on her elbows, her lips quirking. “What about the cold front last week? Are you going to blame that on Mat, too?”
“I can try.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t get it. You two used to be so close. What happened?”
“No idea,” I say with a straight face. “I guess we just grew apart.”
I’m lying, of course. I know exactly when and where our friendship evaporated. On a blustery Monday morning during the eighth grade. In the school cafeteria. With the painfully empty seat next to mine.
Back then, Mat and I always sat together so that we could trade lunches. I loved the homemade meals his mom packed him—my favorite was bah mee moo dang, or wavy egg noodles and roast red pork—and he preferred the unique concoctions I assembled. That day, my family was out of bread. And cheddar cheese. And roast beef. So I made a bagel sandwich out of packets of mustard and mayo, stacking Doritos and sweet pickles inside.
I was dying to see what Mat thought of my latest culinary creation.
Except…he didn’t sit with me that day. Or the next. Or the next.
What I did then was petty to the extreme. But I was mad and jealous and a little—okay, a lot—hurt. Mat had been crushing on Denise Riley since the beginning of the year, and I kinda, sorta let it slip that he carried around her yearbook photo in his binder. And then I possibly, accidentally, definitely knocked into that same folder, sending the picture sliding across the floor for the entire cafeteria to see.
Mat’s face turned deathly pale…and so did our friendship.
My actions crossed a line. I know that. To this day, it’s still the meanest thing I’ve ever done. I’ll go to my grave still ashamed of my betrayal. I wanted to apologize; I would’ve loved nothing more than to get down on my knees and beg for his forgiveness.
But he never gave me the chance. He ignored my calls and blocked me on social media. When I approached, he would turn and walk rapidly in the other direction. After a while, I stopped trying.
He finally spoke to me after a few months, making a cutting remark about my appearance. I retaliated, he responded in kind…and now, here we are, four years later. Enemies who ignore each other at school, only to bicker at Thai community events. It’s just as lovely as it sounds.
Once in a blood moon, I wonder what would’ve happened if I had locked away my pettiness. Would we be friends now? Or would we have drifted apart naturally as we grew older and developed different interests?
Doesn’t matter, really. Because I did humiliate Mat. So I have to deal with the consequences. Not just for the rest of this year but also for the next four. Lucky me, my enemy will be attending the same college as I will next year. Simply perfect.
Bunny rises from the bed in one fluid motion and peers at the sketch on my door. “This is really good, Winnie. You’ve got an amazing eye for detail. Or maybe…” She slides a glance at me. “You’ve been paying more attention to Mat than you thought.”
“Gross.” I shudder. “More likely, I’m just talented,” I say lightly, even though I feel pretty much the opposite. My art will never be more than a frivolous hobby. My parents’ words, not mine. They have a future doctor and lawyer in Ari and Bunny. All they need to round out the perfect trifecta is a future professor. In any academic area, really, but preferably economics.
So a year from now, I guess I’ll be studying economics at Northwestern University. And not art.
I hand Bunny the Sidestrike. “Best out of three? Whoever gets closest to his guava nose wins.”
She smiles, taking the Nerf gun. When we were kids, I would always pick target practice when it was my turn to choose an activity. Probably because it was the only game in which I could ever beat my sisters.
“What should I do?” I ask as she brings the gun to her eyes. “I don’t want to practice anything with that jerk, no matter what Mama says.”
Defying Mama is pretty much unthinkable, but there’s got to be a work-around. I just haven’t come up with one yet.
“Oh, come on, Winnie. You’ve got the best parts of senior year left. Prom. Senior Skip Day. Appease Mama now, and you won’t have to suffer the way Ari and I did, by ourselves and dateless.” She shoots, and the