I FEEL A LITTLE BRAVER after my talk with Jack and Joni and this week of PT. (I bounced up to cadet #159 after my Military Strategy teacher made a surprise appearance in PT, and I was one of only thirteen cadets who solved the puzzle he gave us! Even Jack and Joni didn’t get it, and they were so impressed with me!) I feel brave enough that I decide to finally tell Andrea and Julia the truth about everything that happened before I got here, and when their sweet faces pop up on FaceTime, I just blurt it right out. “Guys, I have to tell you something. Josh Archester kissed me on New Year’s,” I say. “And I kissed him back.”
Andrea almost chokes on her Luna Bar, but Julia barely looks surprised.
“I always told you I thought he liked you!” she says.
I try to smile. Five weeks ago that would have made my year. But too much has happened here. I feel out of sorts being away from my friends and my family, but I also feel like something new is starting here, even if the road has been bumpy. And Josh feels far away from this place. And also from our last conversation, he might have been a jerk, and I guess so was I for kissing him.
“It was a mistake,” I say. “And it’s not the only one I made.” I lower my voice. “I also cheated on my chem test.”
Julia makes a face like are you freaking kidding me that’s terrible! But now it’s Andrea’s turn not to look surprised. “I did that once, too,” she says.
Julia whips her head around to stare at Andrea. “You guys!” she says.
“I’m not going to do it again, ever,” I say.
“Me neither,” Andrea says.
“Okay, good,” Julia says. “Frankie, about Josh. I mean, none of us even knew him that well . . . including you. Maybe you should take it slow with this new guy at school. Jack,” she says, dramatically saying his name like a soap opera actress.
I nod. I know she’s right. There were so many things I made up in my head about Josh, and then it crushed me when he wasn’t who I thought he was.
When Andrea, Julia, and I finally get off FaceTime, I close my laptop and whip out my phone. Want to meet up? I text Jack. Coffee? Dinner at mess hall?
What I’m really thinking is: Want to get to know each other and keep being friends first?
But of course I don’t text that.
I’m nervous waiting for his reply, so I busy myself arranging a few pictures on my desk—the one of Ella picking out watermelons at a farmers’ market; my parents and me at a music festival in Rhinebeck; and then the one of Julia, Andrea, and me getting ready for homecoming. It’s my favorite picture of us; we didn’t realize that Ella was taking pictures, and we were all just sitting around in our pajamas eating pizza. Our fancy dresses were hung behind us on my closet doors. Julia had just made a joke about this guy she liked who used to have lice in kindergarten, and how she couldn’t get that out of her head every time they kissed, and Andrea and I were laughing while Julia looked at us with this hopeless expression on her face. I think about my sister taking that picture, how she always wanted to be a part of our friend group, and how lucky I was that Andrea and Julia always treated her like gold.
Today when my sister and I talked, it was the first time one of us didn’t cry saying how much we missed each other. I can’t believe this is how it’s going to be when I go to college. It’s hard to live with someone your whole life and then just stop.
My phone buzzes. Come on a run with me around the lakes.
Oh my God. Is he serious?
Are you trying to kill me? I write back.
You need to start training outside of just PT, he writes.
“Just” PT? I write. PT freaking kills me!
Just come, he writes. I’ll go easy on you.
No more than one mile, I write. Promise?
Deal. I’ll pick you up outside your dorm in ten.
I grab my Academy parka from my bed. I kind of can’t believe I’m agreeing to this. I look in the mirror and frown when I see my hair: my normally sleek lob is spiking everywhere from the forty-mile-an-hour winds in archery today. What is it about the Academy—it’s always so freaking windy here! Though the gusts today totally worked in my favor: I hit the bull’s-eye for the first time—twice! (I also almost hit Sgt. O’Neil . . . but still!) Joni says there’s a good chance the bull’s-eyes will up my War Games ranking, which is a serious miracle. Or maybe it’s actually from hard work?
I dig through my purse for my keys and decide to forget about my hair, because my goal is to transcend any sort of teenage obsession with beauty and focus on exuding inner beauty, which everyone knows is the ultimate fashion statement.
#Duh.
My stomach is burning as I lock my door, which is either because I’m nervous about meeting Jack or because Sturtevant made us do eight hundred crunches in PT. Sometimes I think she’s purposely trying to injure us, and the early morning wake-up calls are already nearly the death of me. The physical rigors of this place are so much worse than I imagined, which is saying a lot given how dramatic my imagination is. Even the mopping I’ve had to keep doing each night on dining hall duty seems to be toning up my triceps.
While I’m waiting for the elevator I call my parents back—my mom has called twice today. My dad picks up on the first ring. “Hi, sweetheart,” he says. “How’s it going there?” I can hear the concern in his voice. I called home crying so many times the first few weeks that I think he just expects it now. But come to think of it: I haven’t cried in several days!
“It’s good, actually,” I say. “I think I might be starting to like it.” I think back to that afternoon with Jack and Joni on the obstacle course, and our talk about their plans to be in the military, and how I still can’t imagine what it would be like. “Grandpa Frank,” I blurt.
