27. Caplan

The best thing about Michigan summers is that as soon as it hits June, the sun doesn't go down until after nine. The days go on forever. That's how it feels.

Bearing this in mind, it's pathetic that I miss the jump because I'm waiting for Mina to text me back. I don't really mean to. I just hang around my front steps for over an hour, acting like I'll leave any second, hoping she'll come out at the last minute, and then all at once it's dusk, and I know it's already happened. That's what I get, for ignoring the sky and letting the sun rise and set with her.

My mom gets home at 10:00.

"You didn't have to wait for me to eat," she says while I set the table for us. I shrug. "How was the jump?"

"Oh, I didn't end up going."

"Really?"

"I'm not in the mood."

"To jump? To talk about it?" When I don't answer, she says, "To graduate?"

"Will it hurt your feelings if I eat in my room?"

"Yes, but I get it. Where's Ollie?"

"He walked over to the lake to watch with his friends. They're at the diner now. Want me to pick him up?"

"Eat first," she says.

At midnight, I feel more awake than I've ever felt. I don't want to admit it, but I care about the dock jump. I care a lot. I've never missed one. And now I've missed my own. I can't stop feeling angry at Mina, even though it isn't her fault I stood around waiting for her. Then I just feel angry at myself. The idea of bad omens takes root in my brain and works its way down into my feet, and I start pacing. If I don't jump, if I'm someone who sat and waited and missed it, I'll always be someone who sits and waits, and I'll never move on, I'll spend the rest of my loser life stuck thinking about how I peaked in high school, thinking about Mina, thinking about those two docks, and everyone else jumping in, moving forward, crossing that in-between without me.

I go down to the kitchen and write a note for Ollie in case he wakes up. My mom is already back at the clinic with the car, so I slip out the back door and set off on foot to the lake.

When I get there, the water looks black and creepy. I walk out to the middle of the west dock, take off my socks and shoes, and try not to think about fish. Are there fish in the lake? I've never noticed. I take my shirt off. I stick my toe in. It's colder than I thought it would be. I guess it's barely summer yet. This is stupid. I don't know what I'm doing here.

I look up at the other dock and try to judge the distance. Then I see her. She's sitting on the edge, in a white T-shirt that catches the moon. It's too dark to make out her face, but I know her posture. I know the shape of her knee, sticking up, under her chin. I stand, and she sits, and we look at each other. I want to call out, but I don't want to interrupt whatever is between us. It feels so quiet and still, like a dream. I stay as long as I can, waiting for her to call to me, to do something, and then I can't wait any longer.

I dive in. The water is cool, but the shock is good, and I go a fair distance before needing to breathe. Then, I swim. It's farther than I thought, but I don't pause to clock my progress. I just keep pushing forward. This is better, I think, in the silent gloom beneath the water. This means more than jumping with everyone else, at sunset. This is meant to be. This is just for us. I pull my arm out of the water one more time and reach the worn wood with my fingertips. I pull myself up and look left, then right, shivering. But she's gone.

On Tuesday morning, I wake up with sticky lake hair, so I know at least I was there last night. I make Ollie's bed and then get back into my own. Some hours later, my mom comes to my door.

"Skip Day was yesterday," she says.

"I think I'm sick," I say.

"With what?"

I look at her, sizing up the pros and cons of telling the truth. Then, outside, a car horn blares. There is only one car and one person capable of that sound. It goes on and on and on. I finally get up and move past my mom and go outside, where Hollis is parked in front of my house in her white tank of a car. The windows are painted for Spirit Day. The horn stops. She rolls down the window.

"What are you doing, Hollis?"

"Picking you up. Let's go. It's almost lunch."

"I'm not going to school today," I say. She leans on the horn again. "Holy shit, what is your problem?"

"It's, like, your last real day of school ever," she says, "and I get it, you're moping."

"I am not—"

"But guess what? My long-term first-ever boyfriend and I recently broke up, and I'm in the mood to mope, too, but I'm not, because this time matters, and there isn't much of it left." She has two green stripes under her eyes like a football player, and she looks ready to run me over.

"Hollis, look."

"They're giving out yearbooks today, and I deserve to have you sign mine after everything."

"Hollis—"

"I've mourned and let go of my daydreams—years in the making, by the way—of holding hands for the dock jump, and dancing at prom, but I'm not giving up this. So pull yourself together and get in the car."

