21. Caplan

The sun sets twice, that night, in Two Docks. Once for everyone else, at 9:15, while we lie on the roof. Then again, just for me, at 3:00 a.m., when her bedroom window finally goes dark.

I realize that this has been true for most of my life, without me noticing. I don't ever go to bed without at least wondering whether or not she has, too. If I've done this for ten years without worrying what it means, it shouldn't be too hard to go back to that.

The last two weeks of school are a joke, but a good one, usually. This year, it's a confusing blur. Each day has a different spirit theme. Each night is someone else's grad party. Monday and Tuesday, we take finals. Wednesday is Decades Day. Thursday is Twin Day. Friday is High School Movies Day. The next Monday is Senior Skip Day. Tuesday is Two Docks Team Spirit Day. Wednesday night is prom. Traditionally, that day, the seniors wear pj's, and everyone else wears tacky fancy stuff. Thursday, no more school. Friday morning, we graduate. And that's it.

I walk to school with Mina both days of finals. We quiz each other, Mina making me monologue everything I know about different revolutions and wars, and me reading her questions from the physics study guide, speaking a language I do not understand. If we talk, we talk about nothing, and the more normal she acts, the more insane I feel. Despite deciding to leave Quinn's way clear, I catch myself constantly trying to figure out how to spend more time with her, how to see her alone, how to touch her for even a second at a time. It makes me feel so guilty it's like a stomachache, but I don't stop, either. I feel out of time, and all the extra air has been sucked out of our lives. It's like someone sped up the clocks, and no one's noticed but me. We hardly get a real moment together. When we do, she is friendly and bright, but in a hard, closed way. I can't figure out how she is doing it. She isn't strange or cold, but she has also turned off the tap somehow. There is no space for me to do or say anything unusual. The plans—half-baked, selfish, and impossible—bang around in my head. I have whole imaginary conversations with her in my bed at night, trying to script what she'd say, and what I'd say, and on and on and on.

Each theme day brings some fresh hell. Well, besides Decades. That one's fine. I cop out and wear my varsity jacket. Quinn wears a toga, which makes no sense. Hollis dresses to kill, in a fringe suede jacket and knee-high white boots and tiny sunglasses. She oscillates between viciously ignoring me and randomly saying hello just to watch me jump. Mina ignores the theme on principle just as she always has.

On Thursday, I match with Quinn. That night is Becca's grad party, on the roof of the only niceish hotel in town. Becca un-invites me that morning, and then Hollis gets furious at her and she re-invites me by lunch.

"For your information," Hollis says to me in the hallway without turning around, "I didn't tell her to un-invite you."

"Oh, thanks."

"Because I don't care where you go or what you do."

"Want out of your prom bet?" I ask Quinn, who's walking next to me.

"I'm a man of faith," he says, "and happy endings."

"You're both idiots," Hollis says from several feet ahead, "and black hoodies don't count as twinning."

Mina isn't invited to Becca's, and I try to see this as an opportunity to relax and enjoy myself with my friends. I spend the entire night wondering where she is and what she's doing. There's no real dinner, just an endless stream of tiny gross food on shiny plastic trays, so I get wasted by mistake. There is a 99 percent chance she's at home reading a book, and if I leave now, I can go over and we won't be interrupted and Quinn will be busy here and I'll—

"You know these things wrapped in bacon are kinda lit," he says, popping one in his mouth.

"Those are prunes," Hollis says, appearing at the high-top table we're standing at. He spits it out into his champagne flute. She gives him a withering look and stalks off.

"What?" he says. "Don't they make you shit?"

I shrug.

"Fuck this party," he says. "Why is there nowhere to sit?"

Two minutes later, Becca sticks her head under the stiff white tablecloth Quinn and I have set up camp beneath.

"What are you doing under a table?"

"Um. Getting some air?" I say.

Quinn nods seriously, his mouth pressed firmly together.

"Are you hiding from Hollis?"

"Yes," I say, "absolutely."

She rolls her eyes and disappears.

Quinn lets out all the smoke in his mouth, coughing. I retrieve his one-hitter from my suit jacket pocket. Some of the weed has spilled. I pinch it up and make a little pile on Quinn's cocktail napkin, next to the mini shrimp and charcuterie. He eats an olive and uses the toothpick to clean out the pipe.

"Will you snag me another bacon thing?"

"You sure? No big plans later?"

"Nah, Mina's at that honors dinner," he says.

I suffer immediate indigestion at the fact that he knows this and I don't.

He opens his phone. She sent him a picture. I try to look without looking, but then he just shows it to me. She's standing in front of a shoddy stage decorated with green-and-yellow fake flowers erected in the cafeteria, holding an official-looking certificate with the words Jane B. Emmett English Award printed in script and mounted on a square of slick black leather. She's wearing a soft purple dress I've never seen before. It's got pockets and no straps. A girl stands next to her, in thick red glasses, who I vaguely recognize. She has her arm around Mina. They are smiling. Under the picture, she's texted Quinn—

My mom took this lol

I didn't have anyone else to send it to

"Who's that?" I ask, pointing at the other girl, just for something to say.

