THE NEXT MORNING, SUNLIGHT SPLASHES across the Albany Military Academy brochure on my bed. Uniformed students stare up at me with big smiles on their faces. I swallow back tears. Who could be happy wearing the same thing as everybody else?
My parents are dropping me off tomorrow. My eyes are bleary as I pack my suitcase because I cried and begged for hours last night while Ella comfort-ate caramels. It just doesn’t seem real. My parents aren’t perfect, but as far as parents go, I usually feel like I won the lottery. (Though I don’t plan on telling them that until I’m at least thirty-five and caring for my first child, who I already know will be a blonde little girl named Gwyneth.)
I thought my parents would protest when I asked to go away to New York City for fashion school; I thought they wouldn’t want me gone. I never thought they’d send me away.
I unzip the waterproof section of my suitcase and slip in nail polish remover and my favorite antiaging eye cream (not-so-secret ingredient: caviar). My phone is going nuts with texts. Everyone already knows I’m being sent away to military school tomorrow, partly because I blogged about it, but also because my high school is a grapevine, especially when it comes to scandal or bad news. And I’m pretty sure this is both.
One of Lia Powers’s awful friends wrote on my Instagram announcement: Good luck with that, Frankie! So I posted a photo of myself wearing a black silk jumpsuit with military-inspired aviator sunglasses, and captioned it: Proud to be an American. Because even mean girls don’t have comebacks for patriotism. It’s like this big, mighty thing we all feel even if we can’t totally describe it right, like peace and faith.
My suitcase is overflowing with fashion. Dance clothes are very in right now—just ask Alexander Wang—so I’m working on a few outfits that incorporate leotards. I’ve already stuffed four cashmere scarves into my suitcase and a cutout dress for my evening option. I’d really like to bring my delicate rose-gold peace sign necklace because it’s so wartime chic. But will anyone at Albany Military Academy appreciate that I’m a pacifist?
Unlikely.
Plus, my brochure says uniforms are mandatory during physical training, meals, and classes—basically all day every day except weekends—which brings up another big problem: physical training? That just doesn’t sound like something I do. How am I supposed to leave home, where I’m already messing up, and head somewhere even tougher?
I zip my suitcase and make my way downstairs. It’s eerily balmy outside for January. Probably global warming. My boots scuff the gravel as I head toward the pond. The ducks glare at me and swim in the other direction.
I sit on a soft patch of grass. My best friends, Andrea and Julia, scheduled our special good-bye for this morning, and I wait to see Andrea’s car for what feels like forever. (Andrea and Julia turned sixteen in the fall, but Julia refuses to practice driving now that it’s officially winter, because even when it isn’t snowing, it could always start. Andrea, on the other hand, drives everywhere with her older sister, Dani, in the car to supervise, because Dani goes to community college locally and her parents make her. Dani is extremely mean and also, she hates us.) When they finally pull into our long, winding driveway, Andrea and Julia stare at me through the windshield with concerned-therapist looks on their faces. Dani glares from the back seat. Andrea gets out of the car first, and Julia follows, clutching her phone. Dani yells, “Ten minutes max!” before Andrea slams the car door.
“Are your parents here?” Julia asks, gesturing toward the house. Her black leggings are tucked into Uggs, and her hunter-green vest is zipped over a cream-colored henley. She always looks pristine even when she’s dressed down.
“They went to church. They let me stay home so I could have some space,” I say in the placating tone my mom and dad used when they rushed off with a still-devastated Ella.
Andrea sits next to me on a flat rock near the pond. Julia is afraid of lots of things, including ducks and moss, so she just stands there looking at us.
“They’re serious this time, Frankie,” Andrea says. She doesn’t say it like a question; she says it like she knows it’s the truth. Andrea, Julia, and I have been best friends since second grade. They know my parents almost as well as I do.
“They really are,” I say. My parents have threatened me many times this past year, taking away things I love, like Nylon magazine, and adding things I don’t love, like father-daughter Pilates. They also tried to make me rejoin the school band and play my horrible clarinet because they thought I needed more extracurriculars, which I flat-out refused to do. It’s one thing to be a first-chair violinist and wear long flowing skirts and rock your solos, but it’s another thing to play clarinet in the third row and suck. It’s just not inspired.
“They think I’m ruining my life,” I say, brushing my fingers across the brownish-green grass. (Obviously my parents don’t believe in fertilizer.) “They told me I won’t get into college based only on the merits of my blog.”
I can’t bring myself to tell Julia and Andrea the other reasons my parents are sending me to Albany Military Academy, and I can’t admit I kissed Josh. They know about my feelings for him, of course, but Andrea would think kissing a guy with a girlfriend was terrible, because she was just the girlfriend in that scenario last year. Julia would think cheating on the test was even worse. They’re my best friends in the world, but I don’t want to disappoint them.
