says. “If we’re talking personal flaws, what about you?”
I take a step back. “What about me?”
He throws his hands up. “Rowan! You’re sabotaging yourself. You’ve been doing it for years. That high school success guide?”
“I hadn’t thought about that in forever,” I say quietly, wondering why I suddenly feel on the defensive yet again.
“You made that list when you were fourteen. Of course you’re going to want different things now. You’re a different person. You’ve grown and changed and that’s a good thing,” he says. “When we were at the zoo, were you actually high, or were you using that as an excuse because you were anxious about meeting Delilah?”
“No,” I insist, but suddenly I’m not sure. That tiny slice of relief I felt—is that what it was?
“Spencer? Kirby and Mara? Your writing, the thing you want to devote your entire life to? You said it yourself. You’re so worried the reality won’t measure up to what’s in your head that you don’t even try things that scare you, and you don’t realize there’s a problem with your relationships. Because if you don’t have to confront it, then it doesn’t exist. Right?”
I’m shaking my head. “I—no. No.” I got onstage tonight at the open mic. And Kirby and Mara, we’re okay. We’re going to work things out. Neil doesn’t know that, but I’m not about to tell him. I don’t owe him anything. I don’t have to convince him that he’s got me all wrong.
He straightens to his full posture. Exactly my height, and yet somehow he seems so much taller right now. “You’re standing in your own fucking way, and until you realize that, you won’t ever be happy with your reality.”
I only have one more comeback.
“If we’re not friends,” I say, my voice this horrible choked sound, “then why are you still here?”
His face is a mix of pained emotions. Hurt, confusion—regret? Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
“Good question.”
With that, he puts his back to me, shoulders hunched against the wind, and walks away.
And then I’m on my own in the cold, dark night.
HOWL STANDINGS
TOP 5
Neil McNair: 14
Rowan Roth: 13
Brady Becker: 12
Mara Pompetti: 10
Iris Zhou: 8
PLAYERS REMAINING: 13
12:27 a.m.
IF PIKE PLACE Market really is haunted, the ghosts would be out right now. I feel a little ghoulish myself as I slump through downtown, past the commercial district and along the waterfront. It’s colder out here. Windier.
I hug Neil’s hoodie tighter around me, wishing it belonged to anyone but him. It’s annoying that it still smells good. Curse you, good-smelling hoodie I can’t take off without freezing.
My feet ache from all the walking. I parked at the market, which was empty, the shops long closed, but then I needed to clear my head and figure out what the hell happened and what the hell I’m supposed to do now.
I must be obsessed with Neil McNair because even with him gone, he’s all I can think about. The worst part of it is this: he wasn’t wrong.
That success guide is four years old. Just because I’m not 100 percent who I wanted to be at that age doesn’t mean I’m not successful. Deep down, maybe I’ve known that all day, but the guide was such a comfort to me, the idea that I still had a chance to cross something off.
Nothing about today, about tonight, went as planned, and until our fight, it was okay. Great, even. I’ve clung to my fantasies and convinced myself the reality can’t measure up.
I allow myself to think something I never have before: What if the reality is better?
I just… don’t know how to fix this about myself. This flaw, Neil called it. If I manage to finish Howl by myself, then we’re done competing forever. He goes off to New York and I go off to Boston, and if we see each other in Seattle when we’re home on breaks, maybe we’ll have a moment of sustained eye contact, a nod, and then a quick glance in the opposite direction. If something happened between us, he would be just another thing that ends after high school. Our schools are more than four hours away from each other. (I looked it up earlier.)
I want to tell Kirby and Mara, but I don’t know if I can put what happened into words yet. And despite everything else, I’m glad I got onstage and read my writing. Another thing Neil McNair is inexorably tied to.