“What about him?” my dad asks.
“He was in a war,” I say.
“Yes, he was,” my dad says, like he’s not sure what I’m getting at.
“What did he say about it?” I ask.
“He . . . ,” my dad starts. “He didn’t like to talk about it, Frankie.”
He sounds uncomfortable, but I can’t help but push.
“And you didn’t ask him about that entire part of his life?” I ask.
There’s silence on the other end. And then my dad says, “I didn’t,” and somehow it doesn’t surprise me. He wasn’t close with his dad. Sometimes I think it’s one of the reason he smothers Ella and me.
“Dad, I think you should have asked,” I say softly.
My dad’s quiet, and I feel guilty for calling him out about something so sensitive, so I switch gears to how my GPA is hovering just above 3.5. My dad tells me he’s so proud, and then he says how my grandfather would have been so proud to see me doing well at his school. It fills me right up.
My mom gets on the phone next, and says, “Sweetie, I was just going through my sweaters, and there’s a few I’d like you to have for this winter, so Dad and I were thinking we could come pick you up this weekend and bring you home, and—”
Bring me home to get sweaters? Now she’s really reaching.
“Mom, no. I’m sorry,” I say. “I need to study all weekend and put together a presentation for my leadership project, and—”
“Study? A leadership project? That sounds wonderful!” my mom says, sounding nearly as excited as she was when I went vegan for a few months in eighth grade. But what’s she going to say if Sturtevant doesn’t approve my project and I get expelled?
Shudder.
I check my watch. Jack’s meeting me downstairs in a minute. I take the stairs so I won’t lose service, and my mom and I talk about my dad’s new SoulCycle class, and how Ella has taken something of mine to school every day in case she misses me, and how my mom had to tell her she couldn’t bring one of my sports bras because that was inappropriate, which makes me laugh.
Then my mom asks me about my blog, which she doesn’t usually do. I tell her it’s going okay, and that I have an idea for a new post about fashion trends to try based on your astrological sign, and she says she’ll be sure to look for it, and then I say, “I wish you would always read my blog.”
My mom’s quiet on her end of the line. “I do always read your blog, Frankie,” she says. “Every entry; so does Dad. We have since you started it.”
“You have?” I ask, my voice echoey in the stairwell. They never talk to me about it, so I always assumed they didn’t read it.
“I just, I don’t know much about that stuff,” she says. She laughs, almost nervously. “I live in my yoga pants, and I was a hippie before that. Fashion isn’t exactly something I know.”
“I don’t need you to be an expert in it,” I say, sitting down on a step.
My mom’s quiet for a beat. Then she says, “I can tell what a good writer you are when I read your blog posts.”
My chest squeezes. We talk a little more, and when I say “I love you,” she says it right back. I can hear how choked up she is when we say good-bye.
I descend the rest of the stairwell and work my way through the lobby, past the poster advertising the senior class dance. Jack hasn’t said anything about it. I’m going to need to act cool if he tells me he’s taking someone else.
Outside, crisp evening air fills my lungs. I sit down on the grass and wait for Jack. I pick up a stick, and then I do the thing Ella and I always used to do when we were little: I trace little rivers across the dirt, curving them together in figure-eight patterns, the muscle memory from my childhood so strong it feels like I’ve always done this. It’s funny how we slip so quickly from playing in dirt to avoiding it. When does that happen? Can we ever go back?
My chest feels tight when I think about Ella and all those years of playing together. I worry about her, about her nervousness, and how sensitive she is. Is she really going to be okay this entire semester without me? Did my parents even think about her when they did this?
Did I think about her when I threw that party, when I did all that stuff that got me here?
“Frankie.”
I look up to see Jack. His broad shoulders are hunched and he looks sheepish. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say carefully. I’m wary to tell him about how homesick I suddenly am. “I’m just thinking about my little sister,” I say. “I miss her.”
“Do you still want to go back home?” he asks, his voice careful.
I let go of a breath. “Sometimes,” I say, because it’s still the truth, no matter how much better it’s been going here.
Jack nods. “I understand,” he says, but his face goes cloudy, and I have the feeling he doesn’t. Or at least, he can’t help but take it personally.
“Let’s run,” I say, words I never thought I’d utter.
Jack takes off and I laugh as I try to catch him. Maybe I’m imagining it, but the running feels a lot easier than it did that first day at PT so many weeks ago.
Dusk falls around us, the sky slowly and surely melting into a lavender blanket. We take a path that brings us to two ponds, maybe about a half a mile all the way around each one. We’re so incredibly quiet—there’s only our breath and our footfalls. I don’t think I’ve ever been alone with a guy and not tried to fill the silence with nervous chatter. We go all the way around one of the ponds before I interrupt the quiet.
“Break?” I say, pointing to a fallen log near the edge of the pond. “I’m sorry. I’ll keep working on it; I just need a quick breather.”
We sit. “Does that mean you’ll keep running nights with me?” Jack asks. “And then after our run we can grab sandwiches? It’s my routine,” he says quickly, before I can answer. “I want you to do it with me.”