“You know your blog is killer, right?” Julia says.
“Yesterday’s post on how to wear red with pink was sensational,” Andrea says, dark eyes blinking.
“Lean into it with bold shades, darling! Only wallflowers tiptoe,” Julia quotes from my post. She’s a stone-cold genius with a photographic memory. She’s planning on becoming a neuroscientist and studying the way the brain processes fear on an electrical level.
We’re all quiet for a minute, and then Julia says, “Military school.”
I know how bad it sounds.
“Can we visit you?” Andrea asks.
“It’s only two hours north,” Julia says.
I shake my head. “Their site says only approved family members can get on campus, and only one weekend day per month. Plus I’m in classes till, like, five o’clock every day, and the classes have names like Military Strategy and Corps Leadership, which obviously I don’t belong in, because . . .”
My voice trails off. I feel itchy all over. This is not good. I have what is potentially a huge problem with authority and rules, and the last thing I need is to be stuffed inside a military uniform, forced to do things against my will.
“I’ll have internet at least,” I say, trying to coax away the lump in my throat, “and phones are allowed, just not video games. It’s not like reform school or anything.” I’m trying to sound positive. “Just military academy.”
Andrea looks dubious.
“Maybe there will be cute boys there,” Julia says. She tries very hard to remain undistracted from school and grades, but she secretly loves cute boys more than anyone I know, even me. Andrea has had seven and a half boyfriends (one guy transferred schools without telling her, so we only barely count him), but Julia and I have both had only one boyfriend each, which means we spend more time fantasizing about the idea of boys than actually living the romantic high life.
“I guess I still can’t believe it,” I say, and I’m about to cry a little when I hear a scuffle on our driveway and glance up to see a blur of bike and boy. My breath catches.
No way. It can’t be him. It just cannot.
“What the—” Andrea says.
It’s totally freaking him. Josh Archester bikes closer and stops short, about twenty-five yards away from us. He gets off his bike, puts his helmet on the handlebars, and takes his beat-up Mets baseball cap out of his jacket pocket and puts it on.
My pulse goes nuts. What is he doing here?
Julia says, “Frankie?” and Andrea takes a big gulp of air.
Josh is staring at me, but it’s like his feet are rooted to the driveway. Is he going to walk over to us? Are we supposed to go to him?
He’s standing a little bowlegged like a cowboy, and he’s not far from the woodpile behind the barn, where everything happened at the party. Does he see it? Does it remind him of what we did? Does it make him feel like this?
It can’t. Because there’s no way he’d be able to stay so cool.
When Josh starts walking toward us, I turn to catch Julia and Andrea staring, wide-eyed. The three of us aren’t huge losers or anything, but we’re not exactly super popular, either. On a scale of denim overalls to black-tie evening gowns, we’re knee-length cocktail dresses. Sometimes, we do enviable, almost-popular things, like win tennis matches (Andrea), or get perfect scores on our PSATs (Julia), or throw super-glamorous parties on New Year’s (me). But mostly we do quirky, semiawkward things, which I’m totally fine with because everyone knows it’s those kinds of people who eventually lead inspired grown-up lives. I’m just saying that it’s highly unusual for a demigod like Josh to be standing on one of our driveways in stark daylight.
A stab of vulnerability hits my stomach as I watch him come closer. Someone needs to say something, but no one does. Julia looks at me and mouths, What is he doing here?! Andrea makes a funny gurgling noise, but then she pulls it together when he arrives at our little spot near the pond. “Hi, Josh,” she says, almost confidently. Competitive tennis has done wonders for her composure. She climbs to her feet and stands next to Julia, and then I stand, too.
Josh’s dark hair flicks out in little wings beneath his hat, and his green eyes are bright. His nose is big, but in a manly way. And he has this great scar on his jawline, which Andrea told me she heard was because he had a mole removed, but which I also heard was from a shark bite he got surfing off the coast of Mexico. I choose to believe the shark attack rumor because of course it’s so much sexier than a dermatological procedure.
I try not to stare at him. What’s he going to say? What am I going to say?
Am I imagining all this?
“I have practice,” Andrea says suddenly, and of course I know she’s trying to give me space with Josh, and normally I would want to be alone with him, but now I’m just so nervous!
“Tennis?” Josh says, which is like the stupidest comment anyone has ever made, because everyone existing within a thirty-mile radius of Andrea Summerville knows that she’s the best tennis player in Westchester County.
“Yeah, tennis,” Andrea says, and Julia rolls her eyes because she has no time for stupidity, even from a demigod.
Don’t leave me! I beg them with my eyes.
