think she is anymore." Her hands go still on my arm, and I realize she's waiting for me to talk.

"Whatever you say."

"I think," she says, "it all might feel a little more balanced now."

"Well, good, then."

"I used to wish you and I were the kind of couple that called each other best friends."

"Those couples are a snooze," I say, "and probably never fuck."

"So true."

"Wanna take a shower?"

She laughs, rolling away from me.

"Come on, sex girlfriend." I yank her toward me and put her over my shoulder.

"That's so not funny."

"Then why are you laughing so much?"

Then, in the shower, I can't get hard. This isn't shocking or unheard of. It just hasn't happened to me in a while. Actually, it probably hasn't happened since sophomore year. I feel fifteen again. I really want her to stop looking at my face. I try to think of something funny to say about it.

"I'm sorry," I say.

"I don't care at all," she says, sitting on the edge of a tub in her towel. "I only care when you get all weird and upset about it."

"Okay, well, I'm not acting weird."

"But do you feel weird?"

"I feel incredibly normal."

"‘Incredibly normal.' Okay." She looks at me for a second. Then she gets up and puts her arms around me.

"I'm sorry," I say again.

"It's really fine."

"Want me to finger you or something?"

"No, that's okay. Wanna brush my hair?"

"Sure. Or, well, it's kinda late. I should go home."

"All right."

She goes to the mirror and looks at herself, twisting all her hair over one shoulder and wringing it out into the sink.

I let myself out.

On my walk home, I text Mina and ask her how it's going. She doesn't reply, which I take to mean that it is all fine and she isn't hiding in the bathroom or anything. I check her bedroom window when I get back, but it's dark. Then, just as I'm heading up my driveway, Quinn's car comes around the corner. To be clear, Quinn doesn't have a car, but his older brother who goes to State does. He never lets Quinn borrow it unless Quinn makes him a very good deal, and even then Quinn has to take the bus to East Lansing to get it. The last time we wanted his car for something, Quinn had to DD for his brother's whole fraternity for three weekends in a row.

I pause in my driveway, waiting for them to see me as they get out so I can wave. I think maybe I'll ask Quinn if he wants to smoke, but they walk to her front door without noticing me. Mina has her arms locked behind her back, gripping both her elbows. Suddenly, I feel weird as fuck just standing there watching them, but I also don't want them to hear me opening my door, so I sort of turn and shuffle and blink, and then they are making out. Like really fucking making out, hanging on to each other and swaying on the spot. I panic and duck down behind the trash cans at the end of the driveway. I squat there like a freak, hanging on to my knees and breathing like I've just run miles. Like someone's dropped something really heavy on my head. Like the whole sky. I look up at it. It feels like the street is swinging up to meet the stars. I think vaguely of how bad it would be to be caught in this position, crouching behind the trash. I decide it makes the most sense to crawl up my driveway on my hands and knees so they won't see me, but as soon as I start doing that, I feel very fucking silly, so I force myself to be normal. Feel normal, act normal, just stand up and whistle at them or something, but when I do stand, I see that Quinn has his hands on her ass. The white skirt is up around her waist. She's wearing plain white underwear.

I make myself turn around and walk up my driveway. I keep myself from running or slamming the door. In the event of an emergency, proceed calmly toward the exits, and all that. My mom tries to talk to me as I pass her on the stairs, but something is wrong with my ears, so I just go to my room and lie the wrong way on the bed and stare at the ceiling.

Hollis once said to me that boys are so stupid about their own feelings, they don't realize they have a problem until it's a tumor. I decide, around four in the morning, that I will not let that happen to me. I will not be stupid. I will not be in denial. I will get ahead of this.

I am attracted to Mina. That is fine. This day was, I guess, always going to come. People are friends with people they're attracted to. It happens every day. People are friends with hot people without it ruining their lives. I am probably only feeling this way because she is now attracted to someone else, my good friend, and that is human nature. This is very natural, no big deal, and I am on top of it.

The next day at school, I walk out of first period and she's standing with Quinn at the water fountain. When she bends over to take a drink, he puts his hands on her waist and bangs her hips into his. She laughs so hard she does a spit take. While I'm looking at them, I walk directly into an open classroom door and smack my head so hard I see stars.

It occurs to me that I might already have a tumor.