"That's Lorraine," Quinn says, "Lorraine Daniels."

"Ah, right."

"Yeah, they're kinda friends, but then she was shitty to Mina last weekend about, like, being social. With us. Sorry."

"Why sorry?"

"Just, you know, you already know all that, I bet. I just meant, I think it's cool of her that she presented Mina's award after being a dick. It's kinda classy. Nerd code of honor."

I turn Quinn's one-hitter over and over in my hands. "What—um, what was the award? That Mina won?" I ask.

He looks at me and then at his shoes. "An English award, for her final paper, I think."

"Right."

"What book was it on? Do you know?"

"Don't do that," I say.

"What?"

"It was comparing Anne of Green Gables and Jane Eyre," I mumble.

Then I exit with as much dignity as I can, crawling on my hands and knees.

For High School Movies Day, the plan, way back, was to dress up as Ferris Bueller, Cameron, and Sloan: me, Quinn, and Hollis. Since Hollis wore the fringe jacket already for Decades Day, I accept the not-so-subtle hint that she's out. I wonder for a second, as I put on the outfit she thrifted for me months ago, if Quinn will bail, too, since I was so weird with him last night. I'm tempted to ditch my costume, since I don't think I can stomach showing up in it alone, but I don't. On my way out, my mom reminds me to pick up ice from Quickstop on the way home.

"For what?"

"For tonight." She stares at me. "For the party?"

"Right, yes, got it. Do we need anything else?"

"No, Quinn's family handled the food. Maybe come straight home after school to help set up? I can't reach the top of the garage, and I got a very ugly banner we need to hang."

"Can do," I say. "Oh, also, I invited Dad. I mean, I sent him an email about it. I know he probably won't come, but just in case he does, I wanted to let you know."

She leans against the doorway and looks like she's about to say some brilliant mom thing I'd rather not hear, so I divert.

"Well, thanks for all the planning. And for taking off work."

"You only graduate from high school once. I'm not missing it."

I walk back up to the door and hug her.

She hugs me back with the arm not holding her coffee. "What's this for?"

"You've never missed anything, and I never say thank you."

"Yes, you do. You do every day, you don't even realize it. Now go or you'll be late."

I'm stretched out on the bench outside the main office when I hear the principal yelling from another hallway, something about safety violations and it not being too late for a suspension. Then Quinn explodes around the corner, skateboard in hand, in the classic Detroit Red Wings jersey. He doesn't break stride as he sprints past, but he gives me a salute before vanishing into the girls' bathroom.

The principal storms around the corner. He sees me on the bench. "Did you see Quinn Amick come this way?"

"No, sir, I did not."

He looks down at my costume for a few seconds, his brow furrowed. When it dawns on him, I swear he almost smiles. Then he tells me to hurry up and start the announcements.

When I exit, the hallway is crowded with people moving from homeroom to first period, taking their time, showing off, and posing for pictures. A small crowd has gathered in the general vicinity of Hollis's locker, and I prepare myself for whatever look she's pulled this time. I see Ruby, Becca, and the other girls off to the side, dressed as Heathers. There are too many of them for the characters. I don't remember a purple Heather. Then the crowd shifts and parts, and I see Mina, in a Two Docks High cheerleader's uniform, and Hollis, in what is unmistakably Mina's clothes: a plaid skirt, a sweater vest, knee socks, and loafers. They're posing together for a photo, standing side by side and holding hands, looking like the evil fucking twins from The Shining.

"What's with you?" Mina asks me as the bell rings and people start to disperse.

"Me? What's with me? What movie are you even supposed to be?"

"We're not characters, we're archetypes."

"You never do themes."

She shrugs.

"It was Hollis's idea. I thought it was funny."

"Hollis isn't even a cheerleader."

"Yes, I know that. I borrowed this from Ruby."

"What happened to I get you in the divorce?"

"Lighten up," she says, heading down the hallway. I follow her. "It's just for fun. I never dressed up for the themes because no one asked me to."

"Because you always said it was stupid!"

"Well, I'm opening my mind and trying new things."

"Yeah, clearly."

"What is that supposed to mean?" She has her hands on her hips. She's got makeup on, and her hair is gelled into a tight ponytail, the way Ruby wears it for games. I press my hands into my eyes as if this is all some terrible dream, a sick joke, and when I open them, Mina will be standing there as herself again.

"You're letting Hollis manipulate you," I say. "Why?"

"How is she manipulating me?"

"She's doing this to fuck with me! She's using you."

Mina's face turns to stone, and I genuinely take a step back. "Is it so impossible to consider," she says, "that not everything is about you?"

"Jesus Christ—"

"Or that someone besides you wants to be my friend?"

She goes into first period and leaves me standing there.

Hollis posts the photo of her and Mina on Instagram. I look at it and look at it and look at it until I get my phone confiscated.