“It’s not like we don’t have an entire summer ahead of us. It’s not over, over. And salutatorian in a class of five hundred is an incredible accomplishment.”
I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not about valedictorian or the fact that as salutatorian, I’ll have to introduce McNair as part of my speech. It’s about everything valedictorian represents, a whole mess of things I’m not sure I’m ready to say out loud. Even in my head, they don’t quite feel real. What McNair said, about showing up at school on Monday… That burrowed somewhere deep inside me. There are no more high school Mondays. No more spirit days or student council meetings. No 5:55 alarms or even earlier McNightmare wake-up calls. And it’s not that I’ll miss the wake-up calls specifically—they were just wrapped up in my whole high school experience.
The bottom line is this: every time I pictured today, I felt a whole lot better than I do right now.
Kirby crashes back into the table with samosas and a welcome change of subject. “I can’t believe we’re finally going to be playing Howl.”
“Oh, I’ve been ready for years,” Mara says with a sly smile. She snaps a photo of Kirby’s artfully arranged plate of food.
“Are we going to see Competitive Mara?” Kirby asks, and Mara rolls her eyes. “She terrifies me, but I love her.”
While I’m competitive about academics, Mara is cutthroat when it comes to sports and games. Because she’s sweet and small, it’s totally unexpected. Last year, we played a round of Ticket to Ride that lasted three hours and left Kirby on the verge of tears.
“I just want to see McNair lose. Preferably before I do,” I say, surprised by how much this perks me up. I take a sip of mango lassi. It tastes sweeter than it did a few minutes ago.
An idea begins to take shape. There’s still Howl, which means there’s still a way to beat McNair. It’s one more battle between the two of us—and the rest of the school, but if the past four years have been any indication, they’ve never stood a chance.
“I really am going to miss hating him next year,” I say as my mental gears kick into overdrive. I defeat McNair, and I’ll have accomplished something on that success guide, arguably the biggest, grandest something. A perfect ten.
Kirby and Mara exchange a glance. “Don’t you guys text each other ‘good morning’ every day?” Mara asks, tentative.
“We tell each other to have a shitty day,” I explain, because I imagine it’s easy even for my closest friends to misinterpret the relationship I have (had?) with my rival. “It’s different.”
“You’re going to miss him telling you to have a shitty day?” Kirby asks, and shakes her head. “Straights, I swear.” She tucks a wisp of hair back into her crown braid. “If we’re all dead by tonight, we should have a sleepover. It’s been forever.”
“Definitely,” Mara agrees. We used to have a sleepover every last day of school. In fact, there used to be a time we slept over at someone’s house once a month before surrendering to the stress of senior year.
“I—um…” I stumble, because tonight is Delilah’s signing.
I can go to the signing and still best McNair, but if Howl hasn’t ended by then, I’ll have to sneak away from it. While I’m not worried I’ll see any of my competitors there, I don’t know if I can explain the signing to Kirby and Mara. I can’t tell them how badly I want to see Delilah’s signature rubber stamp, the one made from a mold of her lips that she presses into crimson ink so it looks like she’s kissed every book.
The fantasy: my friends love Delilah Park’s books as much as I do.
The reality: my friends think my favorite books are trash.
Once at the mall, we passed a bookstore display of romance novels, and Mara scoffed at it. The way she tore them down with a single sound made me ashamed I’d read every book on that display. Another time, Kirby noticed the romance novels on my bookshelf. “They’re my mom’s,” I lied. Kirby proceeded to pull them out one by one, laughing at the titles. My face flamed, and I didn’t know how to ask her to stop.
Once upon a Guy: that one distracted me in the hospital waiting room freshman year when my dad needed an emergency appendectomy.
Lucky in Lust: that one made me realize women could make the