“Okay,” I say, breathless. “I’d like that.”
His face breaks into a grin. “We’ll add a mile each week until we get up to five. We’ll stay at five for a solid three weeks and then jump to seven.”
“Are you going to make a runner out of me?” I ask, trying to make my inhales slow and even, doing the breathing pattern Joni taught me.
“I think I am,” he says, and we grin at each other.
The sky darkens until we can see stars and a crescent moon.
“Gorgeous night,” Jack says.
I love how he talks like a writer. Most guys don’t use the word gorgeous. My heart picks up as I take him in: the way his olive cheekbones go a little pink when he’s cold, his deep dark eyes that look like they hold secrets and other important things. Every time I hang out with him I feel more drawn to him—and not just to some idea of him—the real him.
I remember so clearly the first night we snuck out together, when Jack lent me his night-vision goggles and told me about his bionic eyesight. I look up at him, wanting to know so much more about him, and then about what I need him to know about me.
“I’m trying to be more honest,” I start, “and I want to tell you something.”
Jack’s quiet, waiting for me to go on, and I can feel all the things I want to get off my chest, but it makes me nervous, too.
I almost just want to jump up and start running so I don’t have to say anything, but instead I stay still and go for it. It’s what being brave means, at least to me in this moment. “You know the other day you said you made some mistakes with what happened with Amanda?” I ask. “I just want you to know that I made a lot of mistakes at my old school, too.” I swallow and brush blades of dead grass off my coat. “I kissed this guy who had a girlfriend.” I meet Jack’s eyes. “And I applied to this school called American Fashion Academy, secretly, and all I wanted was to go there. But my parents found out about a party I threw, and about a few other things, and I ended up here.”
“You didn’t want to come here at all, did you?” Jack asks. He’s staring at me like he’s trying to figure everything out. But there are so many mixed feelings I have about the Academy, and just because I put up a screaming fight not to come here doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the parts of being here that feel right.
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t want to come here.”
“Are you glad you’re here now?” Jack asks.
I swallow. The answer is yes, but it surprises me so much I have a hard time saying it.
Jack’s eyes darken and a look passes over his face I can’t read.
“I have a lot of issues with trust,” Jack says, and I can’t figure out if he’s just changing the topic, or if he means he can’t trust me now that I’ve said what I have. “We moved around so much when I was younger I never found a group of people I could rely on, and now, with my parents separating . . . I just have a hard time having something and believing it’s not going to be taken away.”
It’s comes out so plain and true that even though I didn’t have to go through what he did, I understand exactly what he means.
“I guess, with you,” he says, “I haven’t been able to figure out if you care about this place or if you’re just suffering through it until you can get out of here.”
“Care about this place?” I ask. “Or care about you?”
Jack blushes. “Both, I guess,” he says.
“Well, both,” I say. “I care about the Academy, and I definitely care about you.”
There’s a long beat between us, and my heart starts going so fast I can feel it in my ears. I try to breathe, and then I say it: “And I cheated on a test!”
Jack’s eyebrows shoot up.
“I cheated,” I say again. “I’m a cheater.” It feels so good to say the words out loud, to get them off my chest. “Or, I was a cheater. And that’s why I’m here.”
Jack nods. He doesn’t look too horrified or embarrassed for me. But I wonder if everything I’m saying is making him doubt me.
“You’re not a cheater,” he says. “You just cheated once. If you put your mind to it, you won’t do it again. My old writing teacher used to say that your gut knows everything, and if you check in with it you’ll know right away if something is a bad idea or a good idea.”
But then, what about . . .
“What about that night we snuck out?” I ask. “That was wrong, wasn’t it?”
Jack’s cheeks go even brighter. “It didn’t feel wrong to me,” he says softly.
“Me neither,” I say. Maybe it was against the rules, and I’m not saying I’m going to do it again, because I’m not. But it didn’t feel wrong.
Sparrows chirp from the branches above us, and I suddenly feel like maybe everything is going to be okay. I need to talk to Joni—it feels only fair to tell her first how much I like Jack, to make sure she knows I’m not going to get in the way of their friendship.
Jack comes closer until we’re inches apart. I want so badly to sink into his arms. His lips are right there—if I just leaned forward a breath I could kiss them.
“Jack,” I whisper.
He doesn’t say anything. He just holds my eyes with his.
“I have to talk to Joni,” I say, and I have this wild feeling that he knows exactly what I mean even before I say, “I just want to know that this is okay with her.” He doesn’t move. He’s still looking at me like he wants something from me, and I’m terrified and excited because I’m pretty sure I know what he wants. But if does like me, if this is real, I can’t do anything until I’m positive Joni’s okay with us being more than friends, and that she knows I’m not going to take her best friend away from her. I promised I would put her first, even if that means not getting exactly what I want, and the only way for me to do that is to do the right thing and ask her myself—tonight.
I stand with shaking legs. “Can we keep running?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady, suddenly needing to run so I can burn off this nervous energy.
“We can,” Jack says, straightening to his towering full height. “And Frankie?” he says, dark eyes bright. “The next move is yours.”