“How about we pick you up that coffee you wanted and then we’ll be back here in like a half hour? ’Kay?” Andrea asks. “It’ll be better if we’re caffeinated when we do our good-bye, anyway. We might cry less.”
“Um, okay, almond milk, please,” I say, not daring to look at Josh. Julia and Andrea pile into Andrea’s car. They stare at me through the windshield and wave excitedly as they drive off, like something super special might be happening. Dani is still glaring at me like it’s my fault her parents prefer Andrea.
When they’re past the gate at the end of my driveway I turn to Josh. And all I can think is:
Now what?!
Josh Archester has come to my house on the day before I leave for military academy. Does he want to say good-bye? Did he break up with Lia?
I exhale. It comes out like a big puff, way louder than I meant it to. Josh says, “Hi, Frances.”
Almost no one calls me Frances, except for my grandma Lillian, who wears satin robes and dark red lipstick to bed.
“Hello, Joshua,” I say back, making my voice formal, and he smiles a little. I love his smile. It strikes me that I don’t really see it that often at school, maybe because he’s usually the one getting everyone else to laugh. I wonder if he’s secretly sad. Or maybe I’m just being dramatic. I don’t know him like I want to.
Josh comes closer and I breathe in cologne that smells like the mall. My eyes go to his mouth, and all I can think about is our kiss, and how much I want him to kiss me again.
“I came here to talk to you,” he says, his voice gentle, “before you leave, I guess. I saw your posts and stuff.” I can feel my pulse in my ears as he speaks. He leans so close I swear he’s about to kiss me. I swear it’s what I see on his face—that he wants to. But then his dark brows furrow and he looks sad again. “I shouldn’t have done what I did at the party,” he says.
My stomach tightens. No. Please don’t be saying this to me.
He keeps going. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. It was me, not you, and I shouldn’t have done it.”
Didn’t you feel me kiss you back?
He’s still so close to me. Why is he standing this close, saying these terrible things? I want to tell him to go, but I can’t open my mouth, and then it gets worse, because he gestures in the direction that Julia and Andrea drove. “Do they know?” he asks.
Why can’t I speak?
Josh’s face is flushed. Probably because he’s wearing a black North Face jacket that’s as thick as a sleeping bag and it’s fifty degrees outside. Or maybe because this is the most horrible, awkward moment anyone has ever lived.
“They don’t know,” I finally say. My throat has gone dry, and the words hardly make it out. I want him to both stay and leave so badly I can barely keep myself from saying it.
“Good,” he says, and I flush with embarrassment. It feels so terrible to hear him say it like that, like I’m some dope he doesn’t want anyone to know he kissed.
Please, Josh.
He smiles at me, the kind of smile you have to force yourself to make. “I don’t think we should tell anyone,” he says. The look on his face tells me he hates himself for saying it, but that’s not enough to make it better—not even close. This probably sounds so stupid, but I honestly thought he liked me a little—I even thought he might break up with Lia for me. And I know that’s terrible—I know I’m not supposed to want to break up couples! But it felt so good that night we kissed, when I thought the guy that I’d liked for so long liked me back.
“But you said you think about me,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. “And you kissed me, and now I can’t forget it.”
My heart thuds. This is too dangerous. I can hardly breathe as he looks at me. He moves closer. Is there any way—is he going to kiss me again?
“I messed up,” he says, and it makes me feel so small, like I could melt into the cracks in our driveway.
“We messed up,” I say. I need him to remember that I was there, that I was a part of this. I want to remind him that I was the girl he was kissing, and that it’s not all about him.
“I’m with Lia,” he says, and he steps back an inch that may as well be a mile.
“I know that!” I blurt, my cheeks hot. “So you’re not going to break up or anything at all? You’re not even going to tell her?”
“Um, no, I wasn’t planning on it,” he says.
What a jerk! And maybe I am, too, for doing this to Lia. And why is Josh just standing there, like this can be solved so neatly if I comply? “So let me get this straight,” I say, my voice shaking a little. “My whole life falls apart, but you just cheat on your girlfriend and keep it a secret like no problem?”
Josh’s eyes widen, like he’s surprised I’m not just taking it and shutting up. He must not know me very well. My mother says I’m very mouthy.
“I want to be with Lia,” Josh says. It’s like a dagger, and I’m going to cry and I really don’t want him to see it. “Please just go,” I say, staring down at my shaking hands. “Please. Leave.” And I really mean it, I do, and I know he knows, because he doesn’t even wait a beat to make sure I’m okay. He turns and walks away, and I’m left standing there, wanting to kick myself for getting my hopes so high thinking he actually liked me when he obviously doesn’t, and thinking maybe I knew him—and I totally don’t.
Tears start, and I try to fight them with everything I have. I watch as he rides away, wishing that anything—everything—were different.