"I have to get dressed."

"I have all your clothes that I need to return in my trunk."

She pops it. Folded neatly on top of a pile in a brown paper bag are my favorite shorts she used to sleep in, and my TDHS track shirt.

We don't talk in the car, but she plays music and rolls the windows down. The air feels good. I realize that, besides my walk with Quinn, I've barely been outside in daylight since the party.

We get to school just after lunch starts, and I shove off the déjà vu of walking from the parking lot with Hollis after getting dressed in her trunk.

I pause when I see the table in the distance, the best one, under the trees, where all our friends are spraying each other with green silly string and taking still, somehow, more photos.

"She's not there," Hollis says. "I don't know where she's eating. She isn't answering my texts."

"Don't take it personally," I say.

When we reach everyone, people cheer for me like I've come home after being away a long time. I only missed one day, I think, like a piece of shit. Then I try to remember the last time I went a single day without seeing at least one of them, and I can't. Quinn gives me a beard with the silly string, and even though it's fucking annoying of him, I know it means we're good. When he came over on Sunday, I went first and said sorry, since he was the one who asked to talk, and that's harder to do in some ways. I might not have. We went through everything and also went a bunch of blocks without saying anything. The parts that stuck out to me most were when he said it isn't my fault but sometimes it's really hard to be my friend and when he asked if I'm okay.

Ruby hands me my yearbook, and I throw it into the signing rotation. It's difficult not to get into the spirit. I guess that is the point of the day. I'm flipping through someone's, and I'm thrown off by how many photos there are of me and my friends. I'm sure everyone is represented somewhere, at least once, and our class isn't that big, but an uneven number of the candid shots are of us, varying versions of the same core group. People must hate us, I think. We're those assholes. We invented cliquey. I sign Becca's yearbook with something generic, and when I hand it back to her, she throws her arms around me. She's been crying for days now, every time the subject of graduation comes up.

"You guys are, like, more my family than my family," she says, weeping into my shoulder. I hug her tight, cause she's not wrong. I want to stop the clocks, and run it back, and do everything again differently. Or maybe, if given the chance, I'd just do it all again the exact same way, cause we all just are who we are, but then at least I'd know while it was happening how much it mattered. Or I'd just pause, until I could figure out how to enjoy this day, since I'm going to miss it. How could I not? You can't get used to something and then not miss it. Like the music in the background. White noise. You don't notice it's on, but you notice it's off.

I turn to Hollis. "Thanks," I say.

"You're welcome," she says.

We trade yearbooks. I can only find a tiny bit of space, in the bottom-left corner of the last signing page. I write—

u were high school to me

I think more, and then I add—

and I really loved high school.—Cap

As the period ends, I think I may as well finish out the day now that I'm there, but this is a huge mistake. After the first corner I turn, I see her, in her middle-school glasses, holding her own yearbook to her chest, watching her feet. I stop walking. I wait, like an idiot, for her to look up at me, but she doesn't. It takes more than one person banging into me to get me moving again.

Maybe she didn't see me, I think. Maybe she didn't see me last night, either. Maybe I thought she was looking at me, maybe I felt it, but if I couldn't see her face, how could she see mine? Maybe she wasn't even there. Maybe it was a dream. Maybe I'm losing my mind.

And then the dam cracks and all the hope I'd tried to put to bed lights up in my stomach and the merry-go-round of nauseating bullshit I've ridden to death in my mind cranks to life. In the time it takes to get to class, I've run through everything she said in her bedroom again, making sure I still have it memorized, begging to make it make more sense the hundredth time through. She said we weren't even. Because I took care of her. But I need you, I think. I need you, too. I need you more. I'm sure I need you more. It's impossible that anyone could want to see another person's face more than I want to see yours, right now. If it is, I swear to god I hope I never feel it.

I sit in class like a zombie. As far as I can tell, nothing's going on. People sit on top of their desks and keep signing yearbooks. I take mine out for something to do, and it opens to the center fold in my lap. On the left side, there are pictures of everyone from College T-Shirt Day, back in May. There we all are, at the lunch table, a block of primary-colored midwestern schools and Hollis in her NYU purple. In silver script, across the top of the page, it says, Make new friends.

On the right, across the bottom of the page in gold, it says, But keep the old. None of the photos are posed, and there is something really classic and good about each one, something they've done in the editing to make them look older than they are. I think of all the times I've rolled my eyes at Ruby, always shoving her camera in my face, and decide to thank her when I get the chance. Then, I see us, at the bottom of the page, big and centered, but almost covered by the words keep the old. Me and Mina, sitting in the library. She's looking at her book, but she's laughing, and I'm leaning back in my chair, talking with my hands.

People start to move to the next class all around me, and I make myself get up. I accept high fives and act normal, but won't let anyone else sign my yearbook. I am afraid to let go of it or set it down.

Before last period, I see her again out of the corner of my eye at the other end of the main entryway, leaning against one of the big green pillars. She's wearing her dad's blue oxford and shorts. The idea of ignoring each other is so bad that halfway across, I turn right and go out the front doors. I walk around the outside of the school, toward the side door, which will put me quite a walk from my next class.

This is the lowest I've ever been, I think, picking through the hedge, staying close to the building so no one looks out the window and sees me. I'm considering giving up and going home, when I see the door in the distance, propped open. I'd been planning to just bang on it and pray.

Quinn's holding it for me.

"Pathetic," he says, but he steps aside to let me in. We walk to last period, and the halls are oddly still and empty. Eventually, I can't take the quiet.

"Aren't you gonna tell me to man up?"

"Nah," he says. "You're the golden boy. You're gonna do whatever you want either way."

When I get home, I let myself in and drop my bag on the ground and then remember to pick it up and put it on the bench, like I've done every single afternoon of my life. Like everything is normal. Like it'll never change. I walk into the kitchen and see the rental tux hung on the back of the closet door. Behind it is a second hanger, a new white shirt for graduation. When my mom gets home from work, I'm still sitting there, looking at them.

"If you're skipping this, too," she says, "you're gonna tell me why."

"You got me a new white shirt," I say.

"Well, the other one was bloody. A bad omen for prom. Very Carrie-esque. Sorry, you probably don't know that reference—"

"Freaky girl, magic powers," I say. "Yeah. Mina mentioned it once."

She sits next to me, and we look at the tux.

Ollie wanders through the kitchen. "Everyone in my grade thinks you'll be prom king," he says, taking the milk out of the fridge.

I sigh.

"Oh, it must be so hard to be you," my mom says, patting my head.

"And there's a bet going around that if Hollis wins queen, she'll dump a drink on you."

"See? See why I shouldn't go?"

My mom shoos Ollie from the kitchen and comes and sits on the stool next to mine again. She looks at me expectantly.

"If I tell you why, I don't have to go?"

"What if you tell me why and then you do go?"

"Well, I haven't told you what's wrong yet, so how do you know I should go?"

She shrugs. "Senior prom only happens once. Mine sucked, but I'm glad I went."

"Why?"

"Well, if I hadn't, I'd always have to wonder if maybe it would have been wonderful."

I consider this for a second.

"That's my first piece of life advice. It is worse to regret the things you didn't do than the things you did."

"That's such bullshit."

"It's not. I stand by it."

"You don't regret marrying my dad?"

She thinks for a long time. I can't tell if I said it because I want the conversation to end, or because I've been thinking about him more than usual, after what Mina said about our issues, how they may not be our fault, but that doesn't make them less real. I think I've spent my whole life expertly not thinking about anything hard. Then this thing, this stupid thing with Mina slipped through, and the rest came tidal-waving after. I can't remember ever being upset about something for more than two hours, and now I've been walking around, moping, just like Hollis said. Moping and missing shit and taking detours and jumping too late and swimming too slow.

"I'm sorry he didn't come to your graduation party," she says at last.

"It's fine—"

"And no. I don't regret marrying him."

I don't believe her. I look at her.

"Because I got you."

I blink hard.

She puts an arm around me. "My second piece of life advice—"

"Mom—"

"If things aren't right and you need to fix it, it doesn't hurt to dress your best."

"Is that from Pinterest?"

"No. From my brain."

"Fine. Is there a third?"

She thinks.

"If Hollis does win and wants to dump a drink on you tomorrow night, she deserves the chance."

Everyone meets on the school's front lawn to take photos. It's funny, but after all the political dealings of who will take who, there are very few photos where people stand in couples. Mostly it's all the girls posing together, in critical varying groups of twos and threes, while boys loiter around tugging their collars. Then there's a series of disastrous group photos where I guarantee in every single one, someone's eyes are closed, someone's flipping off the camera, or someone is yelling, "Okay, this is it! Everyone look good on three!" During the classic prom pose, Quinn's off to the side with me. We climb up onto the Two Docks High sign and have thirty seconds to get the shot, squatting and doing stupid shit with our hands, before we get yelled at to come down. Because Hollis is also going stag, she takes a photo with all the boys, even me. Then everyone takes photos with their parents.

My mom's at work, but I took a photo with her before leaving the house. She was going on about how she didn't want to take one in her scrubs, but I could tell she was happy after we did it. That was the only picture that mattered to me, so I feel pleasantly disconnected while everyone around me seems uncomfortable and tense.

"I can't believe this whole parade isn't even the prom," Quinn says. "We still have the thing itself."

Prom is at a dumb ballroom with ugly carpet in a hotel off the highway. I have to admit it feels cool to stomp up the fancy steps into the room in all our rented finery, though. Inside, a bunch of circle tables surround the dance floor. It shimmers with colored lights and cheap disco balls, at odds with the rest of the room. I'm hovering on the edge when they announce prom king and queen. Hollis is over by the punch, blinking in the lights and beaming like a movie star.

When they say my name, Quinn and Noah pants me.

Usually, the prom royalty have a dance, and I'm assuming this will be an awkward moment and Hollis will play it off for us and do something charming, like give me the finger, but instead, after they give us our crowns and the music starts, she offers me her arm.

"This is big of you," I say as we revolve on the spot. "There was a bet that you'd dump punch on me."

"Oh, I know. No one gets to predict me."

That's when I realize the song's changed. It's that Taylor Swift one, We are never ever ever getting back together. Ever.

"No one ever can," I say. "Who'd you pay to make this happen?"

"No one," she says. "I just asked nicely."

"Well, Quinn predicted you."

"He did not—"

"He did. He bet me days ago we'd dance at prom. He said he'd go pantless under his grad robe if we didn't."

"God, if I'd known that, I'd have just flipped you off and been done with it."

"Well, I'm glad we're having a last dance. You look great," I say, because she does. She's wearing some sort of two-piece situation. A silver strapless thing and a long matching skirt.

She adjusts my crown and smirks. "I used to think it was so unfair that every time we'd break up, I had to see your stupid face the next day. It's gonna be really weird, not having that struggle."

"I'm gonna miss you, too, Hollis," I say.

"Maybe it'll be nice to miss each other. Maybe we'll move on."

"Yeah. Maybe we can be friends."

She rests her head on my shoulder. "We always were friends, Caplan. You just didn't realize."

We're still slow dancing, even though the song is fast and everyone else is jumping up and down around us. One other couple is still locked in a close embrace. I do a double take.

"Is that Ruby? And… and Lorraine? Mina's friend Lorraine?"

Hollis glances over her shoulder. "Oh yes. They've been hooking up all year."

"How'd they even meet?" I ask.

"They're both on yearbook. That's why it was so important for Noah to ask Becca. To make sure he didn't ask Ruby. And I didn't want to push her or tell you guys, obviously. I just wanted to leave their way clear."

"Hollis…"

"What?"

"I don't know anyone who's a better friend than you."

"Thank you," she says. Then she sighs. "You don't even know the half of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Where's Mina?"

"I don't know," I say. "At home, I guess. She always said she never wanted to go to prom."

"Caplan, you have to let people grow up. People get to change their minds. Whatever. It's fine. As long as you told her you love her."

"Love is, like—that's a big word, you know? I didn't want to freak her out."

"You just didn't want to freak yourself out."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I dumped you to give you the chance to follow your stupid heart. And you didn't even do it right?"

"Yeah, I mean, we hooked up, and then I pretty much told her."

She just glares some more.

"I basically told her. Like, it was obvious."

Hollis shakes her head. "Wow. All right. I must be a really, really good person or something. Let's go."

She takes my hand and leads me toward the exit. Quinn catches up to us just before we get to the bottom of those endless grand stairs.

"Are you guys going to get her?" he asks.

"We're going to try," Hollis says.

"Hang on. I have something that'll help."